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White Light 3 Ed

White Light 3 Ed

List Price: $13.95
Your Price: $10.46
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad book. Bad bad book.
Review: ...This was a bad book for me. I perseverved to the end and regretted doing so. Like someone else wrote, I felt I was missing some sort of inside joke. I have read other works by this writer and enjoyed them; this book disappointed, especially after it received so many glowing write-ups here.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: White Heat
Review: A modern 'Alice in Wonderland' for grown-ups, this easily-digestible novel (it's very short) tells the possibly-imaginary tale of a man who falls out of his body one day and takes off in pursuit of the infinite, and beyond. It doesn't really have much of a point, and the author was clearly making it all up as he went along (the abstract nature of 'Cimon' renders conventional plotting superfluous), but provided you don't take it at all seriously it's a light-hearted romp through a surreal, infinite world.

This particular edition was published in associated with Wired magazine - despite the awful essay that introduces it, it has nothing to do with cyberpunk at all (there are *no* in-line skates, and at no point does our hero plant explosives in somebody's head), and is all the better for it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hilarious & mind-warping journey to infinite infinities
Review: A rare find: a simultaneously funny, thought-provoking, and well-written SF novel. It deals with ideas like mathematical heaven, countable and uncountable infinities, and the further exploits of Kafka's famous beetle. What do you do when the Infinite Hotel is full? Double-up! As an undergrad I was extraordinarily lucky to find this in the library's stacks, and now I look forward to enjoying it all over again

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Insane and almost perfect
Review: An insane headrush through the realms of higher mathmatics, the afterlife, the university system, and marital dissppointment! It's only let down by the fact that Rucker just can't sustain the wonder and madness of it all the way through- but who could?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I loved it!
Review: Gregory Benford once stated that he was skeptical on the literary effectiveness of math stories because "mathematical languages have such a wonderful aura of precision and controllability, which is why scientists are intuitively drawn to them; but they lack a quality I can only describe as human expressiveness." To those who concur with Benford I point out Rucker's White Light as a counterexample. White Light is hilarious, intriguing and even poignant at times. The hero Felix Rayman is actually likeable and he keeps the story grounded in the sphere of human emotions even at its most fantastical moments. What does Felix as Donald Duck think about after he has had his heart ripped out by an Aztec priest? - That he never told Hewey, Dewey and Louie that he loved them! However, I must add that this book might be confusing to someone who has had minimal exposure to math beyond calculus. The enjoyment of the book is heightened if you've read Cantor's proof that the cardinality of the real numbers is greater than the cardinality of the natural numbers, know something about the Banach-Tarski paradox and the Axiom of Choice, and have a general knowledge of the great mathematicians of the late 19th century. If you like Stanislaw Lem, are interested in higher mathematics and are tired of those space operas I would highly recommend White Light.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The King of Cyberpunk is Throned
Review: I am a 13 year old fan of all mathamatics and anything that has to do with computers, so I picked up this sucker after reading the 'ware series. Never has a book taken me to a higher state of mind. This masterpiece could be considered a book in the bible.I am a huge rucker fan and I read all things he writes on paper. After Rudy took me to the world of Cimön, I feel I must go to San Jose and be taught by the new king of scifi. Step aside Orson Scott Card, goodbye heinlein, so sorry Gibson, see yah later Phil K. Dick, Rucker has taken reign of all that is cyberpunk.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pain!
Review: I am currently struggling through 'Freeware' and couldn't resist looking at other reviewers impressions of Mr. Rucker's work. You see, I had enjoyed 'Infinity and the Mind' a lot (this book isn't fiction) and also 'White Light'. And the reviewers have educated me - so 'Freeware' is cyberpunk. Well, if it is typical it's not to my taste (I will write a review of 'Freeware' when I have finished it.). It's so disappointing because Mr Rucker does have a capacity to express mathematical ideas so well - he should do more of it. 'White Light' I recommend unreservedly for its mathematical underpinning and its humour.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mathematics meets literature - it should do it more often!
Review: I am currently struggling through 'Freeware' and couldn't resist looking at other reviewers impressions of Mr. Rucker's work. You see, I had enjoyed 'Infinity and the Mind' a lot (this book isn't fiction) and also 'White Light'. And the reviewers have educated me - so 'Freeware' is cyberpunk. Well, if it is typical it's not to my taste (I will write a review of 'Freeware' when I have finished it.). It's so disappointing because Mr Rucker does have a capacity to express mathematical ideas so well - he should do more of it. 'White Light' I recommend unreservedly for its mathematical underpinning and its humour.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I have been searching for this book for 10 years!
Review: I read "White Light" when it first came out in 1980. I liked it so much I lent it to a friend, and of course never saw it again. Rudy Rucker has a masterpiece here, as far as I am concerned. He deals with infinity in a very interesting fashion, and makes it entertaining to us average types. Rudy Rucker deals with the soul; and the concepts of heaven and hell are approached in a very strange fashion. White Light refers to the melding of the soul with God, The Absolute, or Infinite, and in a sense, with the loss of one's ego and sense of self. While being irreverent, Rucker, a professor of mathematics at San Jose State, has very seriously written about the concept of mathematical infinity and with the absolute brain busting theory of infinity plus one. This is a novel, and you travel to the afterlife with Felix Rayman and, almost like Odysseus, embark on a journey of discovery. You will experience what it would be like to be in a place where you can change body shape, defy gravity, meet weird creatures, and deal with the infinite and eternal. But all is not groovy. You and your guide, Felix Rayman, encounter many frustrations and even sinister spirits now incorporated into bodies and who inhabit a strange place reminiscent of an R. Crumb landscape. Prepare yourself for a wild ride with "White Light". Oh, I ordered 2 copies this time, in case my loaner copy goes astray.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I have been searching for this book for 10 years!
Review: I read "White Light" when it first came out in 1980. I liked it so much I lent it to a friend, and of course never saw it again. Rudy Rucker has a masterpiece here, as far as I am concerned. He deals with infinity in a very interesting fashion, and makes it entertaining to us average types. Rudy Rucker deals with the soul; and the concepts of heaven and hell are approached in a very strange fashion. White Light refers to the melding of the soul with God, The Absolute, or Infinite, and in a sense, with the loss of one's ego and sense of self. While being irreverent, Rucker, a professor of mathematics at San Jose State, has very seriously written about the concept of mathematical infinity and with the absolute brain busting theory of infinity plus one. This is a novel, and you travel to the afterlife with Felix Rayman and, almost like Odysseus, embark on a journey of discovery. You will experience what it would be like to be in a place where you can change body shape, defy gravity, meet weird creatures, and deal with the infinite and eternal. But all is not groovy. You and your guide, Felix Rayman, encounter many frustrations and even sinister spirits now incorporated into bodies and who inhabit a strange place reminiscent of an R. Crumb landscape. Prepare yourself for a wild ride with "White Light". Oh, I ordered 2 copies this time, in case my loaner copy goes astray.


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