After keeping us waiting for nine years, pervo mathenaut and cyberpunk grandpappy Rudy Rucker has once again strapped on the laughing gas to produce Freeware, the sequel to Software (1982) and Wetware (1988). The extremely funny Freeware opens on October 30, 2053, in Monique''s workaday world, a "moldie," or "limpware" robot created from "piezoplastic" and gene'tweaked molds. Monique, gliding around the Clearlight Terrace Court Motel on her cleaning rounds, catches the eye of Randy Karl Tucker, a hillbilly'smart plumber who's also a "cheeseball," a human ("flesher") who likes to have sex with moldies. Strange things happen when the shady Randy Karl kidnaps Monique and escapes into the ocean (after turning her into his personal submarine). The kidnapping sets in motion a Rube Goldberg plot that ends with a unique close encounter of the third kind.
Freeware is a funhouse'mirror world of drugged-out boho scientists and ribofunky robots who effortlessly morph into buses, flying machines, even talking dildos.
Although it's not necessary to have read the first two volumes, the plot picks up where Wetware left off. Either way, you should trust this worthless flesher and order up Freeware now ' it's the hippest code you'll upload this year.
##### Freeware, by Rudy Rucker: US$23 hardcover. Avon Books: +1 (212) 261 6800.
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