Rating: 
Summary: Best 12 bucks I've spent in a while
Review: I read a few other titles by Rucker (The Hacker and the Ants, The 'ware series -- All reccommended by me, if that means anything to ya) and I thought I'd bite the bullet and spend the 12 bucks for the flashy cover and nice paper.. It was worth it. I've always been an enthusiast in infinite and chaotic math and found this book to be both informative and a hell of a lot of fun. Definately pick up a copy now and hold onto it (never know when these classics'll go out of print).
Rating:
Summary: The search is over!
Review: I read this book in 1981 while an Electronics student. Since then I've been looking for a copy everytime I went into a bookshop. It seems fitting I found it online. As with others this book seemed to wake me up. Explaining transfinite number theory with various surreal characters and a plot which resembles the most controlled acid trip ever pushed the limits. A sort of maths road movie with altered states, Einstein, God and urban decay. Perfect for the end of a millenium.
Rating:
Summary: Transreal
Review: I reviewed Rudy Rucker's finest nonfiction work, _Infinity and the Mind_, a while back, and it's about time I reviewed this one too. I think this is probably his finest fiction.Nor is that an accident, as it was written at about the same time as _Infinity and the Mind_ and deals with the same primary theme: the soul's quest for God, the Absolutely Infinite. And Rucker's is my kind of mysticism. For this novel is about a mathematician who went to college to dodge the draft and winds up working in set theory in an attempt to (as Lord Buckley would have put it) dig infinity. At one time, Rucker himself was a mathematician who was supposed to be working on Georg Cantor's Continuum Problem while stuck teaching at a college in upstate New York; the novel's protagonist, Felix Rayman, is closely modeled on Rucker in this and other respects. (Some of the other characters are modeled on real and fictional people as well: for example, "Franx," the giant cockroach, is modeled on Franz Kafka -- author of "Metamorphosis," in which Gregor Samsa finds himself turned into a giant cockroach -- and "Donald Duck" is modeled on Donald Duck.) In fact, the original subtitle of the novel was "What Is Cantor's Continuum Problem?" -- which is, incidentally, to determine what order of infinity the points in space make up. This is thus the first novel in Rucker's series of "transreal" novels -- "transrealism" being defined as somewhat metaphorical storytelling based pretty closely on the author's own experiences. In the present case, we're talking about mystical experiences, some drug-induced, some not. At any rate, Felix Rayman does indeed get to dig infinity -- and so does the reader, although those with _no_ mathematical background may dig infinity a little better if they read _Infinity and the Mind_ either before or after this one. Rucker writes in his introduction to the Princeton edition of _Infinity and the Mind_ that he must have settled his questions about God, because he stopped thinking about them. Here, in a short afterword, he confirms that he still accepts the premises on which _White Light_ is based, and adds that he has also adopted a new belief: that far from being merely an impersonal metaphysical abstraction, God can and will help human beings overcome our spiritual difficulties if we just ask. (I agree, by the way.) He also gives us a bit more information about the influences that shaped the novel. Also included in this new edition is a somewhat informative but mostly irritating foreword by John Shirley, who helpfully expounds the novel's relationship to the ideals of the '60s but vastly overstates its relationship to cyberpunk. (Rucker's _Software_ and its sequels may be cyberpunk, but this one isn't.) But the main feature is still the story itself, which I happen to think is mind-blowingly cool. Check it out.
Rating: 
Summary: Bright Light? This book would be dim if you burned it!
Review: I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody. It stunk. I've read several other of Rucker's books and enjoyed them immensely. This title disappointed greatly. If this was my first try at sci-fi or Rucker, it would have been my last. The best thing I can say is that I see it is out of print and not available via Amazon; may it stay that way!
Rating:
Summary: Quantum Literature?
Review: In the strange worlds of quantum physics and the mathematics of infinity, things happen which defy common sense. Rucker was stuck in a small women's college teaching mathematics during the composition of this book, and his feelings of being out-of-place are mixed with the illogical mathematics he was studying, resulting in a book with a disturbingly chaotic flow. Dreamlike, surreal, psychedelic or just plain haphazard (depending on your frame of mind), this book lurches from storytelling to math to philosophy to self-analysis to physics to gutter humor to Kerouac to.... talking cockroaches, infinite hotels and a marriage on the rocks. Not a pleasant read -- one is never allowed to "suspend disbelief" -- and the plot twists in the book just happen, like quantum events, with no logic or internal rhythm or storytelling momentum.
Rating:
Summary: Quantum Literature?
Review: In the strange worlds of quantum physics and the mathematics of infinity, things happen which defy common sense. Rucker was stuck in a small women's college teaching mathematics during the composition of this book, and his feelings of being out-of-place are mixed with the illogical mathematics he was studying, resulting in a book with a disturbingly chaotic flow. Dreamlike, surreal, psychedelic or just plain haphazard (depending on your frame of mind), this book lurches from storytelling to math to philosophy to self-analysis to physics to gutter humor to Kerouac to.... talking cockroaches, infinite hotels and a marriage on the rocks. Not a pleasant read -- one is never allowed to "suspend disbelief" -- and the plot twists in the book just happen, like quantum events, with no logic or internal rhythm or storytelling momentum.
Rating: 
Summary: Math is Fun!
