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Saucer Wisdom
Author Rudy Rucker offers a one-of-a-kind “history” of the future in this staggeringly inventive metafictional novel involving UFOs and time travel.
Frank Shook, who lives in the hills of California outside Silicon Valley, is a UFO abductee, communicating with extraterrestrial beings who take him on wild flying saucer rides, zig-zagging through time to give Frank vivid looks into the future of humanity.
Frank’s bizarre claims are intriguing to author Rudy Rucker, who agrees to transcribe Frank’s notes from his journeys. The result? A fascinating, and illuminating account of the forthcoming evolution of humankind. From telepathy to time travel to transhumanity, from hardware to software to wetware, Saucer Wisdom, spanning two millennia, is a profoundly creative work of truly speculative meta-fiction, a catalog of the future as only Rudy Rucker (the award-winning real-life author, that is) could tell it.
Night Shade Books’ ten-volume series with Rudy Rucker collects nine of the brilliantly weird novels for which the mathematician-turned-author is known, as well as a tenth, never-before-published book, Million-Mile Road Trip. We’re proud to collect in one place so much of the work of this influential figure in the early cyberpunk scene, and to share Rucker’s fascinating, unique worldview with an entirely new generation of readers.
Frank Shook, who lives in the hills of California outside Silicon Valley, is a UFO abductee, communicating with extraterrestrial beings who take him on wild flying saucer rides, zig-zagging through time to give Frank vivid looks into the future of humanity.
Frank’s bizarre claims are intriguing to author Rudy Rucker, who agrees to transcribe Frank’s notes from his journeys. The result? A fascinating, and illuminating account of the forthcoming evolution of humankind. From telepathy to time travel to transhumanity, from hardware to software to wetware, Saucer Wisdom, spanning two millennia, is a profoundly creative work of truly speculative meta-fiction, a catalog of the future as only Rudy Rucker (the award-winning real-life author, that is) could tell it.
Night Shade Books’ ten-volume series with Rudy Rucker collects nine of the brilliantly weird novels for which the mathematician-turned-author is known, as well as a tenth, never-before-published book, Million-Mile Road Trip. We’re proud to collect in one place so much of the work of this influential figure in the early cyberpunk scene, and to share Rucker’s fascinating, unique worldview with an entirely new generation of readers.
345 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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124 people want to read
About the author
Rudy Rucker
196 books595 followersRudolf 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.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 7, 2019
If you clipped out one long chapter near the beginning (which was not narrative in orientation) but was rather a long explanatory chapter about the future, then this story would have been very entertaining. The set up and concept was great and fun to read. But that one chapter nearly killed my desire to progress.
April 10, 2020
Basically I gave up on this book. While the premise was interesting at the start it soon turned into just silliness.
As you can guess from the title the story revolves around a fiction writer contacted by someone who claims to have had multiple trips in a flying saucer into what they claim as "paratime".
May appeal to a young audience
As you can guess from the title the story revolves around a fiction writer contacted by someone who claims to have had multiple trips in a flying saucer into what they claim as "paratime".
May appeal to a young audience
July 3, 2008
It can be said that the storyline is a bit flimsy, but I really enjoyed the ideas put forth in there. Of course, I barely grasped the technical explanations behind half of them, but it was still interesting to see all the refreshing ideas.
All the different gadgets and events he proposes would probably be enough to be the basis of at least another ten SF books.
All the different gadgets and events he proposes would probably be enough to be the basis of at least another ten SF books.
October 18, 2012
Kinda Science fiction, but super bizarro book about the future through the eyes of cyberpunk genius Rudy Rucker. So the story is a time travel comes from the future to tell Rudy all about and he is supposed to write a book about the future of science and technology. Not much of a story but it is a funny look at the possible future. Makes you think and Laugh.
September 15, 2008
The story is typical Rucker stoner meanderings but the ideas and inventions are great. Very familiar to readers of the Ware series and other Rucker novels. Learn the origins of the uvvy, alla, lifebox, piezoplastic, etc.
July 7, 2007
Funny as all get out. I loved this book not just because of the story but it had hand drawings. It was wonderful. Or I'm totally crazy.
September 22, 2024
I have been trying to remember for ages which weird book I read when I was younger had a scene advertising genetically engineered tongues as a better alternative to personal grooming than soft robotics.
And here it is.
And here it is.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2022
Whimsical, optimistic, original. Slightly uncomfortable at times, in a good way.
Read
May 24, 2023Look, this book is fine. There's nothing wrong with it.
