Master of Space & Time

by Rudy Rucker

Master of Space Time is Rudy Rucker's take on the ultimate power fantasy. Computer programmer Joe Fletcher and eccentric inventor Harry Gerber play with time, certainty, and causality to attain space-time mastery sufficient enough to alter the very fabric of reality at will. They open a multi- dimensional doorway and step through to a 'looking-glass' world ruled by a giant brain, 'Gary Herber,' who has the instincts of a televangelist and who can clone himself. The Herber-brain clones attach symbiotically to humans, who begin acting like oversexed Republicans. The pair, assisted by Herber's girlfriend Sondra Tupperware, destroy the brain and return to this dimension, were they discover that one of the clones has crossed over as well.

There's more to the story, all equally as weird as the above. I suppose this swirl of science and satire could be called 'punk physics.' Self-reflexive, too: the author makes a horrifying appearance in superspace.

(J. Lebkowsky)

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Here is the TEXT POPUP for Master of Space & Time:

The giant lizard was really getting excited. And -- God, God, God -- it was Harry and me he was after. We barely made it into the culvert in time. A huge claw probed in after us, and was replaced by the creature's immense basilisk eye.

"Isn't this exciting, Fletch? Watch this!"

Harry yelled and threw a sharp rock right into the giant eye's center.
WHEEEENK-WHEEEENK- WHEEEENK! GUH-ROOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"I love that noise," chortled Harry. "I can't get enough of it."

For the first time I really let myself imagine the kind of world that Harry might design. The guy had no respect for the ordinary human things that make life worth living. Weirdness was all he cared about -- weirdness and sex and plenty to drink.

"What are those things?" demanded Sondra. "Bugs?"

"They're little copies of me. There's infinitely many of them.
It has to do with the renormalization problem and the existence of multiple solutions to the Schrodinger wave equation."

"They're little people?" said Sondra, stepping closer. She reached out a finger and one of the little Harrys landed on it. "How cute!"

"The brains don't like alcohol," I explained. "They have three teachings, just like you."

"I hadn't heard that."

"Yeah, they're called God's Laws. Follow Gary, Be Clean, Teach God's Laws."

"A thought virus." Bitter chuckled. "A parasitic system that propagates itself. And what else did you accomplish?"

"We have special seeds," said Nancy. "Two new kinds of plants. Look." She threw a fritter-tree seed and a porkchop-bush seed off the porch....

...The Planck length is the size scale below which ordinary physics breaks down. There's no cause and effect for things smaller than Planck length. There's total uncertainty down there, and anything can happen. Now, the idea behind the blunzer is to magnify the Planck length all the way up to one meter. When you get blunzed, the Planck length will get that big in a region around your head. So for a few seconds you'll be in a total zone of uncertainty. Anything you want to have happen will be true.

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