Rudy Rucker
Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which both won Philip K. Dick Awards. He edited the science fiction webzine Flurb until its closure in 2014.
Early life
Rucker was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the son of Embry Cobb Rucker Sr., who ran a small furniture-manufacture company and later became an Episcopal priest and community activist, and Marianne. The Rucker family were of Huguenot descent. Through his mother, he is a great-great-great-grandson of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.Rucker attended St. Xavier High School before earning a BA in mathematics from Swarthmore College and MS and PhD degrees in mathematics from Rutgers University.
Career
Rucker taught mathematics at the State [University of New York at Geneseo] from 1972 to 1978. Although he was liked by his students and "published a book and several papers," several colleagues took umbrage at his long hair and convivial relationships with English and philosophy professors amid looming budget shortfalls; as a result, he failed to attain tenure in the "dysfunctional" department.Thanks to a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Rucker taught at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg from 1978 to 1980. He then taught at Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia from 1980 to 1982, before trying his hand as a full-time author for four years.
Inspired by an interview with Stephen Wolfram, Rucker became a computer science professor at San José State University in 1986, from which he retired as professor emeritus in 2004.
From 1988 to 1992 he was hired by John Walker of Autodesk as a programmer of , which inspired his book The Hacker and the Ants.
A mathematician with philosophical interests, he has written The Fourth Dimension and Infinity and the Mind. Princeton University Press published new editions of Infinity and the Mind in 1995 and in 2005, both with new prefaces; the first edition is cited with fair frequency in academic literature.
As his "own alternative to cyberpunk," Rucker developed a writing style he terms transrealism. Transrealism, as outlined in his 1983 essay , is science fiction based on the author's own life and immediate perceptions, mixed with fantastic elements that symbolize psychological change. Many of Rucker's novels and short stories apply these ideas. One example of Rucker's transreal works is Saucer Wisdom, a novel in which the main character is abducted by aliens. Rucker and his publisher marketed the book, tongue in cheek, as non-fiction.
His earliest transreal novel, White Light, was written during his time at Heidelberg. This transreal novel is based on his experiences at SUNY Geneseo.
Rucker often uses his novels to explore scientific or mathematical ideas; White Light examines the concept of infinity, while the Ware Tetralogy is in part an explanation of the use of natural selection to develop software. His novels also put forward a mystical philosophy that Rucker has summarized in an essay titled, with only a bit of irony, "The Central Teachings of Mysticism".
His non-fiction book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning Of Life, and How To Be Happy summarizes the various philosophies he's believed over the years and ends with the tentative conclusion that we might profitably view the world as made of computations, with the final remark, "perhaps this universe is perfect."
Personal life
Rucker was the roommate of Kenneth Turan during his freshman year at Swarthmore College. In 1967, Rucker married Sylvia Bogsch Rucker. Together they have three children. On July 1, 2008, Rucker suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Thinking he might not be around much longer, this prompted him to write Nested Scrolls, his autobiography.Rucker resided in Highland Park, New Jersey during his graduate studies at Rutgers University.