It's just super not my thing in the least. Like, at all. Not even a little bit. There's very little hard sci-fi that I enjoy.
It's just super not my thing in the least. Like, at all. Not even a little bit. There's very little hard sci-fi that I enjoy.
February 21, 2010
This is probably my favorite bk by Rucker yet. It gave me a new respect for him. Its framing device is that he meets a man named 'Frank Shook' who has a technique for traveling thru "paratime" w/ 'saucer' creatures who teach him about future developments that he then informs Rucker about. In addition to an impressive quantity of tech ideas, there's plenty here to make the plot twisty & multi-leveled.
For one thing, Rucker & Shook & co go to a Mondo 2000 party. Rucker uses this passage to both praise Mondo 2000 (a magazine that once promoted an event of mine - thusly aiding the quantity of participation enormously) & to humorously describe why he won't write for them anymore. This touch added immensely to the purported autobiographical approach - as did Rucker's attempts to withdraw from alcohol (although I have no idea whether Rucker, in 'real' life has had a problem w/ booze). Like everything else I've read by him so far, this is a very California novel - filled w/ New Age, Hippie, Stoner, Silicon Valley, & Surfer culture. Interestingly, the back cover says: "File Under Science/UFOs" & the inside copyright, etc, page has this:
"The right of Rudy Rucker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988"
Is this a clever way of making the 'Frank Shook' story more believable? An actual requirement of the publisher to try to prevent claims on the work? Whatever the case may be, Bruce Sterling's Introduction contests the believability that there's really a 'Frank Shook' person behind it all. It seems unlikely to me too.. but not completely impossible! Regardless, the 'Shook' frame makes the story that much richer.
My friend Jona Pelovska reads Rucker's science bks, wch I've never read. "Saucer Wisdom" (the title of wch I don't particularly like) motivates me to read everything I can find by him - including the science stuff wch I might not ordinarily be that interested in.
Maybe the only thing that keeps me from giving this bk a "5 star rating" is the writing style. Rucker's writing is a very straight-forward 'pulp' style that makes for easy reading but, even though he plays w/ that in some interesting ways & even though there're other 'pulp' writers who have an astounding 'poetic' feel for language, it always seems to never really flow the way that 'pulp' greats like Hammett & Chandler do.
An interesting coincidence, for me at least, is that when I came to the "Devil's Tower" part of the story I was sitting 5 feet away from a VHS copy of a National Park movie about Devil's Tower that I'd had sitting around for a mnth or so. I stopped reading long enuf to check out the movie. I love that kind of synchronicity.
For one thing, Rucker & Shook & co go to a Mondo 2000 party. Rucker uses this passage to both praise Mondo 2000 (a magazine that once promoted an event of mine - thusly aiding the quantity of participation enormously) & to humorously describe why he won't write for them anymore. This touch added immensely to the purported autobiographical approach - as did Rucker's attempts to withdraw from alcohol (although I have no idea whether Rucker, in 'real' life has had a problem w/ booze). Like everything else I've read by him so far, this is a very California novel - filled w/ New Age, Hippie, Stoner, Silicon Valley, & Surfer culture. Interestingly, the back cover says: "File Under Science/UFOs" & the inside copyright, etc, page has this:
"The right of Rudy Rucker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988"
Is this a clever way of making the 'Frank Shook' story more believable? An actual requirement of the publisher to try to prevent claims on the work? Whatever the case may be, Bruce Sterling's Introduction contests the believability that there's really a 'Frank Shook' person behind it all. It seems unlikely to me too.. but not completely impossible! Regardless, the 'Shook' frame makes the story that much richer.
My friend Jona Pelovska reads Rucker's science bks, wch I've never read. "Saucer Wisdom" (the title of wch I don't particularly like) motivates me to read everything I can find by him - including the science stuff wch I might not ordinarily be that interested in.
Maybe the only thing that keeps me from giving this bk a "5 star rating" is the writing style. Rucker's writing is a very straight-forward 'pulp' style that makes for easy reading but, even though he plays w/ that in some interesting ways & even though there're other 'pulp' writers who have an astounding 'poetic' feel for language, it always seems to never really flow the way that 'pulp' greats like Hammett & Chandler do.
An interesting coincidence, for me at least, is that when I came to the "Devil's Tower" part of the story I was sitting 5 feet away from a VHS copy of a National Park movie about Devil's Tower that I'd had sitting around for a mnth or so. I stopped reading long enuf to check out the movie. I love that kind of synchronicity.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews