Showing posts with label sci-fi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sci-fi. Show all posts

Friday, July 04, 2008

It’s good to be an alien

Rudy Rucker has a blog!


Yep.. Rucker, mathematician and the greatest living Sci-Fi (science fiction/speculative fiction/cyber-punk) author (and 2nd greatest all-time behind Philip K Dick) has his own blog. It's a super-fun read.

Rucker is probably best-known for his -Ware tetralogy:

Cobb Anderson created the "boppers," sentient robots that overthrew their human overlords. But now Cobb is just an aging alcoholic waiting to die, and the big boppers are threatening to absorb all of the little boppers--and eventually every human--into a giant, melded consciousness. Some of the little boppers aren't too keen on the idea, and a full-scale robot revolt is underway on the moon (where the boppers live). Meanwhile, bopper Ralph Numbers wants to give Cobb immortality by letting a big bopper slice up his brain and tape his "software." It seems like a good idea to Cobb.

"Delightfully irreverant. . . This is science fiction as it should be." (reviews via Amazon.com)



Humans created the sentient robot "boppers," but now it's the boppers who have started creating humans. Clones and DNA-splicing have spawned the meatbop, a human body infused with the software (the mind and personality) of a bopper. The meatbops are interested in propagating down on Earth, but that might not be so good for humanity (the boppers have a nasty habit of enslaving humans, actually). When a couple of (reasonably) innocent humans get tangled up in the bopper's machinations on the moon, it's time to drag out the stored mind of bopper-creator Cobb Anderson and see if he can help.

"A genius. . .A cult hero among discriminating cyberpunkers" (reviews via Amazon.com)



In Wetware the chip mold virus destroyed the sentient robots called boppers. But the virus itself has spawned a new life form called moldies. The moldies are beings made out of a sort of malleable plastic called imoplex. Humans and moldies live in an almost-amicable truce, but radicals (and not-so-radicals) on each side wouldn't hesitate to use--or destroy--those on the other. When a moldie called Monique becomes ensnared in a grand plot that seems to be either the work of anti-moldie humans or anti-human moldies, everyone becomes involved in an effort to either save or destroy the Earth.

In hip, staccato language, the master of cyberpunk (e.g., The Hacker and the Ants, Avon, 1994) merges California surfer culture with a tale of 21st-century artificial plastic and mold lifeforms. The intertwined lives of Heritagist fanatic anti-Moldies, the Moldies' inventors, human "cheeseballs" who have sex with Moldies, and isolationist Moldies on the Moon enliven this fast-paced tale of kidnapping and alien takeover. (reviews via Amazon.com)



Philip K. Dick Award-winner Rucker concludes his satirical SF "Ware" tetralogy with Phil Gottner's discovery that his father has apparently been swallowed whole by a "wowo," a multidimensional holographic toy. This is the first event in a series that will change his life, and Earth, forever. Phil breaks up with his girlfriend to follow exotic Moon-born Yoke Star-Mydol to Tonga, where she meets a group of aliensDMetamartians from MetamarsDliving deep underwater in the Tonga Trench. It turns out that Yoke's mother, Darla, and a woman named Tempest Plenty were also swallowed by a multidimensional creature on the Moon several months ago. The Metamartians explain that the hungry entity is really their god, Om, who reaches into three-dimensional space to capture humans for study. The gift of an "alla" from Om and the aliens allows Yoke to create anything she can visualize using "realware," based on the advanced science of direct matter control. Soon enough, the secret of the alla spreads to others on Earth and predictable problems ensue. Meanwhile, Phil is captured by Om and reunited with his father, as well as with Darla and Tempest Plenty, somewhere in the fourth dimension. Rucker's cheerful ingenuity with biotech gadgetry and applied mathematics is in direct contrast to the book's [endearingly] simplistic plot and resolution. (reviews via Amazon.com)



I love these books so much; I'll recommend them to anyone.

Also: Rudy Rucker's home page.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

This will be the last time

Look, I don't want to bang on about it, or anything, but David Cauchi has published the text of his address on Sci-Fi and art, on his blog, here.

He has also linked to a recording on Radio NZ of his radio interview with Lynn Freeman the following morning.

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NP: Celer - pretty much everything I can get my hands on (Last.fm)

listen to a track called 2 Bereft Oversight

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Five Great Novels - Philip K Dick

You should buy this. Go on, you know you want to.... it's only 15 quid, and it rules.

Good god..

+ The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
+ Martian Time-slip

+ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
+ Ubik
and A Scanner Darkly

How do you imagine that you might ever go wrong?

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Woot, woot.. Pop Levi tomorrow night.

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NP: John Cale -- Vintage Violence (Allmusic): His first post-Velvet Underground solo album is easily one of his best. Excellent cover art, too.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Golly

Stunned to discover (via Trademe) that the practice of making blackface minstrel dolls for children ("golliwogs") is still going strong in New Zealand. (Don't believe me? Check out this search.)

I'm sorry, but wha? Didn't these become passe -- if not completely unacceptable -- at least 30 years ago?

I'm surprised they don't come with tee-shirts which say things like "Lazy" and "Goodfernothing" and "Shiftless jigger" and "Lock up yer valuables" and so on.

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My friend David is giving an address at the Film Archive on Saturday afternoon. It's called something like Why Science-Fiction is the only legitimate artform of the 20th and 21st centuries. Read about it at the Wellingtonista.

It's going to be great.

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NP: Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions - We people that are darker than blue (listen).

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Safe by Rebecca Turbow

Rebecca Turbow is gorgeous, and she makes gorgeous clothes as well. (You might have noticed her Myspace page if you checked out the Pop Levi link from the other day.) Anyhoo, while they're really clearly mid-60s-Mod influenced, there's also something about them which just makes me say "Yeah!".

The designs are born out of Turbow's idea of creating elegant and durable hand-crafted clothing centered on the concepts of safety and protection. Are you thinking of some kinda weird pastel futuristic thing like Logan's Run or Zardoz? I am. Either way, my eyes are wishing there was more of this sorta thing around at the moment.

Rebecca's (admittedly rather Flash-heavy) official website is here.





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NP: Skeptics - pretty much everything they've ever released too, actually (Last.fm).