Customer Reviews

Hylozoic

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It's very good. Just how good is this book? Well I've done some calculations and come up with this theory, it's weird multiplied by wonderful and then raised to the power of freakin awesome!

Looking for a fun story about Teleporting, Alien Manta Rays, Surfing, Infinity, Alef-null, Time travel, Bosch (yes Hieronymus Bosch the painter)? Well this book has all these and more.

It's set in a post singularity world where everything has come "alive". Stones, rivers, trees, houses and you can talk them all. This is done via a thought process called "Teep". It sounds mad, but it's done in an utterly convincing matter of fact manner. After a few days reading this book I found myself wishing I could "Teep" the fridge to find out what was in there.

As with all Rudy Rucker books this is an easy read, the story moves along at a very lively pace. The only times I stopped reading was to ponder the amazing ideas.

If you are already a Rudy Rucker fan you know how crazy the worlds he creates can be. "Hylozoic" is the craziest most intricate story yet. It's a fun book to read, but I wouldn't recommend it for the first time Rucker reader. Since "Hylozoic" is the sequel to "Post Singular" I recommend reading that fantastic book first.

A number of interesting ideas here, but developed in a devestatingly incoherent fashion. A random mess of stuff happens, then some more stuff happens, then there's other events. Aliens, weird science indistinguishable from poorly designed magic. Quite a few drafts short of making an effective world, scenario or setting. Combine this with leaden prose, arbitrary character developments (the female lead deciding to bang a 14 year old boy while being broadcast on global reality tv was probably the worst) and you have a story that doesn't remotely believe in itself. The whole angle of 'the world is watching your sexscipades now' raises other issues, as it appears that the larger planet is watching but uninterested in the iminent threat of alien invasaion, and all the action has to be focused in the hands of a small group of supertalented people using the lion's share of the wanky tech.

I see no reason to invest in it or further things by the author. This is basically a crackfic that happens to be original and canon. If readers are interested in the singularity and/or aliens there are many better authors--Iain M. Banks, Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross, Greg Egan, Stephen Baxter come to mind.

It helps to have read "Postsingular" because that book introduced many of the high-concept multiverse ideas that he refers to in Hylzoic. Nonetheless is is a delightful fast paced romp through the mind of one of SFs great treasures. Non-stop zaniness, with interesting characters and mind bending SF concepts.