Novels
The Ware TetralogyTransreal Trilogy
- The Secret of Life
- White Light
- Saucer Wisdom novel marketed as non-fiction
- Spacetime Donuts
- The Sex Sphere
- Master of Space and Time
- The Hollow Earth
- The Hacker and the Ants
- Spaceland
- Frek and the Elixir
- Mathematicians in Love
- Jim and the Flims
- The Big Aha
- All the Visions, memoir/novel
- As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel
- Postsingular
- Hylozoic
- Turing and Burroughs
- Return to the Hollow Earth
- Million Mile Road Trip
- Juicy Ghosts
- ''Sqinks''
Short fiction
Collections- The Fifty-Seventh Franz Kafka
- Transreal!, includes poetry and non-fiction essays
- Gnarl!, complete short stories
- Mad Professor
- Surfing the Gnarl, includes an essay and interview with the author
- Complete Stories
- Transreal Cyberpunk, with Bruce Sterling
| Written | Title | Published | First published | Notes |
| 1976 | Jumpin' Jack Flash | 1983-01 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1977 | Enlightenment Rabies | 1987-11 | New Pathways, November 1987 | |
| 1979 | Schrödinger's Cat | 1981-03-30 | Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, March 30, 1981 | |
| 1979 | Sufferin' Succotash | 1983-01 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1979 | A New Golden Age | 1981 | The Randolph-Macon Woman's College Alumnae Bulletin, Summer 1981 | |
| 1979 | Faraway Eyes | 1980-09 | Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, September 1980 | |
| 1980 | The 57th Franz Kafka | 1982 | The Little Magazine, 1982 | |
| 1980 | The Indian Rope Trick Explained | 1983-01 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1980 | A New Experiment With Time | 1982 | Sphinx, Spring 1982 | |
| 1980 | The Man Who Ate Himself | 1982-12 | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1982 | |
| 1980 | Tales of Houdini | 1981-09 | Elsewhere, Ace Books, September 1981 | |
| 1980 | The Facts of Life | 1983-12 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1981 | Buzz | 1981-12 | New Blood, December 1981 | |
| 1981 | The Last Einstein-Rosen Bridge | 1983-01 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1981 | Pac-Man | 1982-06 | Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1982 | Originally published as "Peg-Man". |
| 1981 | Pi in the Sky | 1983-01 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1981 | Wishloop | 1988-12 | San Jose State University Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Newsletter, December 1988 | |
| 1982 | Inertia | 1983-01 | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1983 | |
| 1982 | Bringing in the Sheaves | 1987-01 | Asimov's Science Fiction, January 1987 | Slightly altered third chapter of Twinks. |
| 1982 | The Jack Kerouac Disembodied School of Poetics | 1982-07 | New Blood, July 1982 | |
| 1982 | Message Found in a Copy of Flatland | 1983-01 | The 57th Franz Kafka, Ace Books, January 1983 | |
| 1982-11 | Plastic Letters | 1987 | Live From the Stagger Café, Summer 1987 | |
| 1983 | Monument to the Third International | 1984-12 | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1984 | |
| 1984 | Rapture in Space | 1989 | Semiotext SF, Autonomedia, 1989 | |
| 1985 | Storming the Cosmos | 1985-12 | Asimov's Science Fiction, Mid-December 1985 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 1985 | In Frozen Time | 1986-08 | Afterlives, Vintage Books, August 1986 | |
| 1985 | Soft Death | 1986-09 | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1986 | |
| 1986 | Inside Out | 1987 | Synergy, Volume 1, HBJ Books, 1987 | |
| 1986-1987 | Instability | 1988-09 | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1988 | Written with Paul Di Filippo. |
| 1987 | The Man Who Was a Cosmic String | 1987-11 | The Universe, November 1987 | |
| 1987 | Probability Pipeline | 1988 | Synergy, Volume 2, HBJ Books, 1988 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 1987 | As Above, So Below | 1989-11 | The Microverse, Bantam Books, November 1989 | |
| 1988 | Chaos Surfari | 1989-03 | Interzone, March/April 1989 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 1992 | Big Jelly | 1994-11 | Asimov's Science Fiction, November 1994 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 1993 | Easy As Pie | 1993-11 | Christmas Forever, Tor Books, November 1993 | |