Review: It is obvious to me that mankind has a built-in desire to expand - in any and every way. Today, virtual worlds of various scope and quality are common (mostly, as games) and interconnected via the internet. I am coming to believe that the impetus for these creations must lie deep within us - it seems instinctive and critical to us in some way. The dream of the Buddha? Or, some aspect of evolution? Before the existence of the current virtual worlds came to be so common, William Gibson imagined and coined the term "cyberspace". Gibson and other writers like Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson wrote stories of "cyberspace" and its relation to the human spirit and evolution. I think, however, it was probably necessary for computer technology to advance to a certain level before imagining these stories was possible. Or, was there synergy? Did the desire, inspired by cyberpunk authors, to create these worlds further drive the development of computer technology once it had achieved a level that inspired the authors? Ah, now I have a headache. Well, before the computer technology was such as would inspire the concept of "cyberspace", there was a similar concept out of which the concept of "cyberspace" also likely grew. That concept involved a higher plane of reality that could be experienced by achieving "enlightenment" or having and out-of-body experience, sometimes with the assistance of drugs and/or sensory-deprivation tanks. This is the time and place that (I think) probably inspired the book "White Light" by Rudy Rucker. If you consider it a while, you can also see how these concepts extend in many ways into human history. These all obviously have a relationship to our current concepts regarding virtual worlds and a potential next evolutionary step for mankind - the synthesis of man and a machine of his own creation that will allow him to exist both in this world and worlds of his own creation. Ah, the headache is worse, now. In "White Light", Rudy Rucker tells the story of an out-of-body experience. Felix Rayman, the main character, is a math professor who is frustrated in many aspects of his life. His job is unfulfilling and his relationship with his wife, the mother of his toddler child, is not good. Somehow, he wills himself out of his body and into a strange realm that he struggles to understand. It is very reminiscent of the land of Oz or the Wonderland experienced by Alice with a lot of abstract mathematics added. The story is filled with discussions of abstract mathematics - infinity, infinities of infinities, the point/place/whatever where infinity and absolute zero come together. This makes the story intellectually and philosophically stimulating. I especially enjoyed the irreverent humor involving well-known figures - mathematicians, philosophers, cartoon characters, and even deities and demons. I enjoyed this work of Rudy Rucker for the same reasons I have enjoyed some of his other works. He takes me places that I have never been - in literary style, imagination, and contemplation of the nature of reality and man's current and future role in it. If you would like to experience an absolutely lunatic and irreverent comic story that is wonderfully entertaining, intellectually stimulating, and likely a direct ancestor of the cyberpunk genre, Rudy Rucker's "White Light" is it.
Rating:
Summary: Math is Fun!
Review: It is obvious to me that mankind has a built-in desire to expand - in any and every way. Today, virtual worlds of various scope and quality are common (mostly, as games) and interconnected via the internet. I am coming to believe that the impetus for these creations must lie deep within us - it seems instinctive and critical to us in some way. The dream of the Buddha? Or, some aspect of evolution? Before the existence of the current virtual worlds came to be so common, William Gibson imagined and coined the term "cyberspace". Gibson and other writers like Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson wrote stories of "cyberspace" and its relation to the human spirit and evolution. I think, however, it was probably necessary for computer technology to advance to a certain level before imagining these stories was possible. Or, was there synergy? Did the desire, inspired by cyberpunk authors, to create these worlds further drive the development of computer technology once it had achieved a level that inspired the authors? Ah, now I have a headache. Well, before the computer technology was such as would inspire the concept of "cyberspace", there was a similar concept out of which the concept of "cyberspace" also likely grew. That concept involved a higher plane of reality that could be experienced by achieving "enlightenment" or having and out-of-body experience, sometimes with the assistance of drugs and/or sensory-deprivation tanks. This is the time and place that (I think) probably inspired the book "White Light" by Rudy Rucker. If you consider it a while, you can also see how these concepts extend in many ways into human history. These all obviously have a relationship to our current concepts regarding virtual worlds and a potential next evolutionary step for mankind - the synthesis of man and a machine of his own creation that will allow him to exist both in this world and worlds of his own creation. Ah, the headache is worse, now. In "White Light", Rudy Rucker tells the story of an out-of-body experience. Felix Rayman, the main character, is a math professor who is frustrated in many aspects of his life. His job is unfulfilling and his relationship with his wife, the mother of his toddler child, is not good. Somehow, he wills himself out of his body and into a strange realm that he struggles to understand. It is very reminiscent of the land of Oz or the Wonderland experienced by Alice with a lot of abstract mathematics added. The story is filled with discussions of abstract mathematics - infinity, infinities of infinities, the point/place/whatever where infinity and absolute zero come together. This makes the story intellectually and philosophically stimulating. I especially enjoyed the irreverent humor involving well-known figures - mathematicians, philosophers, cartoon characters, and even deities and demons. I enjoyed this work of Rudy Rucker for the same reasons I have enjoyed some of his other works. He takes me places that I have never been - in literary style, imagination, and contemplation of the nature of reality and man's current and future role in it. If you would like to experience an absolutely lunatic and irreverent comic story that is wonderfully entertaining, intellectually stimulating, and likely a direct ancestor of the cyberpunk genre, Rudy Rucker's "White Light" is it.
Rating:
Summary: This book changed my life
Review: It's 1982, I'm 14, and I'm browsing through the sf section in my local library and I come across _White Light_. "Hmm... looks interesting." I think, and I check it out. Before I read this I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, after I read it I wanted to be a mathematician. It's fizzing with ideas, favourite moments have to be the sequence in Hilbert's Hotel and in the library of infinite forms, but there's nothing in here that isn't utterly wonderful and miles off the wall. Thanks for publishing this Hardwired, I've been looking for my own copy of this for years.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Fun
Review: Light, fun writing style. Concepts beyond human comprehension presented in humorous and approachable style. I read it again after a couple years and liked it better than I had the first time.
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