The Sex Sphere

by Rudy Rucker

Punk-rock SF! Nuclear terrorists, a political kidnapping, and a giant woman from the fourth dimension. Say goodbye to the old world. This literary tour de force explores the landscape of the higher dimensions with the humor and vigor of an underground cartoon. At the same time, it manages to be a heartfelt and realistic depiction of a contemporary marriage.

Genres: Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

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

[Angus McKeogh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thus far my least favorite of Rucker’s books yet as a group they’ve all been above average in my view. I was really enthralled with the terrorist kidnapping plot and Bitter being made to build a nuclear bomb; however, the secondary plot line about the hyperspace sex sphere was honestly way too outlandish and unbelievable to maintain pace with the better plot. Overall I think his storytelling genius has been better displayed in his other books.

[The Final Song ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The End of Evangelion but is a Giant ASS

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking to try out my new Amazon Kindle, I went searching for something new by one of my favorite authors. My search ended when I found this delightful title. Of course, it's not really new at all. In fact, Rucker explains in his Afterward, it's one of his earliest writings.

The book is exactly what you'd expect, given the title. Rucker's books have always amused me with a ribald sense of humor mixed with fun science or speculative science.

It's a short book, so even when the action seems mindless or cliched (this was Rucker as a young author, after all) you'd be hard-pressed to tire of it. The multi-dimensional ass will surely entertain most readers as it did myself.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was really kind of awful, but in a fascinatingly horrible way so that I continued to read all the way to the rather disappointing ending. I found it interesting that that author insisted in the first part of his introduction that he had given women equal opportunity in the book, like he had to make a point of it. And I guess he did give them opportunity, though it would have been nice to have a better book to go along with the strong female roles. At least it was a pretty quick read.

[Les · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the concept of extending the concepts of Flatland. And a lot of the story was entertaining. But I found that using sex as the vehicle for this really didn't work. In many ways, the attempts to be shocking and over the top were really just gratuitous and distracting from what could have been a good story.

[Tranquillus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Generally speaking it is nothing but trash. Maybe, the best author’s achievement is on p. 51: “They both get out now, Beatrice with a machine gun, Giulia with her breasts.”
Or perchance on p. 53: “Vuolsi così colà dove si puote ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.”
But it is Dante’s poetry, not Rudy Rucker’s. Funny that the Italian terrorist with a beautiful name Orali can quote “Divina Commedia”.
In English it means: “thus it is willed in that place where what is willed can be; and ask no more” (Translation by Arthur John Butler).
If you expect to find interesting characters in this literally fucking novel, I can tell you in Dante’s dialect: “Lasciate ogni speranza”. It’s a book about pricks, cunts, balls, boobs and cum, not about people. The plot is quite primitive: after much fucking, licking, sucking and swallowing the American family settles down in Virginia. The name of that state, by the by, means ‘virgin’ in Latin. Here, the story ends; about a decent family life anything of interest can hardly be told, can it?

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this 4 stars because the book is outrageous and original. That stands for most of the Rucker books that I have read. A physicist traps a hyper particle that turns out to be a hyper-sexual female being that manifests in our dimension as a sphere comprised of ass, breasts, mouth, etc. The sphere radiates sexuality that is irresistible to men. The hero of the novel, Alwin, is kidnapped in Rome, and the sphere is handed to him by the dying physicist who was shot during the kidnapping. Alwin, also a physicist, is in the hands of terrorists that want him to construct an atomic bomb. Alwin learns that the sphere has been arranging events for the terrorists so that the bomb can free her from our dimension. Then, things get weird! This book is not as successful as Spacetime Donuts, White Light, or Software because it is simply too absurd, but, if you are in the right frame of mind, it is often hilarious.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I could hear Sybil downstairs moaning, screaming in peak sex-come frenzy. Faithless whore. The sphere grew bigger.”

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams when I was looking for something off the beaten path and managed to find this in the "out of print" pulp section of the bookstore recently. [I put out of print in quotes because it appears this book is easily available... as an ebook... which doesn't really seem so "out of print" to me]. Mostly I was attracted to the delightful front cover (seriously, it looks to me like it came from the 60s or 70s, not the early 80s!). But the description also made it sound like a fun little romp was in my future.

Hahahaha! No. Maybe I should have also read the intro in which the author attempted some tongue in cheek humor that I completely missed the first time around (I read the introduction twice because the extra dimensional stuff does not stick when one reads it half asleep). And while there were a few nuggets of science-y delight, the main character was so one-dimensional (heh) and the action so rote that I barely made it out of the middle awake. I certainly didn't actually care about any of the characters. Fortunately, it is a short, quick read and I wasn't expecting it to actually be good or anything (fun, yes. Good, no).

All in all I think the science-fiction reading public would have been just fine if this book had faded into the mists of out of print obscurity. I'm sure it's nice in Hilbert Space this time of year.

[Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Demented and silly. Didn't really care for this tale.

[Guy Ferguson]

Enjoyed. Quarter of a century on, Rudy shows in his recent works that he is still an ideas man for the lost generation. And his characters are decent.