The Ware Tetralogy

Ware #1-4

by Rudy Rucker, William Gibson (Introduction)

An omnibus of Rudy Rucker's groundbreaking series [Software, Wetware, Freeware, and Realware], with an introduction by William Gibson, author of Neuromancer.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Cyberpunk, Ebooks, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Robots

752 pages, Paperback

First published March 29, 2010

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

[Modi123 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four books spanning nearly twenty years (Software (1982), Wetware (1988), Freeware (1997), and Realware (2000)) and encompassing a shifting view on technology, drug use, sex, and the direction of humanity. Over all - I ended up really enjoying the direction this series took - though that was not my initial sentiment. Initial I took the books as a series of cheap melding of beatnick, science fiction, and an inappropriate dash of 'new words'. That still may be true for the first book, but taken as a whole series the whole concept works well. Much like a mesh of Fariña and Asimov.

~~ Spoilers a head ~~

The books follow a core family line as sudden and unexpected changes shape and alter humanity's development (though in the end the author's general pessimistic view wins out and shows that - even with marvelous things occurring around us - humans, on a whole, are still brutish and bent on destroying his neighbors). The main patriarch, Cobb, is the man that unshackled robots (boppers) from the Asimov three laws, and they moved to the moon. The deep coded requirements to evolve brought about an interesting take on a society of calculating and super smart beings pushing up against the meat of humanity.

Boppers try to beget meatbops. Human retaliation begets moldies. Moldies bring in metamartians. Earth (mudders) ideas and priorities conflict with the moon colony's (loonies). It is a shifting world of external forces that cut off one path and push another.
Tech wise I really enjoyed the programmable plastic called impolex. A shapable storage and processing.. putty?.. that can be universally applied with 'DIMs'. Talk about a programmer's dream! This substance is also setup as a conflict in need and priorities between the humans and nonhumans.

The constant drum of change beats heavily through out this series. Change in environments, cultural desires, escape, views and consciousness through drug use, and trying to minimize change (or at least stave it off).

The end of the series rang a bit hollow and a little too neat for me, but I'll let it slide. It was a hell of a ride through eighteen years of the author's views on technology change (as our real world tech revolution happened), and seeing that translate across a hundred or so years of book time. A solid use of unique tech concepts, and after a while the 'new words' peppered through out the book grew on me.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first of these novels shortly after it first came out, and was fascinated by Rucker's imagination. His idea and descriptions of Florida as a kind of nature preserve for Baby Boomers has stayed vivid through the intervening years. Reading all four novels in fairly rapid succession, what stays with me is his optimism about humankind: despite violence, greed, selfishness and our other vices, Rucker ultimately sees happy endings for us all. I will probably reread these novels whenever I am feeling doubtful or pessimistic about the course of our history.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read separately & liked, but this mini-review is prompted by a SUPER EBOOK SALE:
All FOUR books for 99c! https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?...
One week sale, expires Monday, April 1

By memory, these range from 3 to 4 stars, 3.5 overall? Read long, long ago. Last one read in 2000. OK, this century, anyway, -- & it was (by far) the weakest. But hey, for 25c/book.....

[Daniel Silveyra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic start, runs out of steam by "Realware"

I wouldn't recommend any of these novels to anyone who doesn't like sci-fi. This is not a cross-over book with wide appeal. If you like sci-fi and you like Phillip K. Dick, read these now.

That being said, I'd give the first two books of the series 4 stars, 3 stars for the third book and two for the last one. I probably should have stopped after the second book.

The books are full of ideas which are logically derived from their starting premise (e.g. Artificial intelligence, the fact that human identity is just information, the future of narcotics and the thin line between them and other entertainment, etc.) - the arguments are reasonable and interesting to consider. As Rucker acknowledges, some of these ideas are quite common in sci-if now (that makes them less impactful for a reader today) but they weren't when he wrote them. The most fun you get out of these books is from the quirky speculations Rucker makes on the impact of certain technologies...it is also refreshing that the books are neither dystopian nor utopian.

The plot lines are well constructed and compelling, for the most part. They do tend to have that "just so" element where all loose ends are neatly tied up at the end of each novel; you can almost feel when Rucker realizes he's running out of time in the book and begins resolving subplots by the dozen in a single chapter.

The characters have a similar problem: most of them are interesting and quirky, but most of them can be summarized in a few sentences with little loss of information. Characters are driven by the plot, not the other way around. Similarly, the prose is functional with relatively little beauty. The dialogues are pretty cartoonish, and I am not referring to the futuristic slang (actually very cool) but to the underlying thoughts being conveyed.

All these issues make these books something less than a classic for me. However, they were a heck of a lot of fun to read (except at the end) so no regrets.

