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Spaceland: A Novel of the Fourth Dimension (Paperback)

by Rudy Rucker (Author) "My idea for handling December 31, 1999, was that Jena and I should fix a nice meal, drink champagne, watch TV, and stay clear of..." (more)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition edition (Jun 17 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0765303671
ISBN-13: 978-0765303677
Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.7 x 2.3 cm
Shipping Weight: 227 g

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #461,150 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

From Amazon.com

The product manager for a Silicon Valley startup, Joe Cube thinks the best way to enter the new millennium is to stay safely home with his wife and watch the year 2000 come in on an experimental television/interactive device "borrowed" from work. His wife, however, is less than pleased. And after Jena passes out from too much New Year's imbibing, Joe discovers the undertested device has opened a gateway to a new universe: he is contacted by a fourth-dimensional woman named Momo....

Usually, tribute novels are like movie remakes: a bad idea. However, this tribute to Edwin A. Abbott's classic novel Flatland works wonderfully. This is because Spaceland is written by Rudy Rucker, a Silicon Valley professor of mathematics and computer science who is also a hard-SF writer with the most gonzo sensibility in science fiction.--Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like a Mbius strip, that mathematical curiosity in which one surface is produced by twisting judiciously then joining two ends of a ribbon, Rucker's new hard SF satire tweaks the dot-com Y2K subculture into a hilarious tribute to Edwin Abbott's Flatland (1884). Kencom techie Joe Cube fatally miscalculates how his increasingly dissatisfied, yuppie, dingbat wife, Jena, really wants to celebrate the millennial New Year's Eve. Joe should have remembered that Jena likes sex even better than he does. Instead he brings her two Dungeness crabs, a bottle of Dom Perignon and some really cool electronics, an experimental three-dimensional TV. This indigestible combination fizzles Joe's stab at romance, but the electronics sizzle, hurling Jena into the arms of Joe's skuzzy engineer pal, Spazz, and propelling Momo, a siren-voiced denizen of the fourth dimension, into Joe's life. For her own nefarious purposes, Momo cons Joe into helping her people, the Kluppers, against their mortal enemies, the Dronners. Only Joe's three-dimensional reality, Spaceland, separates the two warring races. Combining valid mathematical speculation with wicked send-ups of Silicon Valley and its often otherworldly tribespeople, Rucker achieves a rare fictional world, a belly-laugh-funny commentary on the Faustian dilemma facing a lumpish 21st-century tech-addicted everyman: What is the real price in human relationships, in love and friendship and compassion, of those cutesy little user-friendly gadgets that happen to materialize so innocently on our desks?
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
My idea for handling December 31, 1999, was that Jena and I should fix a nice meal, drink champagne, watch TV, and stay clear of the Y2K bug. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting yet confused, Mar 6 2004

By	Dr. Zoidberg (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

A sequel, of sorts, to Edwin Abbott's classic novel, 'Flatland'. Joe Cube is a high tech executive waiting for his company to be IPOed. One night, while playing with his company's product (a TV screen that turns standard television broadcasting into a 3D image), Joe is contacted by Momo, a creature from the fourth dimension. Momo 'augments' Joe, giving him the ability to see into the fourth dimension, and also the ability to see into our dimension using a four dimension perspective. This gives Joe the unique ability of seeing inside people and objects, naturally, Joe tries to use this to make money... Momo only asks (demands, to be more exact) that Joe start a company that will create a specific product that she will supply. The plot gets complicated when another race of four-dimensional creatures, the Wackles, seem intent on stopping Joe. What is going on? Try the book and see.

This sounds like a very cool premise and it really is. The author truly captured the feeling of a 4D universe, a 3D universe from a 4D perspective, as well as a one dimensional and a two dimensional universe. The book is worth reading if only for this.. or perhaps, only for this: The book suffers from the worst characterization I've ever read in a book. The characters are completely unbelievable, obnoxious, annoying, self-contradicting. They are ridiculous. It feels like a cartoon of a cartoon. Maybe that was the purpose? I've never read any other book by the author, so I can't really say if it's his style. It's a pity, because the book could've been so much better. At the end I couldn't stand any of the characters (including the protagonist). Another weakness is the plot itself: Until the middle of the book it's really quite a good story, but then the quality goes downhill from there.. Shame. I'm giving the book 4/5 stars, but if I could, 3.5/5 would be more appropriate.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Plot secondary to concept, Nov 21 2003

By	ra2sky "ra2sky" (the left coast) - See all my reviews

I enjoyed this book, but thought that the fourth dimension concepts somewhat overpowered the plot. I found the Flatland references appealing, but readers who have not read Flatland may find this book difficult to enjoy. On the other hand, serious Flatland students might find this too lighthearted.

At times Rucker over-explains the science; at times he under-explains the science; and sometimes he makes significant plot twists without enough context. That said, this is a very creative story. The silicon valley references, and its characters, are amusing. I also appreciated Rucker's sketches sprinkled throughout the book.

I think this book would be most appealing to casual Flatland readers looking for a light, humorous read.

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3.0 out of 5 stars A sprightly homage to Abbott, Sep 24 2003

By	Royce E. Buehler "figvine" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Spaceland isn't the first attempt to honor Abbott's classic "Flatland", it won't be the last, and it probably won't be the best. And it isn't, by a fair stretch, Rudy Rucker's best novel. But it's a rollicking comic strip of a ride. It's every bit as good at teaching neophytes about the fourth dimension as its model, and (dare I say it?) in prose that's far less tedious. (For one thing, Rucker's hero Joe Cube unabashedly explores the sexual possibilities of every dimension he enters. Don't assign this text for extra credit to your sixth grade math class.)

It's superior to most other updates of "Flatland", in that it captures the full flavor of the original, which was one third math instruction, one third humane philosophical musing, and one third sharp social satire. As a professional mathematician, and perhaps the best popularizer of math around today in nonfiction, Rucker is more than equal to the first task. The war between the sort-of-animals living on one 4D "side" of our universe, and the Loki-like sort-of-plants dwelling on the other, takes on a nearly theological dimension before it's through, although it's a zany kind of Pixar-production theology drawn in primary colors. Rucker's satirical target is less timeless than the simple bead that Abbott drew on heirarchy and stratification: Silicon Valley society at its frenetic dot-com peak. Better read it now while it's still funny - but it sure is comical now.

What Rudy Rucker does best is to take a premise, build consequences on it, then tease out meta-consequences and meta meta consequences in a dizzying tower of speculation. His fiction can be pretty mind blowing. He doesn't build his tower all that high in this effort. But maybe he just didn't feel it was fitting, in a tribute, to upstage old Edwin too far.

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Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars A good exposure to the fourth dimension, but...
It is clear that Rucker has read Edwin Abbott's "Flatland," and bases his story loosely on it. Even his choice of "Joe Cube" as the hero's name (a cube is the 3-dimensional analog... Read more

Published on Sep 4 2003 by Bruce R. Gilson

5.0 out of 5 stars Provides an intuitive sense of the fourth dimension
After reading "Seek!", a collection of non-fiction essays, I wrote to Rucker to say how much I enjoyed it, as well as his other non-fiction books (on infinity and the... Read more

Published on Aug 3 2003 by Diego Banducci

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but very similar to prior works
This is an entertaining book, that provides useful and informative analogies for thinking about higher dimensions. Read more

Published on Jul 13 2003 by James J. Lippard

4.0 out of 5 stars Spaceland...
Spaceland is a good science fiction book, but it doesn't appear to be much more than that. Overall, the book as a whole is a good read, but for those who are looking for something... Read more

Published on Dec 17 2002 by Raymond Shum