The Master of Space and Time [Hardcover]

Rudy V. B. Rucker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1984

The real world is unbearable to madcap inventor Harry Gerber, so he uses his genius to twist the laws of science and create his own tailor-made universe. Master of Space and Time combines high physics and high jinks, blurring the line between science and magic. From a voyage to a mirror-image world where sluglike parasites make slaves of humanity, to trees and bushes that grow fries and pork chops, to a rain of fish, author Rudy Rucker—two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick Award—takes readers on the ultimate joyride. But once the gluons at the core of Harry's creation run out ... disaster looms for Harry and his friends.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A high-speed, lunatic whirl through a variety of unlikely worlds." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1St Edition edition (December 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312942974
• ISBN-13: 978-0312942977
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,595,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rucker's best novel -- wonderfully bizarre. 5+ stars, January 2, 2006

By 

Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Master of Space and Time (Paperback)

______________________________________________
"Master of Space
& Time" (1985) is still my favorite Rucker novel,
in which the tale of three wishes granted is explored via quantum
mechanics, with wonderfully bizarre results. The apotheosis of Harry
Gerber... I've read MST at least three times, & laughed aloud each time. One never knows
what someone else's taste in humor might be, but I've given away at least half-a-dozen
copies of MST over the years, and never heard a complaint. I'm very glad to see it back in print.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious!, March 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Master of Space and Time (Paperback)

I know, you don't read science fiction- it's for overweight Trekkies and such. But this book may well change your mind about the genre. Rucker has a definite comedic gift, as well as very strong story-telling abilities, and is able to construct mind-bending plot twists. The basic premise revolves around two screwball physicists who create all manner of havoc with their reckless inventions, then must try to undo the damage, skewering a multitude of sacred cows in the process. You cannot fail to be entertained (and provoked) by this book

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It starts off ok, but its ending is good enough for anyone., January 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Master of Space and Time (Paperback)

I started it not liking it all that much, especially because of some of the flagrant scientific mistakes often inherent of sci-fi. That changed pretty quickly, though. I had to read it in one day. I give it the stars I give it because it is one of the few books I read without ever looking at the page number. I didn't give it 5 stars because of the tongue-in-cheek forshadowing of the wish that the main character would make that almost ruins his life. I won't say what it was so I don't spoil it, but it is so obvious, I felt like screaming. That is the one thing that almost made me put the book down. I was afraid it would turn into a sappy story about the immoral nature of sexism and that we should all get along, la la la la la. He makes the wish subtle in the chapters before, but then he goes ahead and says it so flatly a chapter or 2 before it happens, the audience isn't in suspense; suspense involves some level of uncertainty. No, we know what he will wish for, and he even aggravates the reader by posing a rhetorical wish to himself, "I wish I had a wish for myself" even though the audience knows what it is.

Enough of the bad stuff. I liked this book's end. Should I say it again? I LIKED THIS BOOK'S END. It is a rare breed of endings. One of the few endings to books or movies or stories of any sort where I am satisfied; where I don't think, "and then what happened?" If you read this book for anything, read it for the ending to it.

Well, if you haven't read any other reviews of the book before mine, you probably figured out it's about making wishes. Specifically, it's a whimsical idea that one may alter quantum uncertainty in a controlled manner so as to give one powers limited only by one's imagination and prejudices about the process. Here's the thing; protons and neutrons are composed of quarks; elementary superstrings that are held together by a sort of particle physicists have dubbed as a gluon. It is both a "particle" and a force holding the nucleons together. Like wave-paricle light. It is the binding nuclear force. Anyway, the idea is that if this "particle" could be seperated from the quarks, then it would be almost non-descript matter. Somehow, two scientists find a way to grind up gluons into matter totally without form, so without form it doesn't have the most fundamental properties normal matter has, so those can be programmed into it, in order to make quantum uncertainty 10^35 times greater incide the brain of the recipient of the wish machine. Of course, if you concentrate more than the planck mass into a size less than the Planck length, it becomes a black hole, but that's not important. Maybe it redefines mass as well. Anyway, this makes everything inside a meter of the person's brain undefined, and would then give him god like powers.

Well, enough for science; we could go on for days finding every little flaw. The point is that it's a book worthy of the time of even the most presumptuous, and you WILL enjoy it if you read it.