Customer Reviews

Gnarl!: Stories

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Initially I was afraid to pick up this collection because I'd read everything of Rudy's still in print, and was afraid there would be duplicates. I needn't have worried.

Everything here is either out-of-print (from "The 57th Franz Kafka") or published in magazines or previously unpublished -- there wasn't a single story I'd read before. There are a wide variety of styles and approaches here, some more successful than others. The best ones (like "The Andy Warhol Sandcastle") are very, VERY good while the worst ("Chaos Surfari") are just kind of silly.

Overall a collection of astonishing variety and imagination. Much better than the companion non-fiction anthology "Seek!"

A cross-section of, if not the man's mind, a cross-section of his writing.... A comfortingly hefty tome, filled with some of the most bizarre, original, and funny fiction THIS SF aficionado has ever had the pleasure to read. Sex, drugs, bad taste, irreverence and yes, real physics: the roots of cyberpunk are here.

Rucker rarely breaks out of the adolescent mode in this average collection of short stories - where he does, however, the results are intriguing though still fairly derivative.

If, as I did, you first encountered him through the excellent - and truly innovative - 'White Light', you'll be disappointed by this collection. What is good here? I enjoyed 'The Fifty-Seventh Franz Kafka' and 'Bringing in the Sheaves' - stories where the Scientific American physics are turned down and Rucker dabbles with the grotesque...

This collection will stay on my shelf - but I'll be back to my Virgin Paperback copy of White Light and seeking readmission to the Library of Forms!

"Gnarl!" is the companion volume to "Seek!" and probably one of the best story collections I've ever read. Featuring almost the entirety of Rucker's professional short-story output, "Gnarl!" includes hysterical and visionary pieces reminiscent of authors ranging from Kurt Vonnegut to Bruce Sterling (whose collaborative effort "Big Jelly" is featured here alongside gems co-written with Marc Laidlaw and Paul de Fillipo). As far as collections go, "Gnarl!" is becomingly introspective, and can be read as a transrealist autobiography. Rucker creates grim futures and funny scenarios that cover the spectrum of human emotion. Pac-Man addiction. Religious fervor. Microgravity sex. Beatniks and hydrogen bombs. Time warps and deranged aliens. "Gnarl!'s" got it all. You can't come away from the experience unmoved.

After being very disapointed by Freeware I decided to give Rudy Rucker another chance. I've very glad I did beucase Gnarl! is a wonderful book that will really get you thinking.

Three dozen of Rucker's best works range from previously unanthologized stories written in collaboration with others to Rucker's individual, unique mix of cyberpunk/physics tales. Designed as a companion volume to his nonfiction Seek!, this will prove especially pleasing to fans of his hard science fiction stories.