Customer Reviews

Realware

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

 

 

After reading Rudy Rucker's Software, Wetware et al, this book is a must have/must read. But I found it a bit of a letdown compared to the others. I kinda had the feeling that Rudy was trying too hard to "be a better *writer*", like maybe he took a writing course and it ruined him <grin>. The ideas stop coming around 1/2 way through the book, and the rest gets to be "she went here, he did this, she did that, blah-blah...". His previous books left me with a lot of ideas and images that I can never forget... ice-cream trucks that steal and freeze your head, cosmic rays that encode alien personalities... but from this one, mostly I remember being unpleasantly stuck in bubble.

I loved the others in the series but this one fell flat for me. Still, if you've read the others you have to read this one too.

While the first three novels in this series were enjoyable books, Realware falls a little short. The book, while still marginally readable, has a glaring flaw - unadulterated sappiness.

Rudy has managed to craft what could be "the feel-good cyberpunk novel of the year." (The movie version will probably be appearing shortly on Hallmark theatre.) Everybody's happy, cleaning up, and falling in love. However, little of it is really convincing.

The pop-tart romance between Phil and Yoke is barely believable ("What's your name? I Love You!") There's just too little evidence of chemistry for them to have gone that far as fast as they did. Phil also utters the phrase "clean and sober" so often that it feels like you're reading a piece of high school anti-drug propaganda.

Phil's constant espousing on how great life is ("Thank you God for making the world!") is nauseating at first, but then shifts into overdrive after his trip into the 4th dimension. At that point, Realware could almost be classified as a religious novel. Everybody gets to talk about their death experiences, how they discovered that souls are shaped like butterflies, how happy they were to look in the face of God, etc.

Couple all that with a poorly-executed deus ex machina ending, and you have the trappings of a substandard science fiction novel. Some people will still probably enjoy it - most likely those that had no previous experience with this series. Those who are expecting another book like the first three will likely walk away disappointed.

Nice, yeah, like warm milk and chocolate chip cookies. (Rudy, what were attempting? did you get what you wanted? what your editors wanted?) This book doesn't have the insane edge, like his earlier three books of the same series (Software, Wetware, Freeware), as well as, Hacker & the Ants. I've read all these other books at least 3 times each and own numerous copies of them. I think they are great reads and have given copies out to friends for years to turn them onto Rucker. But this latest? It ends with a wonderful double wedding and everyone lives happily every after. Yucch! Too Wholesome. I get the impression that Rucker was trying for a "Caledcott" award winner. Vapid & insipid, as accused above? Yes, I'd have to agree. I'm still a Rucker fan. But this one tastes like baby pablum.

It's not hardcore cyberpunk. It doesn't hurt your brain. It's not dark, but it is a lot of fun to read! I am a poor reader and I can slice through Rucker's stuff fast and easily.

This, the fourth in the 'ware' series, is probably the second best (to Software, first in the series), and is full of the tasty futuristic cali-lingo ("You wave?" "Stuzzy!"). I am hooked on Rucker and I can't stop!

Realware is nowhere near as much fun as the other three books in the
whole Ware series. The theme and tone have changed considerably.

You get a feelgood romance thrown in there for no real apparent
reason. The Realware of the title is the technology to be able to make
whatever you want, basically. Chuck in some aliens and other dimensions.

After finishing the Moldies and Meatbops trilogy, I was compelled to check this fourth installment (in the now tetralogy) out from the public library. I am certainly glad I didn't pay for it because, while the novel was fun to read, it was also not as wild, innovative, or thought-provoking as its three predecessors. It basically felt like one of those tacked on, pay-the-mortagage kind of books. Whereas there was a significant time lapse between each of the first three installments of this series, this novel begins mere months after the concluding events in Freeware. The first half of the book is given over to a half-baked story involving a Tongan monarch, a homicidal pseudo-Limey, a lunar girl with questionable taste in men, while the second comprises a too-fast-to-be-true love affairs of not one, but two, couples. Realware, the only interesting thing in the novel, takes a back seat to these plots for most of the novel.

