Rudy Rucker

Marc Laidlaw

Library copy that has no wear on the inside. Some stamps and stickers on the outside and back end page.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Ohio

One of the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog's Best of May 2019! One of The Verge’s 10 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Check Out in May! In his first new novel since 2013, cyberpunk pioneer Rudy Rucker offers his own smart, hilarious, and uniquely gnarly science fiction version of the classic road-trip story. When a seemingly-innocent trumpet solo somehow opens a transdimensional connection to Mappyworld, a parallel universe containing a single, endless plain divided by ridges into basin-like worlds, three California teens find themselves taken on a million mile road trip across a landscape of alien civilizations in a beat-up, purple 80s wagon . . . with a dark-energy motor, graphene tires and quantum shocks, of course. Their goal? To stop carnivorous flying saucers from invading Earth. And, just maybe, to find love along the way. Million Mile Road Trip is a phantasmagoric roller-coaster ride—mind warpingly smart and wildly funny, with a warmly beating heart. Night Shade Books’ ten-volume series with Rudy Rucker collects nine of the brilliantly weird novels for which the mathematician-turned-author is known, as well as a tenth, never-before-published book, Million Mile Road Trip. We’re proud to collect in one place so much of the work of this influential figure in the early cyberpunk scene, and to share Rucker’s fascinating, unique worldview with an entirely new generation of readers.

Million Mile Road Trip

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Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Utah

What Gnarly Computation Taught Me about Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, goes the ancient saying. This concept is at the root of the computational worldview, which basically says that very complex systems-the world we live in-have their beginnings in simple mathematical equations. We've lately come to understand that such an algorithm is only the start of a never-ending story - the real action occurs in the unfolding consequences of the rules. The chip-in-a-box computers so popular in our time have acted as a kind of microscope, letting us see into the secret machinery of the world. In Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, Rucker - known as the father of cyberpunk - uses whimsical drawings, fables, and humor to demonstrate that everything is a computation - that thoughts, computations, and physical processes are all the same. Rucker discusses the linguistic and computational advances that make this kind of "digital philosophy" possible, and explains how, like every great new principle, the computational worldview contains the seeds of a next step.

The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul

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California

The creator of the first robots with real brains, Cobb Anderson finds himself another aged "pheezer" with a bad heart, and when he is offered immortality by his creations, he risks his body and his world. Reissue.

Software

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New book (remaindered copy) #scifi #novel #paperback #adult #contemporary 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Kansas

The lives of scientist Alan Turing and author William Burroughs are turned upside down in this off-the-wall sci-fi caper from Rudy Rucker. What if Alan Turing, founder of the modern computer age, faked his suicide to escape assassination by the secret service? What if he then became the lover of Beat author William Burroughs? And what if they then mutated into giant shapeshifting slugs, fled the FBI agents tracking them, raised Burroughs’s wife—killed in a tragic drunken mishap—from the dead, and, finally, tweaked the H-bombs of Los Alamos to use them for a very different purpose? Turing & Burroughs is a wild beatnik adventure: compulsively readable, hysterically funny, with insane warps and twists—and a bad attitude throughout. Night Shade Books is proud to present new editions of influential mathematician-turned-author Rudy Rucker’s brilliantly weird novels, sharing Rucker’s fascinating and unique approach to science fiction with an entirely new generation of readers.

Turing & Burroughs

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#paperback #scifi #futuristic #quest #adventure

Iowa

In the year 3003, nothing in the world is the same, except maybe that adolescents are still embarrassed by their parents. Society and the biosphere alike have been transformed by biotechnology, and the natural world is almost gone.

Frek Huggins is a boy from a broken family, unusual becaise he was conceived without technological help or genetic modifications. His dad, Carb, is a malcontent who left behind Frek's mom and the Earth itself several years ago.

Everything changes when Frek finds the Anvil, a small flying saucer, under his bed, and it tells him he is destined to save the world. The repressive forces of Gov, the mysterious absolute ruler of Earth, descend on Frek, take away the Anvil, and interrogate him forcefully enough to damage his memory. Frek flees with Wow, his talking dog, to seek out Carb and some answers. But the untrustworthy alien in the saucer has other plans, including claiming exclusive rights to market humanity to the galaxy at large, and making Frek a hero.

Frek and the Elixir is a profound, playful SF epic by the wild and ambitious Rudy Rucker.

Frek and the Elixir

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North Carolina

A Novel of Peter Bruegel

As Above, So Below

New York

A Novel of the Fourth Dimension

Activating an experimental machine on New Year's Eve, Joe Cube is contacted by Momo, a woman from the fourth dimension who promised to make him rich if he will help her with a special project. Reprint.

Spaceland

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Learn about Godel’s rotating universe through quantum mechanics where Rucker believes that math, science, and logic merge with the fantastic.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Philosophy

In Infinity and the Mind, Rudy Rucker leads an excursion to that stretch of the universe he calls the "Mindscape," where he explores infinity in all its forms: potential and actual, mathematical and physical, theological and mundane. Rucker acquaints us with Gödel's rotating universe, in which it is theoretically possible to travel into the past, and explains an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which billions of parallel worlds are produced every microsecond. It is in the realm of infinity, he maintains, that mathematics, science, and logic merge with the fantastic. By closely examining the paradoxes that arise from this merging, we can learn a great deal about the human mind, its powers, and its limitations. Using cartoons, puzzles, and quotations to enliven his text, Rucker guides us through such topics as the paradoxes of set theory, the possibilities of physical infinities, and the results of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. His personal encounters with Gödel the mathematician and philosopher provide a rare glimpse at genius and reveal what very few mathematicians have dared to admit: the transcendent implications of Platonic realism.

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Rudy Rucker

Million Mile Road Trip

Rudy Rucker

The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul

Rudy Rucker

Software

Rudy Rucker

Turing & Burroughs

Rudy Rucker

Frek and the Elixir

Rudy Rucker

As Above, So Below

Rudy Rucker

Spaceland

Rudy Rucker

Infinity and the Mind The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite

Robert Sheckley; Rudy Rucker

Minotaur Maze