Customer Reviews

Frek and the Elixir

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I think it was David Hartwell who said that "The Golden Age of science fiction is twelve." Twelve is the age when you first read that book (Asimov's "Foundation"? Clarke's "Childhood's End?" Frank Herbert's "Dune?") that blows open your mind, and makes you look at a brand new world (this one.)
Rudy Rucker's new novel is the third attempt in the last couple of years by a major science fiction author to recapture the primal excitement of that moment by embracing and radically re-inventing familiar ideas and sub-genres. John Clute's "Appleseed" is a dense, trippy, phantasmagoric riff on the 1920's and 30's space adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs and E. E. Doc Smith; Gene Wolfe's "The Knight" is a crystalline post-modern distillation of Mervyn Peake and J. R. R. Tolkien. Now, in early 2004, comes Frek with his elixir--a brash, sardonic, endlessly inventive take on the 1950's counter-culture socio-political adventure-romps like Alfred Bester's "The Stars My Destination" and Pohl's and Kornbluth's "The Space Merchants."
In 2666 multinational corporation Nu-Bio-Com releases a virus that kills off the reproductive capacity of every single organism on earth, except those that it had bio-engineered. In other words, it now holds the copyright on the entire biome.
In 3003, Frek, a twelve-year old kid (coincidence?--I think not) goes on a galaxy, no, universe-spanning, adventure to fix their mistake.
His adventure has everything you could possibly want from a book like this and then some. Plus, like every great science fiction novel, "Frek and the Elixir" is really about the present--about the power of corporations, about media and entertainment, about bioengineering, about quantum mechanics, about your wife or girlfriend, your next-door neighbor, and your boss, and about you, at age twelve, and now (do you really think you have changed?)

This has got to be one of the most inventive and imaginative novels in recent memory. Rudy Rucker has created an astonishingly creative story by mixing well-drawn comedy and drama with the latest knowledge in biotech, computing, and quantum physics. Not to mention a visual richness that will turn on the inner freakiness of even the most stoic reader. Here we have the adventures of 12 year-old Frek, who lives in the 31st century in a world of forced conformity, and where a megalomaniac biotech corporation has eliminated most of the Earth's life forms, patented the genomes of the few remaining utilitarian species (including humans), and prohibited reproduction except by contract. Meanwhile, several different species of aliens are trying to turn the human race into a giant reality show, via interactive technologies controlled by weird multi-dimensional demigods. In short, Frek is the chosen human negotiator, and decides to bargain for the return of Earth's lost species in a deadly high-stakes production deal, becoming a hero in the process.

Thanks to Rucker's knowledge of advanced science and the wildest future possibilities of technology, this novel benefits from a setting and characters quite unlike most sci-fi. The story is overflowing with crazy but strangely possible biotech and interactive technologies, while Rucker has also turned up the creativity meter with loads of inventively bizarre and truly "alien" aliens (I especially liked the wisecracking Orpolese and the droll Unipuskers). Rucker has also envisioned a completely mindboggling method of space travel called yunching, which is based on actual currently-known concepts from superstring theory. In a few places, Rucker lets the plotline slip while breathlessly inventing pile upon pile of future phenomena, but this is a novel that is as relentlessly fascinating as it is fun and empathetic. There are even good themes of friendship and family lurking beneath the wild and wooly sci-fi wonderments. This novel is highly recommended for any reader looking for something both really new and really different. [~doomsdayer520~]

His father Carb a notorious malcontent was forced to leave planet earth a few years ago before the Gov and his goons made an example of him. He left behind his wife and son Frek to live in a bio-tweaked house tree in the correct village of Middleville where technology insures everything is done according to ecological righteousness. Though still a preteen, Frek got the message of what happens to those who challenge the authority of Gov.

By 3003, twelve year old Frek remains cautious until a miniscule alien vessel lands underneath his bed. The Anvil space ship insists that Frek was their destination as he must save the world with an elixir to repair the biome. Gov declares the son a chip off the old block of the father, an enemy combatant. Meanwhile Anvil has marketing plans for Frek and other humans. Frek accompanied by his canine Wow is on the run from the law while on a quest across the universe when all he wants is to become a teenager.

FREK AND THE ELIXIR is a deep, intelligent, often amusing but always impertinent satire ridiculing many of today's "truths" by extrapolating these so called universals accompanied by technological advances a millennium into the future. The story line uses action but ironically provides an outrageous look at a disturbingly closed-fortressed culture in which differences are outlawed as all must support the Gov. Besides Frek being a terrific hero as he grows up rather quickly (aliens and the government will do that), the cast adds depth and the technology is sardonically as off the wall as this wild futuristic tale makes 1984 look freedom loving.

Harriet Klausner

Here is a rather delightful novel from Rudy Rucker. Frek and the Elixir is set more or less at the next millennium -- to be exact, in 3003. Hundreds of years before, NuBioCom destroyed the remaining natural species on Earth, and replaced them with a very few genetically engineered variants. They even destroyed the records of the genetic code of the natural species. Now, in 3003, Houses are grown from trees, the only pets are dogs, much of the food comes from anyfruit trees, and in many other ways it is clear that species diversity is rare. Frek Huggins is a 12-year-old boy living with his mother and his two sisters. He resents the fact that his father, Carb, left for the asteroids several years before. His life is nominally fairly pleasant but he doesn't quite fit in.

