Surfing the Gnarl (13 page)

Keeping it simple, to me the Thief/Jesus exchange suggests that the soul can in fact be represented as software, that is, as a pattern of information that God (or a sufficiently large computer memory) can store.

Of course, realistically speaking, when it comes to immortality, we're grasping at straws. These days I'm more inclined to think that it's going to be a matter of lights-out and that's all she wrote. That used to bother me, but now it seems okay. I think when you're younger you're concerned about living long enough to do things you feel you need to do. But I've been lucky, and by now I've pretty much checked off everything on my list. Not that I wouldn't mind another twenty years.

Your work describes a universe in which anything can happen and often does. Is this a literary device, or wishful thinking?

One reason I write is so I can travel out of my ordinary world. I like running with any crazy idea that pops into my head, fleshing it out and giving it substance. I really do feel that there are some as yet unsuspected levels of reality, and SF can help us find our way there.

There's a kind of transreal aspect too. When I write a novel, I am to some extent leaving this world and going into another one—the world of the novel. So it's natural that in my novel, the main character leaves his or her world and goes off into some other dimension or alternate reality. Because that's exactly what I'm doing by writing the book.

Jim and the Flims,
SF novel, Night Shade Books, 2011.

Nested Scrolls,
PS Publishing and Tor Books, 2011.

The Ware Tetralogy,
omnibus edition of
Software, Wetware, Freeware, and Realware,
Prime Books, 2010.

Hylozoic,
SF novel (sequel to
Postsingular),
Tor Books, 2009.

Postsingular,
SF novel, Tor Books, 2007.

Mad Professor,
collected SF stories, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007.

Mathematicians in Love,
SF novel, Tor Books, 2006.

The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul,
nonfiction on computers and reality, Thunder's Mouth Press 2005; Basic Books, 2006.

Frek and the Elixir,
SF novel, Tor Books, 2004.

Software Engineeringand Computer Games,
textbook, Addison-Wesley, 2003.

Spaceland,
SF novel, Tor Books, 2002.

As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel,
historical novel, Forge Books, 2002.

Gnarl!
collected SF stories, Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000.

Realware,
SF novel, Avon Books, 2000.

Saucer Wisdom,
SF novel, Forge Books, 1999.

Seek!,
collected essays, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999.

Freeware,
SF novel, Avon Books, 1997.

The Hacker and the Ants,
SF novel, Avon Books 1994; Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002.

Transreal!,
collected poems, SF stories, and essays, WCS Books, 1991.

All The Visions,
memoir, Ocean View Books, 1991.

The Hollow Earth,
SF novel, William Morrow & Co., 1990; Avon Books, 1992; Monkeybrain Books, 2008.

Wetware,
SF novel, Avon Books, 1988, Avon Books, 1997.

Mind Tools,
nonfiction on mathematics and information, Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

The Secret of Life,
SF novel, Bluejay Books, 1985; ElectricStory, 2001.

Master of Space and Time,
SF novel, Bluejay Books, 1984; Baen Books, 1985; Running Press, 2005.

The Fourth Dimension,
nonfiction, Houghton Mifflin, 1984.

Light Fuse and Get Away,
self-published poetry chapbook, Carp Press, 1983.

The Sex Sphere,
SF novel, Ace Books, 1983; E-Reads, 2008.

The Fifty-Seventh Franz Kafka,
collected SF stories, Ace Books, 1983.

Software,
SF novel, Ace Books 1982; Avon Books, 1987; Avon Books, 1997.

Infinity and the Mind,
nonfiction, Birkhäuser, 1982; Bantam. 1983; Princeton University Press, 1995, 2005.

Spacetime Donuts,
SF novel, Ace Books 1981; E-Reads, 2008.

White Light,
SF novel, Ace Books 1980; Wired Books 1997; Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001.

Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension,
nonfiction, Dover, 1977.

MONDO 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge,
HarperCollins, 1992 (with R.U. Sirius and Queen Mu).

Semiotext(e) SF,
Autonomedia, 1989 (with Peter Wilson and Robert Anton Wilson).

Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder,
Arbor House, 1987.

Speculations on the Fourth Dimension: Selected Writings of Charles Howard Hinton,
Dover, 1983.

The Pop Game Framework,
San Jose State University, 2003.

CAPOW,
San Jose State University, 1998 (with a team of students).

Artificial Life Lab,
Waite Group Press, 1993.

CHAOS: James Gleick's Chaos Software,
Autodesk, 1990 (with Josh Gordon and John Walker).

CA Lab: Rudy Rucker's Cellular Automata Laboratory,
Autodesk, 1989 (with John Walker).

O
NE OF THE ORIGINAL
D
READ
L
ORDS
of science fiction's cyberpunk movement, Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is the great-great-great-grandson of philosopher G.W.F. Hegel.

Since his incarnation in 1946, Rucker has been a mathematician, science author
(The Fourth Dimension),
online editor
(Flurb),
award-winning SF writer (two Philip K. Dick Awards for his
Ware
novels) and an old-school computer hacker.

He also paints.

A native of Kentucky, he lives in Silicon Valley with his wife, a Hungarian beauty.

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