If
science fiction were the Catholic church, Rudy Rucker would be the
patron saint of quantum cupcakes. Saint, indeed yes, such is the
regard with which the community should hold Rucker. Trouble is, his
area is of so little common interest (the majority of candles seem to
be lit for the saints of commerce, i.e. space opera and heroic
adventure) that it leaves a small but devoted cult chanting Rucker’s
name and spouting his many mercies and blessings in tiny alcoves and
reliquaries (ergo this blog). 2019’s The Million Mile Road Trip
marks Rucker’s return after an eight year pilgrimage to the Plains
of Crystal Sprinkles. Hands folded together in supplication, the man
has still got everything worth lighting a candle for.
Telling
the tale of high school surfer Villy, his trumpet playing girlfriend
Zoe, and Villy’s annoying younger brother Scud, The Million Mile
Road Trip is classic Rucker madcap genius. Going on a
trans-galactic journey in a purple station wagon souped up with space
magic, the trio, along with a revolving cast of wacky aliens,
explores the ideas of parallel worlds, flatworlds, and of course,
Rucker’s transreal special: ‘human development’. Quotation
marks required, I don’t think there is anybody quite like the
author to put characters through a grinder of alternate physical
realities and have them come out changed people on the other side but
still wholly and recognizably human.
Which
gets us into why Rucker is a saint. While at some level of
philosophy all imagination is unique, it is of course relative,
practically speaking. Author A’s space ship may have a curved hull
and author B’s an angular, but both are blasting the f-u-c-k out of
alien bugs in cheap entertainment. Rucker’s space ship is a purple
70s surfer wagon… with monster truck tires… and the alien bugs
don’t’ require blasting. They require magic mushroom navigation.
Like Rucker’s other books, The Million Mile Road Trip walks
its own path, taking its three protagonists on a perilous journey
through mappyworld (a flat world with some analog to Earth). The
peril more often mental than physical, the three have to choose their
own ways of dealing with the huge variety of slang and wackiness
mappyworld/Ruckers spills their way.
If
there are any discrepancies about the novel, one would have to be
length. A sci-fi salad of constantly changing ingredients, the book
reaches a point at about the three-quarters mark where the barrage of
originality begins to become a wash. Novelty still sets the story
hurtling onward, but in a fashion that has the reader occasionally
questioning ‘What was that veep thing, again?’ I suppose
after eight years, however, Rucker probably had trouble quelling the
dearth of imagination built up.
Jack
Kerouac may have his name in the canons of literature as ‘that guy
who wrote the ultimate road trip book’, but I daresay that for as
dynamic and shifting as On the Road is, The Million Mile
Road Trip runs through the cosmos and back in the same time
without losing any of its humanity. Featuring teenage characters as
its protagonists, and their ordeal superficially simple, it would be
easy to characterize the book as YA. But that would be doing it a
disservice considering people of all ages could just as readily enjoy
the trio’s zany adventures in a parallel world.
Do
yourself a favor if you haven’t read Rucker, light a candle for the
saint and buy The Million Mile Road Trip. It will wash away
the sins of the mediocre, derivative material flooding the market
today and cleanse your science fiction soul. Me, I’ve said my
prayers for today. The quantum cupcake tasted good, and my world has
a more colorful perspective for it. I wish you the same.
For his ideation, sure, let us hold up Rucker as a saint -- especially in comparison with the dearth of it going on currently in what was once supposed to be a literature of ideas.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Rucker is a truly great non-fiction author. There are books of his -- THE FOURTH DIMENSION; THE LIFEBOX, THE SEASHELL, AND THE SOUL; and (with qualifications) INFINITY AND THE MIND -- that I've read and refer back to on a continuing basis. I recommend them highly.
Unfortunately, all the things that we go to fiction for -- character, fine writing, vividness, drama, structure, and artistry in general -- he seems to me to be completely unable to do. About the best that can be said on this score is that he's charmingly indifferent or just unaware that something more than his flat, gonzo cartoon riffing might be required.
Obviously, you differ and I haven't looked at THE MILLION MILE ROAD TRIP yet. But my strong feeling about Rucker is yeah, great ideas and in his defense it would take a really great artist to dress those ideas up in the cloth of fiction as they need to be dressed -- some stuff by Greg Egan, Stanislaw Lem and(here and there) Gene Wolfe points to how it maybe could be done. In the meantime, though, he strikes me as essentially clueless and indifferent about how (I think) the art of fiction works and what it's for. It's a shame.
The above review is overzealous and is basically over the top advertising. Very suspicious.
ReplyDeleteLove this, Jesse, thanks. I appreciate the Jack K. references. Glad to be a saint! Re. recent books of mine, I finished writing "Million Mile Road Trip" in July, 2017, and I finished writing "Return to the Hollow Earth" in May, 2018. Due to the vicissitudes of publishing, the volume "The Hollow Earth & Return to the Hollow Earth" happened to appear in print in 2018, before the 2019 print edition of MMRT. These days I'm just writing short stories...not entirely sure I'll get it up for yet another novel, but you never know. Cegtainly readers like you give me strength!
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