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What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Rudy Rucker |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
| Notes: (W) - Ware Series |
Realware
(W) |
Wetware (W)
The Hollow Earth
The Hacker and the Ants
Freeware (W)
Sacuer Wisdom
Spaceland |
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 Our
Ranking 
Realware is the latest book by Rudy Rucker, who while I've heard of, this is the
first book I had read by him. I think it is safe to say it will also be the last.
Basically I bought this on an impulse while browsing a local bookstore. The flashy
cover sort of stood out at me, and then the quotes on the book delivered the final
sale, so I picked it up. Looking back at the quotes now, "One of Science Fiction's
wittiest writers" and "A genius...a cult hero among discriminating cyberpunkers"
the sirens should have gone off that neither of them were about the book itself
but rather the writer. Well, being in a generous mood that day, I paid out the
$14 (for a paperback no less) and purchased probably the worst book I own. Where
to begin? Well, to start with, the characters throughout the book are terrible.
They are completely inconsistent, unbelievable, and almost painful to read. They
flip flop emotions within seconds, from nearly dying (or even dying in some cases)
to complaining about food in back to back seconds. In addition most of the characters,
(actually all of them) were just idiots. One of them, Yoke, has in her possession
one of the most powerful items you can imagine, yet she is still forced to perform
actions she doesn't want to do. I sat there reading this wanting to smack some
sense into them. Finally, to be honest, there is no way at all to feel for these
characters. They are incredibly shallow and just impossible to relate with. The
dialogue is horrible. It is nearly at a third grade level in all honesty, and
is just so unrealistic I'm amazed an editor approved this. I had the feeling Rucker
was trying to somehow replicate the way Philip K Dick writes his dialogue, which
while a bit surreal and flippant, it manages to portray the emotions Dick was
aiming for. Well, the only thing Rucker really managed to portray with his characters
and dialogue was sappiness. The plot itself wasn't a whole lot better. Basically,
it's set in the future, where aliens have landed on Earth. They give Yoke a device
called an "alla" which basically allows her to create anything she desires out
of thin air. The aliens are trying to conduct some kind of research by seeing
what effect the allas would have on Earth's society. Obviously, being humans,
they go ballistic over these allas and society is turned a bit upside down. Rucker,
I think, was trying to give some kind of social commentary with this story. The
problem really is, one, the commentary was extremely obvious and nothing earth
shattering, and two, it was buried beneath the inane babble of his characters.
All in all, this is honestly one of the worst books I've ever finished. It actually
aggravates me to no end, that I would put down a book like Steve Aylett's Inflatable
Volunteer and I actually finished this one. At least while Inflatable was confusing
and had little coherence, the writing was brilliant. Realware had nothing to offer
and I'm still waiting on some of the supposed "wit" to kick in. Unless you are
stuck in a desert with this and you've already stared at the nearest cactus for
four straight weeks, avoid this at all costs. Even then, I think I'd rather start
poking myself with the cactus needles then read this again. |
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