Juicy Ghosts – Rudy Rucker (2021)
Once
again, I venture forth into the Rudy Rucker Gnarl and find myself awash in
intellect-tingling joy. I cannot tell if
Rucker’s stories live in my head or if I live in Rucker’s stories. This is exactly the state of being I seek
when I dive into a Rudy Rucker tome. The
story contained within Juicy Ghosts, like all of his novels, has left my mind
delirious and giddy. We are all very fortunate
to share time-space with Mr. Rucker.
I
first began my love of Rudy Rucker through his Ware Tetralogy, (Software,
Wetware, Freeware, and Realware), a series of seminal cyberpunk books that not
only explored deeply weird and inventive scientific concepts, but also contained
a deeply humorous and propulsive story.
Juicy Ghosts continues in this vein.
Rudy Rucker has a gift for describing the most complex and hypothetical
scientific possibilities as if he was telling you a funny story about a wild
neighbor. The language pops. The jokes pop. The science pops. I like my stories to pop.
Rudy
Rucker was inspired to write a short story, itself titled Juicy Ghosts, when he
experienced the ignorant and hateful Trump presidency, and worried that he would
be voted in for a second term. The story
was fleshed out into a full novel, thank goodness, for it is one of the best
times I have had reading a book in quite some time. In Juicy Ghosts, the United States have lived
under the totalitarian rule of a malignant wanna-be dictator, and people are
sick of it. Technology has evolved to be
organically based, with tools, vehicles, pets, and robots grown instead of
constructed. Humans use an uvvy, a mass of fungus that attaches to
your body and feeds your thoughts to the world like a highly powerful
modem. A massive upgrade of this
technology begins a series of events that end up connecting a group of people
that seek to bring down the current government and enable a society that allows
each citizen to benefit from the new tech.
One
of the best parts of a Rucker story is how he uses language to describe and
explain quite far-reaching scientific ideas.
None of the tech in his books seems like magic. It draws on the possibilities inherent in our
current scientific knowledge, and, like the best of science fiction writers, he
takes the ideas as far as they can possibly go.
The beauty is that all the while the story is so propulsive and downright
fun that it never feels like a science lecture.
Instead, it feels as if I jumped forward into the future, and am trying
to catch up to everyone else! I love science fiction that achieves this. It is a visceral quality often lacking from
such stories. As with all of Rudy Rucker’s
novels, this one is highly recommended.
(As
an aside, Rudy Rucker’s novels are RIPE for translation into a screenplay, and
I think they would make AMAZING films with their combo of deep intelligence,
hyperviolence, hilarity, and social commentary.
However, the Hollywood establishment will not touch any science fiction
that is not 99% normal story with a dash of technobabble to make it sound
sci-fi. This is why so many of their
sci-fi films are so boring. They deeply
underestimate the intelligence and curiosity of the average filmgoer. Rudy Rucker respects YOUR intelligence!)
(Juicy Ghosts can be purchased in various formats here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/juicyghosts/ )
(Juicy Ghosts can be read online here: https://www.rudyrucker.com/juicyghosts/html/ )
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