Hylozoic - Hardcover

Rucker, Rudy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765320746 ISBN 13: 9780765320742

Verlag: Tor Books, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

After the Singularity, everyone and everything is sentient and telepathic. Aliens notice and invade Earth. In Rucker’s last novel, Postsingular, the Singularity happened and life on Earth was transformed by the awakening of all matter into consciousness and into telepathic communication. The most intimate moments of your life can be experienced by anyone who cares to pay attention, or by hundreds of thousands of anyones if you are one of the Founders who helped create the Singularity.

The small bunch of Founders, including young newlyweds Thuy, a hypertext novelist, and Jayjay, a gamer and brain-enhancement addict, are living a popular, live-action media life. But now alien races that have already gone through this transformation notice Earth for the first time, and begin to arrive to exploit both the new environment and any available humans. Some of them are real estate developers, some are slavers, and some just want to help. But how to tell the difference? Someone has to save humanity from the alien invasions, and it might as well be reality media stars Thuy and Jayjay.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rudy Rucker is a writer and a mathematician who worked for twenty years as a Silicon Valley computer science professor. He is regarded as contemporary master of science-fiction, and received the Philip K. Dick award twice. His thirty published books include both novels and non-fiction books. A founder of the cyberpunk school of science-fiction, Rucker also writes SF in a realistic style known as transrealism.

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Chapter One

After Everything Woke Up

Jayjay awoke beside Thuy; comfortably he molded himself against her. Early sunlight filtered in through the redwoods. The newlyweds were in sleeping bags on the forest floor beneath a tree. They’d teleported here to install their home. It was the first of May.

A big blue Steller’s jay perched on a jiggly thin branch overhead, cocking his head. Jayjay teeped stealthily into the bird’s mind. He savored the gentle jouncing of the branch, the minute adjustments of the jay’s strong claws, the breeze in his comfortable plumage; he chirped contentedly, Chook-chook-chook-chook, then inhaled through the nostrils of his fine black beak, relishing the smells of fruit and flesh, studying the promising scraps on the ground, assessing the large creatures beside the mound of goods; but now, Kwaawk kwaawk kwaawk, one of the big animals moved her limbs. The jay released the branch, glided free, and flapped to the next tree. Kwaawk kwaawk.

"Kwaawk," echoed Thuy. "That’s his name."

"All the others have that name, too?" said Jayjay.

"Yeah, but each of them says it differently." Thuy turned to face Jayjay, giving him a kiss. "I can’t believe we own this piece of land. What does that even mean? We handed over our money so that a record somewhere says, ‘Property of Jorge Jimenez and Thuy Nguyen.’ But there’s so many plants and animals already living here, and if you count the other silps too—it’s an empire."

"I hope they don’t resent us."

"Those nice smooth rocks by the stream like us fine," said Thuy. "Teep into them. See how eager they are to be in our foundation walls? They like the idea of being mortared together, and of rising above the ground. Beating gravity is a big deal for a rock!"

"You’re my big deal," said Jayjay, teeping Thuy teeping him teeping her. The first few times that they’d telepathically mirrored each other, they’d felt themselves tobogganing toward the point-attractor of a cerebral seizure. Fortunately, you could always shut off your telepathy. With practice, Jayjay and Thuy had learned to skate around the singular zones, enjoying the bright, ragged layers of feedback—well, Jayjay enjoyed this more than Thuy. Not too long ago, he’d been addicted to merging with the planetary mind called the Big Pig. He liked head trips.

After a little more mind play, Thuy gently pushed Jayjay away. She was smiling, with her eyebrows optimistically arched. Her longish black hair hung loose, her pink lips were delicately curved. Hanging a few feet above her was a Stank shampoo ad. Thuy and Jayjay made their living as ’round-the-clock members of a reality show called Founders. But they’d learned to ignore the ad icons and—above all—the vast worldwide audience. If you were doing something really private, you could always turn off your teep. But fewer and fewer things seemed private enough to bother hiding.