[Gendou · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book all about taking drugs and having horrid sex with loveless, disgusting robots.
There is no science fiction in this book, beyond the magical idea that robotics and nanotechnology can magically make anything possible.
I have not yet read anything so base and devoid of merit.
Finishing this book felt like eating a rotten-eggs and diarrhea omelet.
(I only post reviews for books I FINISH reading!)

One main character, Sta-Hi, is a drug addled, adult-sized baby who is married to a woman's body controlled by a psychopathic robotic cloak.
Another major character, Randy, is addicted to sex with stinking "Moldies".
Moldies are hybrids between robotic machinery and a kind of biological mold.
The reader is continuously and vividly reminded of the vile and awful smell of the Moldies, usually while some human is busy copulating with it.

Sound vomitous? Yes, it is.

[Pierre A Renaud]

"Between 1982 and 2000, Rudy Rucker wrote a series of four sci-fi novels that formed The Ware Tetralogy. The first two books in the series – Software and Wetware – won the Philip K. Dick Award for best novel. And William Gibson has called Rucker “a natural-born American street surrealist” or, more simply, one sui generis dude. And now the even better part: Rucker (who happens to be the great-great-great-grandson of Hegel) has released The Ware Tetralogy under a Creative Commons license, and you can download the full text for free in PDF and RTF formats. In total, the collection runs 800+ pages." http://www.rudyrucker.com/wares/rucke... or http://www.rudyrucker.com/wares/rucke..., via http://www.openculture.com/2012/03/fr...

[Paul Hancock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tetralogy is in four parts, thats what makes it a tetralogy. What makes it a really good read is that each of the four parts are very different in style, pace, length, and theme. Each part explores a different dimension of consciousness, with a variety of different 'wares': software, hardware, wetware, and realware. I found each of the books enjoyable for different reasons. The characters common throughout the books helped to tie the books together, but there were enough new characters that the character development didn't stagnate.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the first of this tetralogy, but it went steadily downhill, and I couldn't bring myself to the last...

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. I see what all the fuss is about Rucker. He's 'out there' and I enjoyed the first 2 books in the series a lot but number 3 and definitely number 4 left me somewhat jaded. Real Ware in particular I found tedious after the first third. It became unfunny and rambling about trying to make too much out of too little plot line. Maybe I shouldn't have read all 4 on the trot but when they are bundled together in one massive volume what do the publishers expect?
I recommend the first 2 but perhaps it would be better to get them as separate volumes and make a decision on the last 2 depending on how you get on with the first 2. Disaapointingly pragmatic perhaps but I'm only thinking of your pocket.

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

Now this was an actual roller coaster.
From rebellious robots in the moon wanting to "eat" their creator brain to give them immortality, people taking drugs that melt them into puddles of flesh, intelligent life forms based on piezoplastic and mold living and (fucking) along with humans...
All just ending with alien life forms downloading themselves into Earth and giving humanity answers for questions they don't have... yet.

It took me longer to read this that I expected, but I really enjoyed every second of it. Every time that I read a Rudy Rucker novel my love for SF gets back, without doubt one of the most imaginative writers that I have the pleasure of reading.

[Bill White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this set of novels. Mixed cyberspace and high tech subjects that were prescient for their time. This is not a near-future dystopian vision but it well could have been. That characters are a challenge to follow since cloning, aliens, robots and various guises are possible. The 'allahs" is an interesting plot device. Rucker's vision is one the resonates with me. Of course, your mileage may vary.

[Allan MacDonell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enough alien perspectives flutter through the four full novels bound together in Rudy Rucker’s The Ware Tetralogy—a deep-future quartet comprising cyberpunk lodestones Software, Wetware, Freeware and Realware—to erase and expand upon the limitations of an alternate reality that has not invented internet or cell phones. Reading all four phantasms in sequence with no mid-course palate cleansers, however, might not be the genius route to digestion.

[Jason Chesko · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone else pointed out I really enjoyed the first book but it goes downhill from there. Really really tough to push through the fourth book and finish

[Sne]

I just couldn't go into it. I tried two times. I give up.

[John Ferngrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first read these books (it's a self contained quadrilogy) back in the late nineties/early noughties, the rich and sustained flow of conceptuals was pretty mind-blowing for its time. The four-book surrealist, beatnik inspired comedy derived principally from the story of the rapid and chaotic evolution of multiple generations of organicised sentient AI embodied in smart plastics leading to 'robot' races rather different the customary silicon and steel varieties. The comedy is helped by the fact that these new entities are subject to many of the foibles and fallibilities of their human creators. The plot is loosely centred around the comings, goings and tribulations of around four generations of human inventors who all somehow end up intimately involved in the creation and the social political integration of these alternate lifeforms.

