Rating: 
Summary: energetic, imaginative & fun..
Review: ..what else can you ask from a science fiction book? Good characterization, plausible sciences & other stuff you can find in any boring science speculation book scribbled by engineers. Rudy Rucker belongs to the GREAT freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think van Vogt, Charles Harness and Barrington Bayley - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts. Rucker knows his science but isn't limited by it - he writes straight from his subunconscious pool, winging it with gusto and joy. Engineers beware, this works on dream-logic and grabs you by the jellyfish.
Rating:
Summary: energetic, imaginative & fun..
Review: ..what else can you ask from a science fiction book? Good characterization, plausible sciences & other stuff you can find in any boring science speculation book scribbled by engineers. Rudy Rucker belongs to the GREAT freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think van Vogt, Charles Harness and Barrington Bayley - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts. Rucker knows his science but isn't limited by it - he writes straight from his subunconscious pool, winging it with gusto and joy. Engineers beware, this works on dream-logic and grabs you by the jellyfish.
Rating:
Summary: energetic, imaginative & fun..
Review: ..what else can you ask from a science fiction book? Good characterization, plausible sciences & other stuff you can find in any boring science speculation book scribbled by engineers. Rudy Rucker belongs to the GREAT freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think van Vogt, Charles Harness and Barrington Bayley - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts. Rucker knows his science but isn't limited by it - he writes straight from his subunconscious pool, winging it with gusto and joy. Engineers beware, this works on dream-logic and grabs you by the jellyfish.
Rating: 
Summary: Comparisons? Try Heinlein X Egan.
Review: Comparisons never quite seem to work. The closest I can get, however, is Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and Greg Egan's "Quarantine". Why? Well, the book <feels> like a prepubescent Heinleinesque make-love-not-war-on-the-moon jaunt, but has a <mind> reminiscent of Greg Egan's heavy physics sci-fi. It seems like a neat synthesis of the two, in fact. On the other hand, it's just a damn good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Vintage Rucker: more twisted than ever
Review: Freeware picks up where Rucker's other work left off, with enough of the requisite re-hashing to make the novel stand on its own. Artificial Intelligence has taken on another even more bizarre form in this novel than in Software or Wetware. The Boppers are gone in the wake of a cataclism that destroys all electronic hardware. Out of the ashes come the Moldies, sentient artificial life made of a piezo-electric elastic substance that enables them to take on any form, and to perform virtually any task. The Moldies smell awful, hence their collective nickname. As ever, Rucker takes a serviceable premise, and adds a dash of his patented twisted reality. Before you know it your following a thoroughly perverse tale with disgustingly dysfunctional characters through a bitter vision of the future. Rucker's characters are perpetual losers with invariably warped motives. Dialogue is often idiotic, but somehow stylishly so. Once again Rucker has created a novel that will make some cringe, and others put it down. But the patient reader will be rewarded with an ending that - even if it doesn't blow your mind - will at least provoke thought. This is no small feat given the seemingly purposeful baseness of the entire plot build-up. Rucker was arguably one of the first authors to write in the style that's come to be known as cyberpunk. His vision then was unique. His earlier novels exert influence on the way much sci-fi is now written. With Freeware, Rucker makes it clear that his vision will continue to be - if not revolutionary - then at least way wierder than most.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful tale of a world shared by humans and A-life.
Review: I loved this book. It's light in style and narrative structure, and rucker doesn't take himself at all serriously. Rudy Rucker is a brilliant mathmetician and science fiction writer, and his protagonist, Randy Karl Tucker, is an uneducated redneck, whose primary passion is for sex with artificial life forms that smell of cheese. Other characters include a down-to-earth California surfer girl who, along with her stoner mathmatician husband, runs a fleabag sea-side resort in the autonomous nation of California, the head of a corporate empire who made his fortune selling burgers made from the cloned flesh of his half-human wife, and a delighful host of "moldies," artificial life forms with the power of gods, short lifespans, and generally no other ambition than to buy enough of the expensive high-tech goo of which they're made to form a child to perpetuate their own software. This book is an absolute gem.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I the Only one that thinks this book truly stinks?
Review: I really don't see this book as that inventive or great. To someone who has read of the wonders and possibilities of nanotechnology, this book just comes off as another lame attempt at sensationalizing AI without altering the structure s of human thought. C'mon, really. And the characters were just transparent. I had to physically rip my frontal lobe out of my skull and smack it around just to keep it from falling into a terminal boredom coma. Keep trying Rudy.
Rating:
Summary: Made me sick before I could read 1/3 of the book
Review: I really enjoyed some of Rucker's previous work, but here his imagination has taken a turn so disgusting that I could not continue.
Rating: 
Summary: The best of the three.
Review: I thought this was the best of the three in the series. I especially liked how he told the story from several points of view.
Rating:
Summary: For RR fans, pass this up.
Review: I've read a majority of Rudy Ruckers fiction, and this is without a doubt the most disappointing. Most of his work has a cerebral taste, but this work comes off as a cerebral distaste. This book is for those who have read Wetware & Software and must continue - otherwise pass it up.
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