Mad Professor: The Uncollected Short Stories of Rudy Rucker

by Rudy Rucker

At the untamed frontiers of intelligence, consciousness, matter, and reality lies Rudy Rucker's The Mad Professor, a collection of twelve mind-bending science fiction stories that probe the outer limits of possibility. Rucker, an accomplished computer scientist and mathematician with numerous science books and novels to his credit, brings his deep and varied knowledge of the mind, mathematics, and the ever-weird and wondrous workings of the physical universe to the stories collected here. In Chu and the Nants we read of a bizarre future following a Verge Singularity, in which hyperintelligent computers have taken over the solar system. Panpsychism Proved breaks down the boundaries between mind and matter, exploring the notion that "every object has a mind." And Six Thought Experiments Concerning the Nature of Computation is an exhilarating collection of mini-stories taking us to the outrageous extremes of theoretical speculation. In The Mad Professor, Rucker deploys the full range of his writing talent and scientific knowledge to take us on a wild romp through the known, the unknown, and the awesomely peculiar.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Speculative Fiction, Collections

301 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2006

About the author

Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre. He is best known for his Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which won Philip K. Dick awards. Presently, Rudy Rucker edits the science fiction webzine Flurb.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with most any anthology, a mixed bag but it is Rucker. What's great is great and what isn't is still very good. Standouts include Elves of the Subdimensions (with Paul Di Filippo), Six Thought Experiments Concerning the Nature of Computation, Junk DNA (with Bruce Sterling), and Cobb Wakes Up. Also, Rucker's intro is well worth the price of admission, with some fascinating insights into his creative process.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthology of mostly light-hearted SF and fantasy stories. In some cases collaborations with other authors such as Bruce Sterling and John Shirley. Dedicated to Robert Sheckley (and arguably this is his kind of stuff).

[Fred Hann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rudy Rucker is hit-or-miss but if you have a math background I think you will find his hits are worth the misses.
Very sophisticated treatments of profound mathematical concepts under the guise of simple storytelling.

[Pachyderm Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilariously disheveled short stories.

[Christoph · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more I read Rucker, the more I realize why I loved him in the moment in time I found him. As I reviewed in my final reading of the Warez tetralogy, Rucker always reads in a juvenile tone. Its not necessarily a bad thing; I definitely wouldn't call the genre anything I would ever take seriously, and reading through many of these short stories, I can't say I would take these seriously either. But then, they definitely are not meant to be taken to be so. Rucker writes science fiction first and for most, although, I might call it SciFi more than anything, and its a very unique brand of it. A sort of gonzo SciFi totally specific to him. Anyway, Rucker is normally lumped in with the Cyberpunk genre, mostly thanks to Warez, but then I am not certain that genre fits either. Rucker's style is his own, no imitation could be accepted because its impossible to duplicate.

Here we have a collection of fourteen crazy stories, which Rucker categorizes as being built on four types: thought experiments, power-chords, gnarliness, and wit. This is basically how he has defined his own work and its telling. Its not to say that a story can be divided into one of these types, but that he uses these four qualities to generate his crazy stories. The result of which can be clearly seen. He further explains his notion of the Mad Professor, labeling the collection. He claims to not be the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde hybrid that so often is used to animate the Mad Professor because, as he sees it, the role of this character is to be the illogical embodiment of logic. As he claims it, logic pervades the creation of his stories, and as a Mathematics professor infamous for the non-fiction children's book The Fourth Dimension, it is clearly so.

Of the fourteen stories, there are some that just don't do it for me, quite a few that is. But I have grown up, these stories would have fascinated me more in my youth. Nonetheless, many of them do impress even the adult me. There is the obligatory "lost chapter" of the Warez tetralogy, for instance. But most of his best works here, sad to say almost, are co-written with others. My personal fave, Jenna and Me, is co-written with his son, Rucker Jr. Its the (almost true!) story of the Secret Service whisking off his son to Texas to reimplant the memories of Jenna Bush after her mind had been erased after a failed conspiracy to turn Chelsea Clinton Republican with a hip, new drug. Rucker Jr has the memories because a new cell phone worm has been recording the phone conversations of Ms Bush and dropping them on the ISP server he runs. The same server he uses to, coincidentally, to blog about Ms Bush via pop culture repostings. Needless to say, the insanity of it all makes it worth it.

The other amazing story for me (and at the same time the one I can least hear Rucker's voice in) is a story called Pockets. It actually very much reminds me of an old Star Trek TNG episode I am sometimes haunted by where Dr Crusher is slowly witnessing the entire Enterprise being swallowed by an unseen force which turns out to be a space-time bubble or some such gobbling her up and removing her from reality. In this story, the same is applied to folks who are using a similar notion (all corroborated by Rucker's Fourth Dimension concepts) to escape reality as if it were some kind of drug which exacts a heavy toll on the users since they age more rapider while inside these bubbles. The son of a man who is constantly hiding in there several years after the loss of his wife wants desperately to save him from this hell. Meanwhile, a corporation looking to capitalize on this technology seeks him out to help them make it a large-scale enterprise. But it turns out, their plans are more devious.

All in all, I must say I felt more obligated to read this then desire. I got this book thanks to Mr John Buckman of bookmooch.com in thanks for volunteering at their ALA booth in 2011. I was glad to do it since I love the service, but also appreciated the book. So I have read it and now I serve it up for the first hungry moocher.

[Aiyana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is the first book of Rucker's that I've ever read, and I loved it. Zany, mind-mending, at times hilarious, and often thought-provoking, these weird stories push at the edges of what speculative fiction is supposed to look like. I can't help thinking this is what might have resulted if Philip K. Dick and Mike Resnick had stayed up all night smoking good weed, listening to TED talks and watching "Into the Wormhole."

Favorite quote, for purely aesthetic reasons: "I look sexier when my mane is lustrous." (p 104, "Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch")

In addition to leaving me wanting to read more Rucker, especially The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy, this book has also piqued my interest in picking up:
Greetings: & Other Stories
Neutrino Drag: Stories
Howl
Visionary in Residence: Stories
The Other End, and
Accelerando

[dandye Dye]

I've been into Rudy Rucker since I picked up Mondo 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge : Cyberpunk, Virtual Reality, Wetware, Designer Aphrodisiacs, Artificial Life, Techno-Erotic Paganism from the English language shelf at the Metso Library in Tampere, Finland in 1997. So I was happy to see a new release (2007) of his short stories.

Like all of Herr Doktor Rucker's fiction, to enjoy it you need to have deep appreciation of his recurring themes: Hilbert Space, cellular automata, and substance abusing aliens/robots/AIs. It ain't literary fiction but I give all Sci-Fi a pass on that as long as the ideas are good. If you've read Rudy Rucker, and you liked it, then you'll like this too. If you've read Rudy Rucker, and you hated it (I'm thinking of you Devon), then you won't like this either.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Math meets science fiction. And its dirty. Woo science!

[Tim Weakley · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. Most of the stories were just too far out there to be interesting, and I normally love oddball stuff. This was just too odd for the most part.

[Luke Rasmussen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun collection of sci-fi, with interesting twists and unique angles. Some stories were a little bizarre to me, but all had a unique charm.

[Karen Grothe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories - hard science. Some were very weird. Some were pretty sexy.