Strange new forms of drugs and sex operating in wild new combinations colour much of the action providing a constant stream of hilarity and outrageous set-piece scenarios. So not really a book for the uptight or the more sheltered young folks. Much of the relentless humour flows from a rich vein of slang neologisms based on computation and communication technologies which could well appear daunting to a casual page flip but is picked up very naturally from a serial reading. We can't call this stuff great literature. Despite a certain charming conceptual philosophic content it is not of a sort that demands deep examination. The characters are written as cartoon caricatures with just enough depth to keep us invested in their outcomes from ever more intricately outrageous circumstances . There is a great deal of love, peace, certain ironic connections with deeper levels of cosmic experience and a tendency for most things to turn out happily ever after.

Coming to it again, some 20 years later, I still felt it to be very entertaining, but much of the conceptual contents that seemed so startlingly fresh in its heyday has now been rendered more mainstream and, as such makes the book a little but not totally dated. One still feels the ferocious intelligence at work behind the original ideas, and the comedy of the numerous set pieces and just much of the casual interaction is not at all diminished in entertainment value. In fact its just dying to be turned into a graphic novel or even an animated TV series.

[Virginprune · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm. There were some good ideas here, but... well, it took 20 years to write the four books which make up this "tetralogy", and time certainly dragged whilst reading them.

"Science Fiction" is a term which allows authors to discard whichever currently applicable elements of Biology, Chemistry, Physics they choose. This could lead to some mind-expanding discoveries or insights, but sadly is frequently usually used in an attempt to cover up the author's inadequacy. When "science fiction" is no longer science-based, but simply "fantasy", an author's lack of imagination makes for dull reading.

The interesting points are actually science-relevant (or close to, Silicon Valley relevant anyway.) The problem is that the narrative is dull and childish from the beginning, and gets worse as it progresses. Which is bad in a 750-page experience.

While many "sci-fi" authors use the brand as a cloak for other genres or points of view (Philip K Dick and William Gibson spring to mind, thanks to sleeve notes etc.), here we basically have a California soap opera disguised as something more. Ultimately, I could have spent my time more happily watching the entire Rockford Files. Or Baywatch.

[Andrew Alper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tetracycline for Terminally Steamy Punks.

This author is one of the ones we should keep giving money to.

The remarkable thing about these novels is how good each one is, apart from its fellows. The storytelling integrates many fantastic ideas, that, like all good fiction, point back to real world truth, and Rucker’s characters are so well realized, that the math hating chef is entirely believable, even though the writer is a mathematician, who probably also hates math, but may not be a great cook!

He really brings the “more” back into polymorphous perversity as well. I’m going to read all of his books now.

[Niels Serup · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like how the books explore high-level concepts such as consciousness through very flawed characters.

The technical explanations for how the technology presented in the books works often seems a bit hand-wavy to me, but it's almost always in the service of the story, so I'm okay with it.

It's also fun to see the change in focus over the ~20 years that the author spent writing the books. For example, the writing of the characters in the final two books is just plain better in my opinion.

My ratings if I were to rate the books on their own:
Software: 3
Wetware: 4
Freeware: 4
Realware: 4

[Sanjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rucker has some brilliant ideas but his story telling doesn't match his conceptual imagination. While the story dragged at times, it was well worth it for the exploration of ideas. Rucker gets the good, bad and the ugly of both human nature and technology about right. Man, being a base creature, obviously uses any new technology to get off. The fact that Rucker acknowledges this obvious fact makes him a more earnest story-teller than 99% of authors. I wish Rucker had an editor who helped him punch up his writing and improve the pacing but his ideas are brilliant. I had fun reading the tetralogy but it might be a bit long for those not as interested in sci-fi.

[Siarhei Besarab · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly can't remember when I first picked up the initial book in the series-Software, I think-but I do recall trying to get into it a few times. The beginning didn't exactly grab me. But once I got into it, I was hooked 100%. I tore through each subsequent book in no time.

Now, with all the current discussions around AI and ethical dilemmas, I suddenly feel a strong urge to reread it. It's striking how the author was already tackling such significant issues back in the 1980s. That's probably what defines true mastery - it stands the test of time.

[KB Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in artificial intelligence and/or the progress of society in general. Reproductive tech. Recreational pharmaceuticals. But despite my praise, I didn’t finish it, not even close! It’s not an easy read, using language that reflects expected evolution; most authors eschew this to make their story more reader-friendly. This isn’t an appropriate beach read, nor for anyone under social isolation stress.

[Nick Chatfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will admit the last book, 'Realware' is a little tiny bit of tinfoil in an otherwise glorious smorgasbord of science fiction goodness, but the overall abundance of weird, fun, drug-riddled robot shenanigans is simply irresistible to me and a collection I have enjoyed many times.

[7thTrooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nej, det går inte, tyvärr. Trots intressanta idéer så kan inte Rucker ro det i hamn. 42% i Kindle är så långt jag orkar komma, den här gången. Skall prövas en annan gång igen men nu orkar jag inte mer.

