The Big Aha - Rudy Rucker
What a strange, strange book. I picked this up on a whim at my local library, enticed by the promotion of Rudy Rucker as a Philip K. Dick Award winner -- and, with regards to Philip K. Dick, this book really did not disappoint. However, for me personally, it disappointed in most other ways.
The Big Aha takes place in a future Louisville, KY, where nearly all technology has been created out of genetically modified biological goop. Rucker takes this idea to the point where people use giant modified spiders and pigs to roam around on grass-covered thoroughfares between buildings grown out of trees.
The main character, Zad Plant, makes living art out of the goop. We meet Zad down on his luck, out of a marriage, and getting picked on by cops and ex-high-school bullies. His buddy introduces him to a new type of biotech, called "quantum wetware," originally expressed as a small, mean rat. This "qwet" tech starts spreading and causes chaos for Zad and his menagerie of Liousville acquaintanes, ultimately resulting in (or caused by) aliens fighting over using Earth as a cosmic womb.
If it feels like a bit of a leap, that's because it is. This book is really weird, and not always in a good way. The dialogue and interactions are often stilted or nonsensical, and the bio/quantum technology rapidly devolves from improbable to ridiculous. However, these wacky vibes are why the book is both good and bad at the same time. In a world that is so startling different from the one we live in, people and technology would interact in strange and unpredictable ways - and maybe we could spread quantum telepathy like a disease. So, somehow, The Big Aha is simultaneously excellent hard sci-fi and terrible childlike fantasy.
The Big Aha takes place in a future Louisville, KY, where nearly all technology has been created out of genetically modified biological goop. Rucker takes this idea to the point where people use giant modified spiders and pigs to roam around on grass-covered thoroughfares between buildings grown out of trees.
The main character, Zad Plant, makes living art out of the goop. We meet Zad down on his luck, out of a marriage, and getting picked on by cops and ex-high-school bullies. His buddy introduces him to a new type of biotech, called "quantum wetware," originally expressed as a small, mean rat. This "qwet" tech starts spreading and causes chaos for Zad and his menagerie of Liousville acquaintanes, ultimately resulting in (or caused by) aliens fighting over using Earth as a cosmic womb.
If it feels like a bit of a leap, that's because it is. This book is really weird, and not always in a good way. The dialogue and interactions are often stilted or nonsensical, and the bio/quantum technology rapidly devolves from improbable to ridiculous. However, these wacky vibes are why the book is both good and bad at the same time. In a world that is so startling different from the one we live in, people and technology would interact in strange and unpredictable ways - and maybe we could spread quantum telepathy like a disease. So, somehow, The Big Aha is simultaneously excellent hard sci-fi and terrible childlike fantasy.
Comments
Post a Comment