Customer Reviews

Software

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I blew through this book for two reasons:

1. It was short

2. It was addictive

This book is an interesting mix of "modern" cyberpunk type writing and content with older Heinlein style creativity. It has some of the hard edge of cyberpunk but I couldn't help feel that I was reading an updated "boy's adventure" style sci-fi story where we are taken on a ride and shown wondrous things without much background explanation.

I'm looking forward to reading some of the other books by this author but I'm hoping for more content since it definitely needs an increase in density.

I don't want to scare anyone off, but this book changed the way I look at life. Hidden amidst the funky robots, improbable drugs and far-out 21st Century slang is a fascinating argument for the actual, real-life existence of immortality. The closest writer I can think of to Rucker is Philip K. Dick--his vision of the future is decidedly goofy, but the ideas--both philosophic and scientific, in regards to artificial intelligence--can be taken seriously. If you want to, you're under no obligation. Highly recommended either way.

Forget Gibson. Forget all the other cyberpunk. Software is one of the best science fiction books I have ever read - and I think I've read them all. It's exciting, funny, and fun. Wetware is nearly as good, and I can't wait to read Freeware.

I couldn't tell if I liked the book while I was reading it, so I decided to finish it. I'm still not sure. I think the only reason I liked it at all, was because I wanted to. It's a topic I like, but it didn't really deliver. With all the books out there, and only so much time to live, I am -sure- there are better to choose from.

Wonderful book, a must read for cyberpunk fans (along with wetware and freeware). He takes you to the brink of total chaos but manages to hold it all together.

Rudy Rucker's novel, Software, was published in 1982, two years before the novel that would become the flagship of Cyberpunk Science Fiction, Neuromancer, was published. However, Software is considered to be one of the novels that is part of the Cyberpunk canon. Its narrative shows the scientific and philosopical education of the author (Wikipedia informs that Rudy Rucker is the grand-grandson of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel). Briefly put, it is a story about robots that acquire conscience and autonomy, and under the pretext of showing gratitude to their creator they promise to make him inmortal. The said creator, Cobb Anderson, is an aging hippie secluded in a sort of "reservation" the government has set up for aging and non conformist population. He accepts the offer without asking for explanation about how the robots pretend to do that. In the end it turns out that the "mechanic children of men" want to fulfill the evolution dream....! I will not give further details in order not to spoil the pleasure of the potential readers. Well, the novel is well written, with some spots of surrealist writing, and compared to Gibson's Neuromancer, it is a much more softer read than Neuromancer, that for me, in spite of its high literary status within the science fiction genre,turned out to be a very hard to read novel. At times I did not know if I was reading a film script draft, or a William Burroughs non-linear narrative. I certainly did not find that lack of continuity in Software, which flowed easily through its different passages and philosophical ruminations. Software might not have as high an status as Neuromancer, but you will not be dissapointed by it. No wonder it was the first novel granted with the Philip K. Dick Award in 1983, an award Gibson's Neuromancer would get two years later.

I'd never heard of Rudy Rucker until I found (tattered, on the sidewalk, by complete chance!) a volume with a short story of his in it. The story blew me away--it was so juvenile and refreshing and irreverent and yet dealt with some pretty serious and interesting higher brow concepts. I immediately ordered a copy of Software and was not disappointed. Software is playful and serious at the same time and a great starting point for anyone interested in reading Rucker's fiction. He reminds of some Stanislaw Lem or Philip Dick (yeah, I know everyone says that). I could not put this book down and devoured the sequels just as quickly. I recommend Rucker to everyone I know that has a smidgeon of good taste.

Maybe the rave reviews I heard made me expect too much, but the actual book was kind of a let-down. It just didn't, I don't know, _romp_. Very cool concepts, well executed, but seemed kind of pointless in the end. Maybe I expected him to do something new with the cyberpunk genre when he had really gotten there first. (For a Rucker book that romps and stomps, try _The_Hollow_Earth_.)

In a genre noted for on the edge style Rudy Rucker is breaking new ground, doing things his way and,
setting new standards.
If you generally like cyberpunk go ahead and buy all 3 books of his books they are in series... you won't regret it.
That's my recomendation read Software, Wetware, and Freeware. all by Rudy Rucker. Wavy real wavy :)
On the other hand...
If your just curious about cyberpunk try Software, it's an interesting tale set in the near future. The information superhighway of the future... Just around the corner...

This novel... which, sure, clocks in under 180 pages, but is that necessarily a bad thing? ... is the most inventive thing I've read since Philip Dick and Alfred Bester. I'd been disappointed with most of the so-called "cyberpunk" genre until this book. Rucker managed to set the tone for the next 20 years' worth of science fiction way back in 1982