| 1995 | The Andy Warhol Sandcandle | 2000-04 | Gnarl!, Four Walls Eight Windows, April 2000 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 1996-01 | Cobb Wakes Up | 2006-03 | Other, March 2006 | |
| 1999 | The Square Root of Pythagoras | 1999-11 | Science Fiction Age, November 1999 | Written with Paul Di Filippo. |
| 2000-07-18 | Pockets | 2001-12 | Redshift, Roc Books, December 2001 | Written with John Shirley. |
| 2000-08-25 - 2001-03-05 | A Dream of Flatland | 2002-02-18 | Infinite Matrix, February 18, 2002 | Fifth chapter of Spaceland. |
| 2001-12-29 | Junk DNA | 2003-01 | Asimov's Science Fiction, January 2003 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2002-01-22 | The Use of the Ellipse the Catalog the Meter & the Vibrating Plane | 2002 | Horror Garage, 2002 | |
| 2002-06-15 | Jenna and Me | 2003-02-11 | Infinite Matrix, February 11, 2003 | Written with Rudy Rucker Jr. |
| 2003 | Six Thought Experiments Concerning the Nature of Computation | 2005-10 | The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, Thunder's Mouth Press, October 2005 | The story appears divided in 6 parts, each being a short-short story to introduce each of the six chapters in The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul. |
| 2004-04-09 | Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch | 2005-10 | Interzone, October 2005 | |
| 2004-06-13 | MS Found in a Minidrive | 2006-05 | Poe's Lighthouse, Cemetery Dance Publications, May 2006 | |
| 2004-05-06 | The Men in the Back Room at the Country Club | 2005-12-30 | Infinite Matrix, December 30, 2005 | |
| 2005-09-19 | Chu and the Nants | 2006-06 | Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2006 | Second chapter of Postsingular. |
| 2005-12-06 | Panpsychism Proved | 2006-01-26 | Nature, January 26, 2006 | |
| 2005-12-06 | Postsingular | 2006-09 | Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2006 | Third and fourth chapters of Postsingular. |
| 2006-03-25 | Elves of the Subdimensions | 2006-08-29 | Flurb, Fall 2006 | Written with Paul Di Filippo. |
| 2006-05-01 | 2+2=5 | 2006-08 | Interzone, August 2006 | Written with Terry Bisson. |
| 2006-05-22 | Visions of the Metanovel | 2007 | Mad Professor, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007 | |
| 2006 | The Imitation Game | 2008-04 | Interzone, April 2008 | First chapter of Turing and Burroughs. |
| 2006-12 | The Third Bomb | 2006-12-19 | Flurb, Winter 2006 | |
| 2007-03 | Hormiga Canyon | 2007-08 | Asimov's Science Fiction, August 2007 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2007-05-25 | Postsingular Outtakes | 2007-04-23 | Flurb, Spring–Summer 2007 | Outtakes drawn from the author's working notes for Postsingular. |
| 2007-05 | The Perfect Wave | 2008-01 | Asimov's Science Fiction, January 2008 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 2007-09-11 | Hieronymus Bosch's Apprentice | 2007-09-19 | Flurb, Fall–Winter 2007 | Fifth chapter of Hylozoic. |
| 2008-03 | Tangier Routines | 2008-03-31 | Flurb, Spring–Summer 2008 | |
| 2008-05 | Message Found In A Gravity Wave | 2008-08 | Nature Physics, August 2008 | |
| 2008-07 | Qlone | 2008-09-16 | Flurb, Fall–Winter 2008 | |
| 2008-10 | Colliding Branes | 2009-02 | Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2009 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2008-12 | Jack and the Aktuals, or, Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory | 2008-10-09 | Tor.com, October 9, 2009 | |
| 2009-01 | All Hangy | 2009-03-03 | Flurb, Spring–Summer 2009 | Written with John Shirley. |
| 2009-03 | To See Infinity Bare | 2011-03 | Postscripts, March 2011 | Written with Paul Di Filippo. |
| 2009-08 | Bad Ideas | 2009-09-08 | Flurb, Fall–Winter 2009 | |
| 2009-11-03 | Val and Me | 2010-03-08 | Flurb, Spring–Summer 2010 | First, second and third chapter of Jim and the Flims. |
| 2010-06 | Good Night, Moon | 2010-10-13 | Tor.com, October 13, 2010 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2010-07 | The Fnoor Hen | 2011-04 | Asimov's Science Fiction, April/May 2011 | |
| 2010-08-10 | The Skug | 2010-08-31 | Flurb, Fall–Winter 2010 | Second chapter of Turing & Burroughs. |
