A new Transreal Books title goes live today!
Now selling for $4.95. Go to the Transreal Books page to buy the book from Amazon or to buy the Epub or Mobi (for Kindle) files directly from Transreal Books. Barnes & Noble link coming soon. Book will eventually be in the iBook store as well.
Collected Essays includes the nonfiction pieces from my two earlier collections, Transreal! (1991) and Seek! (1999). And many, many newer essays have been added as well. How to write, history of Silicon Valley, semi-technical articles on graphics, the philosophy of computer science, travel notes, off-beat memoirs—it’s all here.
Collected Essays weighs in at twice the length of an ordinary book, with sixty articles and about a hundred illustrations, many in color.
The essays fall into seven parts:
(1) “The Art of Writing.” Manifestos and talks about writing science-fiction.
(2) “Silicon Valley.” Cool scenes Rucker witnessed as he rode the Silicon Valley computer wave for over twenty years, starting in 1986.
(3) “Weird Screens.” Graphical programs that have obsessed Rucker—cellular automata, artificial life, fractals, space curves, and virtual reality.
(4) “Futurology.” Playful raps and speculations about the coming times.
(5) “The Philosophy of Computation.” Digital immortality, artificial intelligence, and the birth of a universal mind.
(6) “Personal Stories.” Tall tales and reminscences of strange times.
(7) “Mentors.” Appreciations of the great minds and wild freaks who led Rucker along his path: Kurt Gödel, Martin Gardner, Robert Scheckley, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Ivan Stang and Stephen Wolfram.
Go get it at Transreal Books .