Everything about Rudy Rucker totally explained
Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (born
March 22,
1946 in
Louisville, Kentucky) is an American
computer scientist and
science fiction author, and is one of the founders of the
cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he's best known for the novels in the
Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which (
Software and
Wetware) both won
Philip K. Dick Awards. At present he edits the science fiction
webzine Flurb.
Rucker is the great-great-great-grandson of the philosopher
G.W.F. Hegel.
Rucker attended
St. Xavier High School before earning a B.A. in
mathematics from
Swarthmore College, and a Master's and Ph.D. in mathematics from
Rutgers University. He taught at various universities, including
Randolph-Macon Women's College in
Lynchburg, Virginia from 1980-1982, before settling at
San José State University in 1986, from which he retired in 2004. A mathematician with serious philosophical interests, he's written
The Fourth Dimension;
Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension; and
Infinity and the Mind.
Princeton University Press published new editions of
Infinity and the Mind in 1995 and in 2005, both with new prefaces; the first edition is cited with fair frequency in academic literature.
As his "own alternative to cyberpunk," Rucker developed a writing style he terms
Transrealism. Transrealism, as outlined in his 1983 essay "The Transrealist Manifesto," is science fiction based on the author's own life and immediate perceptions, mixed with fantastic elements that symbolize psychological change. Many of Rucker's novels and short stories apply these ideas. One example of Rucker's Transrealist works is
Saucer Wisdom, a novel in which the main character is
abducted by aliens. Rucker and his publisher marketed the book, tongue in cheek, as non-fiction.
Thanks to a grant from the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Rucker taught math at the
Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, 1978-80. His earliest Transrealist novel,
White Light, was written in
Heidelberg. This Transrealist novel is based on his experiences at the
State University of New York at Geneseo, where he taught from 1972 to 1978.
Rucker often uses his novels to explore scientific or mathematical ideas;
White Light examines the concept of infinity, while the
Ware Tetralogy (written from 1982 through 2000) is in part an explanation of the use of
natural selection to develop
computer software (a subject also developed in his
The Hacker and the Ants, written in 1994). His novels also put forward a
mystical philosophy that Rucker has summarized in an essay titled, with only a bit of irony, "The Central Teachings of Mysticism" (included in
Seek!, 1999).
His recent non-fiction book,
The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning Of Life, and How To Be Happy summarizes the various philosophies he's believed over the years and ends with the tentative conclusion that we might profitably view the world as made of computations, with the final remark, "perhaps this universe is perfect."
Works
- The Ware Tetralogy
- Transrealist novels
- White Light (1980)
- Spacetime Donuts (1981)
- The Sex Sphere (1983)
- The Secret of Life (1985)
- The Hacker and the Ants (1994)(Revised 'Version 2.0' 2003)
- Saucer Wisdom (1999) novel marketed as non-fiction
- Other Novels
- Story collections
- The Fifty-Seventh Franz Kafka (1983)
- Transreal!, also includes some non-fiction essays (1991)
- Gnarl! (2000), complete short stories
- Mad Professor (2006)
- Non-fiction
List
on Rucker's SJSU web page. With links to each book's web page.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Rudy Rucker'.
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