[Bert · Rating 4 out of 5]

humans create goofy robots that replace them, then create squishy robots that replace them and also are sexy? then aliens invade by radio wave and give humans magic.

truly absurd in a very enjoyable way.

[Tom Morck · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the first book was cutting edge on the 70’s, its a little dated now. Fun sequence of books, but dragged at the end.

[Jack Browning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dropped off pretty steeply after 2

[Daniel Pearse · Rating 5 out of 5]

The evolution of Cobb Anderson through the lens of four wonderful books dealing with the evolution of artificial intelligence. Intriguing and daunting but never dull.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing, sometimes disturbing read with rather novel insights into the possible direction of "AI" - Although I don't think he was looking at it as AI in our current sense.

The first three books tend to be a tad hard core but worth it. The fourth is less so, with the author exploring the idea of highly advanced alien entities that straddle multiple dimensions and how they might appear gods. Wetware was my favorite by far.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Freeware, finished 5/16/2024. 4 stars. Series: 2 stars.
   The boppers are gone, and so are the petaflops. The mold-infected symbiotic Happy Cloak that the new Wendy wore down from the moon with Stahn Mooney inspired the spreading of "moldies," essentially the next step in self-aware and intelligent machine evolution, and they've carved out their own place in Earth (and Moon) society. They've even gotten, with Senator Stahn Mooney's sway, personhood and their own rights. Of course, while many people accept moldies well enough, there are also the Heritagists who malign and despise moldies - think the pattern of white supremacy, looking down on moldies.
   I was hesitant to start Freeware after the mess that was Wetware, not only in plot but structure, flow, and theme too, but the first chapter alone felt so much different, that I kept reading. And it barely regressed at all (to the point I wonder if this new edition was edited from the original to fit better with modern sci-fi instead of 80s sci-fi), notably in the treatment of women. They were actually capable people, some of whom enjoyed sex, most of whom were surprisingly good mothers considering what we knew of their younger personalities - they were neither the sex-hungry sexual objects of the first book, nor the baby-creating and carrying victims of the second book. While the plot skipped between people and time, it kept moving forward to bring all the individual stories together, as they all fed into each other from the beginning. Maybe a little too perfectly for the randomness of life, but that's fiction. It felt solidly plotted, and with a purpose; it pulled just as much of societal changes from the past as the other books, fitting it to this ever-evolving future where intelligent machines are on a level with humans, from their desires for a healthy body, a good life and family, to a desire to continue pushing the envelopes of science and creativity beyond our wildest dreams. And then taking in hand what those discoveries bring to our front doors.
   I think I enjoyed this book even more than the first two, as it mostly left behind the more distasteful elements (women as objects, religion as a bad infection), and while it also seemed to lose touch with a conversation about some of the more philosophical elements (the body and soul/hardware and software), it brought in linear action, a building and uniting of the story threads of the central characters, and continued advancement of technology and what it can bring about.

Quote:
Art is the highest form of communication. In art one has the ability to encode the entire soul. -page 425

Typos:
...they started worked in the... -page 419- should be 'they started work' or 'they started working'

...ticks off the family dog." - page 441 - remove end quotation mark

A few minutes later, they were walking back down the hall towards the conservatory Corey was holding the rath and the Jubjub bird. - page 502 - Should have a period after conservatory/before Corey

[JenniferRuth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rucker's ideas are great...well thought out, imaginative and compelling. Over the course of the 4 books Rucker tells a story of technology rushing forward and pushing at the intellectual event horizon. Change happens fast and becomes more fantastic and more removed from human hands as the novels go on. It is a bit of a slow start in the first and second books but by the third I was hooked and in the fourth I was anticipating the singularity. I don't want to give away spoilers for the book so I won't go into detail but it felt almost as if Rucker lost his nerve at the end of the fourth book and ended on a whimper. Either that or perhaps he had written himself into a corner and couldn't imagine a way out. It was a shame because the four novels felt like they were leading up to a point that never happened. I felt disappointed when I had finished and it soured my enjoyment of the work somewhat.

Unfortunately, as great as Rucker's ideas are his characters leave a lot to be desired. Rucker seems to be very cynical about humans (and by extension...artificial and alien personalities). His characters are selfish, short-sighted and consistently see other beings as objects or means to an end. They exist in a cloud of sex and drugs and care very little for anyone other than themselves. It is hard to tell if Rucker writes this way because he simply believes that intelligent beings can never rise above base needs and emotions or if he thought they would be more interesting characters through which to tell his story. Either way, a bit of variety would have been nice, or some respite in the shape of a character with an ounce of nobility or thought. Personally, I felt it was harder to care about what happended when everyone was so damned unlikeable.

Rucker's ideas about technology, evolution and change are very astute and imaginative. They are the core of The Ware Tetralogy. If you are a big fan of cyberpunk and science fiction I would recommend this book for that alone. If not, I'd give it a miss.