Rudy Rucker

Twitter is a strange little beastie — follow me @KramerW — because that reignited a fiery interest in an author I read, way back in the day. Must’ve been the early to mid-1980s. Back when there were local bookstores, and when some local bookstores specialized in just Science Fiction and Fantasy.

While it’s long been remembered that I jumped onboard with the likes of William Gibson, et al, one of the early authors I was reading at the time was Rudy Rucker. I could easily recall the two books that mattered, titles were Software and its sequel, Wetware, but I couldn’t recall anything about the content. Cyberpunk, and since I was tangental to the real punk material, the computer form thrilled me, especially as books. Bought them as paperback, toted them around in my library from various locations with my moves, for a number of years.

Looking, even now, I have — maybe — a half dozen of that author’s books. Can’t say I was as moved as I was the first time, but each novel of his, in its own right, was considered critical successes. Until I poked around on that Twitter thing, though, I didn’t realize he was an accomplished theoretical mathematician. That stuff is spooky.

The math, that’s the scary stuff.

The twitter link said all four of his Wares tetralogy was available as a free download, e-book form. More about that is here — dig down to find the free download. (RudyRucker.com -> Books -> Wares) I just recalled the first two, and I think I saw the third, in bookstore, but I was not so moved as to buy. Or it might’ve been an Amazon recommendation, can’t say for sure. I vaguely recall thumbing through a hardback, reading the liner notes.

That it was formative material in my early education? Sure.

There was one other novel, and my own library has sprawled out of control again, so I can’t place my hands on my copy, but I recall one maybe mid-nineties? Possibly later? Something to do with theoretical math. Maybe.

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