Then a flying saucer shows up, looking, it appears, for Frek. Frek is suddenly the object of the not-entirely-friendly attentions of the "counselors" of Gov, the worm-like alien that controls his city. He finds a saucer under his bed, and inside it is an alien cuttlefish, who assures him he will save the world and find the elixir that will restore the natural species to Earth. But Gov's representatives are not happy, and soon Frek is fleeing, at first into the dangerous Grulloo woods, home to many unusual kritters such as the Grulloo, intelligent people consisting of only a head, a tail, and two arms. Frek and a Grulloo make their way to Stun City to free the captured saucer and kill Gov -- but that doesn't work quite as expected. Soon they are off on a trip around the Galaxy, and indeed to different "branes". The situation is a lot more complicated than expected. Frek is to act as agent for a group of aliens who want to control the broadcasting of human experience to eager alien "viewers" -- but that broadcasting might also include mind control. And there are other aliens interested in controlling the same rights. Moreover, Frek meets his father, in the company of his new girlfriend and her daughter Renata. Naturally, sparks fly between Frek and Renata. So things continue, with visits to a number of alien milieus, some really fun and wacky SFnal ideas, and with Frek always keeping in mind not only the saving of the Earth's ecosystem, and the freeing of humans from potential mind control, but the restoring of his family.

I don't think I've really captured the fun of this novel very well. Rucker has long been known as an ideas man, and he doesn't disappoint here, with a couple of nicely portrayed alien species, some interesting mathematical and physical notions, and lots of clever biological ideas. The plot is not quite as successful, though it is fun to follow -- still, Frek's powers grow alarmingly as the novel continues, and the ultimate resolution, though emotionally satisfying, isn't fully convincing. The novel, with its 12-year-old protagonist, has a rather YA feel to it, though distinctly in the "YA to please adults" mode -- that is, I think it's a novel that will wow teen readers, but it's also quite fun for adults. I liked it, at any rate!

This book is simply one of the best science fiction titles to be written. The main character is young, true, but this is soon forgotten in the complex, intriguing, and yes, allegorical storyline. The book is Rucker's denoucement of monoculture, a perfect statement for our day and age. The innovation in this book is spectacular; no old reused ideas here. I strongly recommend this book.

A thousand years hence, invading evil space worms, ubiquitously presenting themselves as the "Gov," have caused our biosphere to collapse and have destroyed the DNA records of extinct species just to ensure that they can't be resurrected. All of the few life forms remaining on earth have been bioengineered. Other aliens are competing for the rights to broadcast earth live to the universe as an alien-controlled video game with aliens at the controls. Frek, the 12-year-old hero, must find the title's "elixir" of earth life, its DNA heritage, and bring it back to earth, and of course he must defeat the bad guys. He meets up with aliens that can speak only in completely truthful third person imperative statements, aliens that reproduce through their tails, a "Planck brane" world reminiscent of Douglas Adams' universe, Brueghel-like demons, aliens that live in the sun and travel on solar storms, and aliens who use and teach him methods of matter creation that involve refashioning dark matter and energy. We first meet the word "tweet" in this book as something other than what a bird does, two years before there was a "Twitter," and a character plays a "Kinect"-type motion controller video game seven years before Microsoft introduced it. Besides string theory, brane theory, dark matter, bioengineering, and video gaming, the book touches on subjects not usually part of the SciFi thematic repertoire, such as how good people live on after their deaths through the memories of their offspring and friends, how bad memes perversely use similar reputational brownie points to live on, and how such manipulation can be countered through, e.g., ridicule. Endlessly inventive, funny, and grounded in (weird) science, this book shouldn't be missed.

I fell in love with Rucker's work after reading Spaceland, and Frek and the Elixir proved to be yet another science and literary masterpiece. Rucker makes the most complex aspects of science obtainable to the average reader who has a bit of imagination. Rucker is a pure creative genius. Frek and the Elixir is a wonderful tale that I would highly recommend to any reader who enjoys imaginative stories that offer a bit of science education at the same time.

This book locks you in from the first paragraph, which is a difficult feat for most sci-fi books, which tend to take a chapter or so to get you "into" the alternate universe. I think this book is meant to appeal to the young adult market, but it's equally fun for adults. Frek is a great hero; his most heroic aspect being his fairness and acceptance of all people and things. The world in this book is at once wonderful and saddening; this theme continues throughout the book, where Rucker challenges conventional plot devices by turning them bitter-sweet, ambiguous, and "real." Rudy Rucker has the most amazing imagination; I think he is unmatched. I can't recommend this book enough.

maybe it's the name "rudy rucker" which makes people want to read his novels. i mean, i've read three of his novels now, and each one i thought was childish and just plain awful. for some reason i kept reading. finally, i'm over it, and i won't be touching another rucker novel.

i vaguely remember this novel. what i do remember is having the same feeling i'm left with after the other two rucker novels i've read - that it was written by a teenager who throws out enough cyberpunk catchphrases to cover up his lack of scientific knowledge and writing abilities.

bleh.