"You really think we can teleport a whole house this far?" asked Thuy.

"Sure," said Jayjay. "Working alone, you and I can’t teek much more than a couple of hundred kilograms at a time. But with a dozen of our friends pitching in, for sure we can move our little house here from San Francisco. We’ll build the foundation today, and this evening—alley-oop!—we drop our cozy nest into place. Housewarming party!"

They’d already brought bags of sand and cement for the foundation, also a big flat pan for mixing the mortar, a mortar hoe to mix it with, plus a pair of mortarboards and trowels. Jayjay liked tools, and had managed to borrow these via the human mindweb. The silps in the tools were stoked about the coming job.

"It’s gonna be hard moving all those stones for the foundation," grumbled Thuy. "It’s so peaceful here in the woods. I feel like lying around and thinking up a beautiful scene for my new metanovel. Or teeping with animals. Isn’t this supposed to be our honeymoon?"

"We can teleport the stones instead of carrying them. Teek ’em."

"That’s work, too. When I reach out and remotely teleport a rock—I bet my brain wattage shoots up to a thousand."

"It isn’t just your brain that does the teeking," said Jayjay. "We think with our whole bodies. Consciousness is everywhere."

"Whatever," said Thuy. "I’m just not ready to move hundreds of stones."

"Aw, come on, Thuy," said Jayjay. "When we were in high school, you were always the goody-goody, not me. You’re the ant and I’m the grasshopper. And the grasshopper’s rarin’ to go! Leap!"

"Put that stale rap away," said Thuy. "It’s been a long time since I was an ant. I’m all grown up now. I’m every bit as wild a kiq as you." She rolled toward her knapsack and dug out some dried fruit. "It’s too bad the rocks can’t teleport themselves. Then we could just, like, teep out invitations and they’d all show up."

"Actually we’re lucky that animals and plants and objects can’t teleport," said Jayjay.

"I guess so," said Thuy. "Otherwise Kwaawk the bluejay would be eating these raisins instead of me. And if flames could teleport? They’d eat the whole world. I wonder if Gaia is actively preventing the lower orders from teleporting."

"I don’t think it’s Gaia’s doing," said Jayjay. He’d been one of the first to figure out teleportation, and he liked to hold forth about it. "The ability to teleport is peculiar to the human mind. Rats and roaches are too carefree to fuzz out and teleport. Over the millennia, we humans have evolved toward thinking ourselves into spots where we’re not. It’s all about remorse, doubt, and fear. As for intelligent objects—sure the silps can talk, but they don’t have our rich heritage of hang-ups: our regrets about the past, our unease about the present, our anxiety about the future. Humans are used to spreading themselves across a zillion worlds of downer what-ifs. That’s why we can teleport."

"Depresso mongo," said Thuy. "Remorse, doubt, and fear? That’s all you see in your life? How about gratitude for the things that worked out—like, ahem, marrying me! What about curiosity? What about hope for a sunny tomorrow? Happy what-ifs."

"Let’s get back to the rocks," said Jayjay, in retreat. "Even though they can’t teleport, they can tell us about their balance points. And whether they’re a good match for their neighbors."

"I can just hear them," said Thuy. "Lay me now, mortarforker!" She liked speaking extravagantly. It was a way of rebelling against her prim upbringing. "Trowel my crack!" She got to her feet to rummage deeper in her backpack, then pulled on her striped tights and a long-sleeved yellow T-shirt.

A great shaft of sun slanted into their woodsy glen, with gnats and dust motes hovering in the light. A friendly breeze caressed the newlyweds and stirred the needles on...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765320746
• ISBN 13: 9780765320742
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 333
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: PILOT CORPORATION OF EUROPE; https://www.pilotpen.de/; ; PAE DE LA CAILLE; ALLONZIER LA CAILLE; Frankreich