| 2010-09 | Fjaerland | 2011-09-06 | Flurb, Fall–Winter 2011 | Written with Paul DiFilippo. |
| 2010-09 | Hive Mind Man | 2012-02 | Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2012 | Written with Eileen Gunn. |
| 2011-01-01 | Dispatches from Interzone | 2011-03-22 | Flurb, Spring–Summer 2011 | Eighth chapter of Turing & Burroughs. |
| 2011-03 | My Office Mate | 2011-07 | Communications of the ACM, July 2011 | |
| 2011-12 | Loco | 2012-06-20 | Tor.com, June 20, 2012 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2012-02-15 | Jane and the Roadspider | 2012-03-23 | Flurb, Spring 2012 | Second chapter of The Big Aha. |
| 2012-07 | I Arise Again | 2013-01 | Communications of the ACM, January 2013 | Originally published as "Share My Enlightenment" and it slightly differs from the version that appears in the Complete Stories under the title "I Arise Again". |
| 2012-10 | Yubba Vines | 2013-07 | Asimov's Science Fiction, July 2013 | Written with Paul Di Filippo. |
| 2012-10 | Quantum Telepathy | 2014-09 | Hieroglyph, William Morrow, September 2014 | First and third chapters of The Big Aha. |
| 2013-03 | Apricot Lane | 2013-05 | An Aura of Familiarity, Institute for the Future, May 2013 | |
| 2014-01 | Where the Lost Things Are | 2014-11-05 | Tor.com, November 5, 2014 | Written with Terry Bisson. |
| 2014-02 | Laser Shades | 2014-11 | The Superlative Light, Daylight Books, November 2014 | |
| 2014-05 | Attack of the Giant Ants | 2014-12-09 | Terraform, December 2014 | |
| 2014-06 – 2014-12 | Totem Poles | 2016-08-10 | Tor.com, August 10, 2016 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2014-08 | Watergirl | 2015-01 | Asimov's Science Fiction, January 2015 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 2014-12 | The Knobby Giraffe | 2016-04 | Lightspeed, April 2016 | |
| 2015-03 – 2015-08 | Kraken and Sage | 2016-02 | Transreal Cyberpunk, Transreal Books, February 2016 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| 2015-06 | Like a Sea Cucumber | 2015-06-30 | Terraform, June 2015 | |
| 2016-07 | Emojis | 2018-03 | Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2018 | |
| 2016-08 – 2016-12 | @lantis | 2017-07 | Asimov's Science Fiction, July/August 2017 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 2016-12 | Fat Stream | 2017-08-21 | Mondo2000.com, August 21, 2017 | |
| 2017-04 | In The Lost City of Leng | 2018-01 | Asimov's Science Fiction, January 2018 | Written with Paul Di Filippo. According to the Rudy Rucker's notes from February 15, 2017, the working title was "The Plateau of Leng". |
| 2018-11 – 2019-01 | Surfers at the End of Time | 2019-11 | Asimov's Science Fiction, November/December 2019 | Written with Marc Laidlaw. |
| 2019-01 – 2019-06 | Juicy Ghost | 2019-06-24 | Rudy's Blog, June 24, 2019 | Third chapter of Juicy Ghosts. Reprinted in Big Echo, October 2019. Rewritten in September 2020 and published in the author's blog. |
| The Mean Carrot | 2020-03 | Big Echo, March 2020 | First chapter of Juicy Ghosts. | |
| 2019-08 – 2020-09 | Everything Is Everything | 2020-10 | Big Echo, October 2020 | |
| Mary Mary | 2021-03 | Asimov's Science Fiction, March/April 2021 | Fourth chapter of Juicy Ghosts. According to the author's blog post, an early title was "Mary Falls". | |
| 2019-11 – 2020-06 | Fibonacci's Humors | 2021-07 | Asimov's Science Fiction, July/August 2021 | Written with Bruce Sterling. |
| Petroglyph Man | 2015-07 |
Non-fiction
- Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension
- Infinity and the Mind
- The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality
- Mind Tools
- Seek!, collected essays
- Software Engineering and Computer Games, textbook
- The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy
- Nested Scrolls - autobiography
- Collected Essays
- How to Make an Ebook
- Better Worlds, art book of Rucker's paintings
- ''Journals 1990–2014''
As editor
- Speculations on the Fourth Dimension: Selected Writings of Charles H. Hinton, Dover,
- Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder, Arbor House
- Semiotext(e) SF, Autonomedia
Critical studies and reviews of Rucker's work
;The big aha*
Filmography
- As actor-speaker in Manual of Evasion LX94, a 1994 film by Edgar Pêra