Customer Reviews

Master of Space and Time

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

 

 

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"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

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

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.

This is my first Rudy Rucker book, and I guess he's not for me. Lots of wacky things happen from chapter to chapter, but it would be nice if there was a plot that I cared about. It just felt very haphazard.

I love Rucker's work... but this was not his best. This novel involves people making 'wishes.' And the wishes really aren't thought through very well, even when the novel suggests they are. This is obviously one of Rudy's earlier works... its fun and enjoyable, but he has produced much better.

Ok.
Weird, ... but I liked it.

A semi-futuristic world is altered when a couple of bore scientists uncover a way to essentially alter the universe (or universes) anyway they wish. But only 3 times. A mixture of sci-fi, advanced mathematics, philosophy and depth psychology. The adventures are fast paced enough and there's just enough mix of silliness and reflection to entertain.

Master of Space and Time (my first Rucker book) was the best couple dollars I ever spent when I was a kid. Unfortunately, that was back in the early 80's when it was still in print! Nonetheless, few sci-fi books can boast that they contain side-splitting humour as well as thought-provoking ideas. This book is a good transition between the masterpiece that is "White Light" and the easliy comprehendable -Ware series by Rucker. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.

I don't know what book those other people were reading, when they gave this five stars. What bothered me about this book. Short list:
1) Bigotry. I'd obviously prefer people don't flap their bigotries in the wind, but if they're going to, then it's incredibly distasteful to see people justify their bigotry by making the people they hate *deserve* that hatred by doing such palpably inane things. Anti-religious bigotry runs throughout this book. He makes up a couple of religions that are really stupid (showing that he doesn't understand how any religions outside of California actually work), and he has Christians flock straight into alien subservience for no other apparent reason than that it would be stupid to flock in, so Christians would obviously do that. And it just never seems to occur to him that there's something wrong with that.
2) Speaking of Rucker not having properly thought out what "real people" should actually do: early on, a giant lizard attacks a city. The book takes place in a world fairly similar to this one, so nothing like that has ever happened. And the next day, is anyone talking about it? For some reason, no. It's boring old business as usual. And when the main character actually asks somebody about it, it's like "Oh yeah, that thing. Yeah that was kinda weird."
3) If you're going to rip off Robert Heinlein (Puppetmasters) please do a good job of it. Better yet, don't rip off Robert Heinlein.
4) If you're going to rip off Robert Heinlein (By His Bootstraps) please do a good job of it. Better yet, don't rip off Robert Heinlein.
5) Isn't Rucker supposed to actually be a scientist? Then why doesn't he display some sense of science? He just tosses out science terms willy-nilly as justifications for the plot, without any actual science. Why does changing Plank's constant give these guys power? Seriously. There used to be a day when you'd read science fiction and come away actually having learned something. But hey, Rucker's obviously a string theorist. Those guys don't feel like they need to make sense with science, either, so he probably doesn't see what's wrong with this.
6) And for kicks, we get to come along on Rucker's transsexual fantasy. He does make sure to explain that he wished to become a beautiful woman as part of a heterosexual urge, though. Uh, yeah. Riiiiight.

Any chance of this book actually being reprinted now that it is being adapted as the next film by the brilliant Michel Gondry? I'd like to read it, but I don't want to shell out twenty-five bucks for a paperback when I know the film will be brilliant anyway.