Postsingular (Hardcover)

by Rudy Rucker (Author)
Key Phrases: natural mind, virtual earth, nant farm, Rudy Rucker, Big Pig, Merz Boat (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Alt-cultural folk strive to save Earth from digitized doom in this novel from the prince of gonzo SF. A computer mogul's threat to replace messy reality with clean virtuality and by a memory-hungry artificial intelligence called the Big Pig propels nanotechnologist Ond Lutter, his autistic son, Chu, and their allies on an interdimensional quest for a golden harp, the Lost Chord, strung with hypertubes that can unroll the eighth dimension and unleash limitless computing power. Though he tries to unite the hard and the fuzzy sides of physics, Rucker (Mathematicians in Love) favors the flower power of San Francisco over the number crunching of Silicon Valley. His novel vibrates with the warm rhythms of dream and imagination, not the cold logic of programming (or, for that matter, plotting). Playing with the math of quantum computing, encryption and virtual reality, Rucker places his faith in people who find true reality gnarly enough to love. (Oct.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
While less well known than William Gibson or Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker was one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement—science fiction with a grittier, dystopian turn. In Postsingular, Rucker explores the idea of the Singularity, a hypothetical point in the future where the combination of artificial intelligence and human enhancement will launch technological advance into an unprecedented overdrive. Reviewer (and fellow SF novelist) Paul DiFilippo writes that while the Singularity—the "Rapture of the nerds"—has become a common theme in science fiction, Rucker is one of the few writers who have sufficiently explored what it would be like to actually experience it. Then again, for novices to Rucker or the SF genre, Postsingular—each page, according to BoingBoing, "weirder than the last"—isn’t necessarily the place to start.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (October 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765317419
• ISBN-13: 978-0765317414
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #150,362 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wheenk., December 12, 2007

By	K. M. "literary devotee" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

That -- WHEENK -- is the name of the "metanovel" one of the POSTSINGULAR characters busies herself creating during the course of the book. It's also a perfect poster word for describing this Rudy Rucker sci-fi extravaganza. This is one wheenkin' ride!

Early in the book, the autistic boy genius, Chu, corrects his joking biotech genius father about a BIG number: " 'Ten to the thirty-ninth is duodecillion' " he chides, " 'Not umptisquiddlyzillion." But umptisquiddlyzillion just about covers the nearly endless gush of ideas that Rucker looses in this novel. What most people wouldn't give to have that many inventive thoughts in ten lifetimes, and he nonchalantly dispenses them in one volume!

Think of POSTSINGULAR as "Jack and the Beanstock" on uppers (and downers). Ye olde fairty tale is updated with extrapolations about the latest theoretical physics (such as "branes") and trendy sci-fi speculations about how artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and virtual reality might revolutionize or even extinguish life as we know it.

The early chapters, entitled "Nant Day," "Orphid Night," and "Chu's Knot," originally appeared as short stories; and in the middle of POSTSINGULAR, the tensile strength of those early chapters slumps just a mite...even though it is filled with mind riffs by the vagrant (and randy) technogeeks who climb onstage beginning in Chapter 5. Then, however, the frantic dash for the finish gets the old adrenaline pumping as all the socially awkward heroes try to save earth from devouring nants!

You may be wondering about the sea creature on the cover. Rest assured you'll learn all about it when you jump into this trippin' mind squeeze! Go for it! Wheenck! [4.7 stars]

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars When anything is possible nothing is interesting, January 28, 2008

By	R. Hubbard (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been a fan of Rudy Rucker for many years and admire the inventiveness and irreverence of his earlier works. However, I feel that his more recent work has become increasingly sloppy and Postsingular is probably the worst example of this. There are some ideas about quantum computation, string theory, cryptography, etc at the heart of this story, but they are so overlayered with slick sounding, brightly colored but ultimately meaningless nonsense that the book has nothing to say about technology or people or the interface of people and technology or, well, anything really. There is no problem encountered in the story that isn't solved a few pages later by an inexplicable application of magic. It is impossible to empathize with (or be the least interested by) the antics of the characters when the rules of the game are constantly being changed by the magical intervention of other dimensional demi-gods and aliens. The book would have been much improved if Rucker had stuck to his original idea (in which von Neumann machines provide infinite computation but at the price of devouring the physical earth and replacing it with a simulation) and actually developed it rather than just piling crazy garbage on top of it hoping that some of it might stick.

In addition to this lazy plotting, the characterization is inconsistent and two-dimensional. Especially the characters from the alternate dimension have no consistent motivation and alternately intervene to help or hinder the protagonists as suits the plot. The protagonists themselves have very little depth. And for a book about life after the technological singularity, the events of the book seem to have little or no impact on the characters, banging them about for a while, but at the end leaving them the same boring caricatures they were at the beginning.

The stories of Cory Doctorow provide far more interesting gonzo technological extrapolations if that's what you're in the market for. And for readers interested in speculation on how infinite computational resources would transform humanity I would recommend Permutation City by Greg Egan. In one of the latter chapters of Postsingular, Rucker describes life inside the simulated virtual earth. His description of this world is so depauperate, so lacking in creativity, that it is almost embarrassing when compared to the works of Greg Egan who developed these ideas really brilliantly over 10 years ago. If Rucker couldn't be bothered to invest this section of the book with creativity or thought, it should have been omitted. I feel the same could be said for about 90% of the novel. If you, like me, are looking for the next great work by Rucker, I guess my best advice would be to keep waiting.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Playful hard sciFi? Yes, more please. , November 29, 2007

By	Clear Menser "kleer-001" (california) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Rudy Rucker continues to amaze me with his easy prose and his living, quirky characters. His work is a damn pleasure to read, addicting.
Here is Postsingular he touches on some familiar topics (universal computing, smart matter, higher dimensions, and cuttlefish). He also casually tosses out some high brained schemes about cryptography that sent me to Wikipedia.
This is the goods folks, fun and deep. Rucker's running on all cylinders, super cooled and overclocked.
I totally look forward to his continuation of the story.