Spaceland

I made it about halfway through before giving up on this book. I very seldom do that, but if the characters fail to appeal to me after 150 pages, chances are they won't ever. I could not force myself to care about what happened to them. They're quite unlikeable, in fact, and the plot and setting were not interesting enough to overcome that for me. Don't let this prevent you from trying it. I'm sure there are people this book will appeal to. TOR liked it enough to publish it, after all. It just was not to my taste.

An easy read. Light sci-fi, tecno-fantasy. The best part of this book for me were the drawings and descriptions relating to the main character, Joe Cube, thinking about Flatland (the two-dimensional world) as he tries to make sense of All (the four-dimensional world). Joe Cube's character was not terribly compelling and his wife, Jena Bonk, never really seemed to congeal into anything more than an annoying stereotype - so the "relationship" twists to the plot rather distracted from the rest of the story since I found it hard to see why anyone would want to be with either of them (or for that matter with the other two main characters - who were equally two-dimensional). A quick read and probably modestly enjoyable for those who, like me, show more enjoy the mental gymnastics of attempting to visualize the various-dimensional spaces. show less

I love Rudy Rucker, I really do. But as I've started reading his fiction again recently, I'm finding that it's his non-fiction works that really draw me in. This book, while entertaining, just didn't quite do it for me.

Pretty typical whacked out Rudy Rucker stuff ("Get a Mophone mofo!"). Fun, quick, easy, entertaining.

I was disappointed by this book. I felt it was not up to Rudy Rucker's usual standard. The story goes through all the usual plot devices and twists, but the characters are flat and uninteresting. In fact the plot was boring and even predictable.

The highlight of the book was the attempts to describe the 4th dimension and my (failed) attempts to visualise it.

Rucker is not the best writer, but he has some great ideas. Maybe next time he should team up with someone who knows how to write.

"What is the fourth dimension, anyway?"
"I have no idea," I admitted.