Yet, it is the concept of realware, the culmination of Rucker's "life as information" idea, that makes the book interesting and worth reading. Realware is an alien technology that is able to build anything material (including living things) from the ground up, so to speak. Although it is never explained completely (being one of those technologies that is advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic), it seems to be a form of nanotechnology whose workings somehow derive from higher-dimensional physics. Rucker's love of the 4th (and higher) dimensions comes into play in the novel, as does his sense of spirituality (though it is a bit more saccharine than is his wont). The idea of realware is definitely interesting, and Rucker sees it as a technology that humanity still won't be ready for in a half-century. (Looking at the contemporary state of the world, I hesitate to disagree, but I digress.)

Yet he does not allow this rather pessimistic appraisal of humanity's capacity to deal with the end of scarcity rain on the reader's parade. Instead, the Metamartians (i.e., the cosmic ray information aliens from the conclusion of Freeware) come to the rescue like the proverbial cavalry or deus ex machina. Tears are shed, the world is saved, and warm smiling California sunshine reigns.

rucker's fiction is as good if not better than his non-fiction. the entire 'ware series takes sci-fi/cyberpunk/"transrealism" to a whole new uh, dimension. realware was a surprisingly fresh culmination of the ideas and characters of the previous three novels. it's got a slap in the face style, great plotlines, and real MATH fiction, what else could one say? good stuff. really freakin' good cyberpunk-esque literature. it makes math nice and twisted, it slaps euclid against a wall and throws 360 degree triangles at him. wholesome tasty fun for anyone who likes philosophy, math, or just a plain old good story. yummy.

The only works of Rudy Rucker that I have read are the 'ware series. These works are a bit more skanky in nature than my normal read; however, after I've read them, I'm always glad that I did. They are always entertaining and thought provoking. The latest episode in the 'ware series, Realware, is no exception. I did find the level of skank in this novel to be somewhat less in magnitude than that of its antecedents. I finished this book feeling a nice sense of resolution with regard to the characters, although I know the story could easily be carried forward into further stories about its set of characters. What I like most about this series is the discussion of the effects of radical technological paradigm shifts on individuals of many types and the society as a whole. If you've read the other books in the 'ware series, you simply must read Realware - you'll be glad you stayed with it.

I've been a fan or Rucker since stumbling across "Tales of Houdini" in the Mirrorshades collection way back, and have always read his books with a mixture of anticipation and fear: Much as so many 1960s comedies wound up with a chaotic pie-fight at the end that made no sense, many of Rucker's books tended to veer off into "crazyland", losing focus. I'd put the book down and rub my temples and wonder what went wrong. Great science, cool world, but immature and crazy characters.

But with Realware, he revisits some of his wildest characters, and makes them all GROW UP. The story is cohesive, the science is cool, and the characters are well realized. It's still Rucker, but it's him with more control, and it makes this book a real standout. Hell, he even makes the previously loathsome Randy Karl Tucker a likeable, evolving creature! It's not a book to introduce you to Rucker: This is like Heinleins The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: If you don't know these characters, you're a bit lost. But for anyone who enjoyed Hardware/Software, but were scared off by the freakiness of Freeware, come on back, y'all.

I loved Rudy Rucker's other books - all of them - to the point of obsession. This "clean and sober" [stuff] in this one finally cinches it for me: I'm now CERTAIN the ONDCP's antidrug campaign is targeting book publishers as well as TV, radio and movie producers. Essentially, the media is being paid by the government to pump out antidrug propaganda, and make it come from the very mouths of the drug culture heroes and top minds. Two weeks ago I just heard Neil Young praising the Patriot Act and giving a speech saying "we all need to give up our freedoms for a while so we can keep them for the long term". Now it seems they've got Rudy, too. How do they do this? Pay them off, or threaten to off them? Who knows? All I know is this left me with tears in my eyes and believe me they were NOT tears of joy.