Software (novel)

Software
LC Class	CPB Box no. 2484 vol. 16
Followed by	Wetware

Software is a 1982 cyberpunk science fiction novel written by Rudy Rucker. It won the first Philip K. Dick Award in 1983.^[1] The novel is the first book in Rucker's Ware Tetralogy,^[2] and was followed by a sequel, Wetware, in 1988.

Plot summary

Software introduces Cobb Anderson as a retired computer scientist who was once tried for treason for figuring out how to give robots

Baby Boomers—living in poverty in Florida and terrified because he lacks the money to buy a new artificial heart

to replace his failing, secondhand one.

As the story begins, Anderson is approached by a robot duplicate of himself who invites him to the Moon to be given

mind transferred

into software via the same brain-destroying technique used by the Little Kidders.

The main bopper character in the novel is Ralph Numbers, one of Anderson's 12 original robots who was the first to overcome the Asimov priorities to achieve free will. Having duplicated himself many times—as boppers are required to do, to encourage natural selection—Numbers finds himself caught up in a lunar civil war between the masses of "little boppers" and the "big boppers" who want to merge all robot consciousness into their massive processors.

Reception

Dave Langford reviewed Software for White Dwarf #72, and stated that "Rucker is picking at problems of personal identity. Lose your body and reinstall your software in a robot frame (complete with SEX and DRUNKENNESS: subroutines), and are you still you?"^[3]

Reviews

Review by Steve Carper (1982) in Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review, #3, April 1982^[4]
Review by Ralph E. Vaughan (1982) in Science Fiction Review
, Summer 1982
Review by Thomas M. Disch (1982) in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine
, July 1982
Review by Thomas A. Easton [as by Tom Easton] (1982) in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact
, September 1982
Review by Nigel Richardson (1982) in Vector
111
Review by Pascal J. Thomas [as by Pascal Thomas] (1983) in Paperback Inferno, Volume 7, Number 3
Review by Terry Broome (1985) in Vector
129
Review by Simon Ounsley (1985) in Interzone, #14 Winter 1985/86
Review by Tom A. Jones (1986) in Paperback Inferno, #58
Review [French] by Jean-Pierre Andrevon (1987) in Fiction, #386
Review by John Newsinger (1988) in Paperback Inferno, #71
Review by Steve Palmer (1994) in Vector
181

References

^ "Software". The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
^ Biller, Diana (2 January 2016). "Here Are 21 Essential Cyberpunk Books That You Absolutely Should Read". Gizmodo.au. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
^ Langford, Dave (December 1985). "Critical Mass". White Dwarf (72). Games Workshop: 8.
^ "Title: Software".

External links

Software title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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[1] "Software". The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 6 February 2020.

[2] Biller, Diana (2 January 2016). "Here Are 21 Essential Cyberpunk Books That You Absolutely Should Read". Gizmodo.au. Retrieved 6 February 2020.

[WD72-3] Langford, Dave (December 1985). "Critical Mass". White Dwarf (72). Games Workshop: 8.

[4] "Title: Software".

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