Read Rudy Rucker It was just about a year ago that I was reading a short story anthology and mentioned that one of the best stories was "Chu and the Nants" by Rudy Rucker.
Since then I look at his blog now and then, and when I saw that there was a new novel, I ordered it from the library.
Postsingular. They sent it back before I could get to it, unfortunately; just like them.
But anyway, when I went down the day after, I found three of his other books on the shelf, in itself a minor miracle. These were an acceptable substitute. So I've finished reading
The Mad Professor, a short story collection, and
Spaceland, which is a novel riff on
Flatland.
The Mad Professor includes quite a lot of material-- much of it, in my opinion, raw material-- as well as a section of Rucker's commentary on the art of writing sf. This discusses concepts such as "power chords" and "gnarliness" and the somewhat gimmicky approach he lays out is reflected in many of the stories, which often seem strained and excessively self-conscious. However, I felt that the longer the stories got (many of the later ones in the book are novelettes) the better they were, and by the time I read "Jenna and Me," "Junk DNA," and "Pockets," I was really enjoying myself. In these more extended efforts the humor was paced and entertaining; the strange premises unfolded in an integrated and convincing, sometimes enthralling way. After reading the longer pieces, I really wondered why some of the short ones had been included at all: they seemed unfinished and unpolished enough to be kept in the file card box, so to speak, until they merited his full attention.
As I began
Spaceland, I felt a bit unsure: was a reworking of the Flatland idea really going to be worth the effort? The start was a bit slow, and maybe I was feeling somewhat impatient... But I was soon drawn in, laughing and fairly fascinated, and fully absorbed. The relationships of the four main characters provide an undercurrent of soap opera and pathos, and the story itself is wild and funny, drawing you through all of its twists and turns without losing either the thread or the momentum; I recommend it.
Rucker has a website and blog
http://www.rudyrucker.com and a webzine called
Flurb; he also does plenty of product placement for the ISP run by his son,
monkeybrains.net!