Quantum mechanics was known to be only an approximation to the world’s deeper rules. There were three new realms to take into account: the parallel spacetime of the Hibrane, the unexplored zone beyond the infinity of the lazy eight axis, and the subdimensional levels beneath the Planck length. While remaining quantum-mechanically orthodox, teleportation teased its practitioners with glimpses of the subdimensions.
As the shape of Jayjay’s wave function shifted, he felt himself skimming across the surface of a hidden sea: the Planck frontier that separated ordinary reality from Subdee. Voracious, meddlesome subbies lived in the subdimensional sea. They’d once attacked Thuy by sending up harpoon-tipped tendrils. It was good to finish one’s teleportation hops as quickly as possible.
But the mind force of the twelve teekers was barely adequate for the task of moving the house, and the passage was proceeding slower than Jayjay would have liked. And then, just when it seemed like they were ready to bloom up into the redwood glen – old Khan lost his focus.
Thuy’s mother, Minh, was teeping him, she was having a hissy fit because they’d forgotten to bring along her special homemade ginger-plum dipping sauce. As the distracted Khan’s mental grip weakened, the cabin teeped a yip of fear. They were sinking too close to the subbies’ sea. Jayjay heard a noise like a wood chipper.
“Damn you, Mom,” screamed Thuy. “Get away!”
Minh withdrew; Khan regained his focus; the house settled onto the foundation in the woods.
Amid relieved murmurs, the group unlinked.
“You must respect your mother, Thuy,” said Khan. “It’s not easy for her anymore.”
“We’re lucky we made it at all,” said Jayjay, sticking up for his wife. He went over and looked out the door. Most of the porch had been gnawed away by the insatiable beings of the subdimensions.
“I’ll teek for the sauce,” said Khan, briefly closing his eyes. Two little pots appeared on the dining table.
Hylozoic
5/5 stars
With Hylozoic, Rucker applies his manic whimsy and multidisciplinary rambunctiousness and comes out with another fine entry in the “psipunk” subgenre he initiated with 2007′s Postsingular. Not only is everything (from trees and streams to individual atoms) in Rucker’s future self-aware, telepathically chatty and linked via the planetary overmind Gaia, but teleportation and telekinesis are also coming into mass use and reshaping civilization. Though anyone so inclined can take advantage of the eight-dimensional fun, cultural inertia being what it is, fundamentalists and despots are still around to cause headaches for folks who just want to live their lives. In addition to three simultaneous alien invasions, the main problems faced by our heroes (among them a sentient pitchfork and Hieronymus Bosch) are those mainstays of dramatic fiction, the personal and the interpersonal, and Rucker takes the time to make his principals, for all the wonders of which they are capable, fallible, sympathetic human beings. As Gaia tells one character seeking a “viral reset rune” to undo the damage wrought by the avian alien tulpas’ quantum operators,
“Pekka has the edge on me,” said Gaia. “Her birds are diligent and they honor their world. But my humans – my humans are stoners or loners. If I can’t find this thing, it’s your own fault.”
Addiction, guilt and the increased prospect for pain that accompanies increased empathy and interconnectedness are at the bottom of Hylozoic‘s gravity well along with all the goodies. In writing about transcending human limitations, Rucker spends a good deal of time picking at those sore spots of conscious awareness, and the result feels less like glossy progress porn than like the societal/mathematical larks of Carroll and Abbott. For all the cutting-edge concepts it showcases, Hylozoic works, against all odds, as a story. If there’s another recipe for singularly rad SF, I don’t know it.
If you’re interested in the far-out ideas included (and not included) in Hylozoic, or in Rucker’s writing process, he’s made available 385 pages of working notes (over twice the length of the novel itself) at his site.
Hylozoic is available from the Carnegie Library.
Happy reading and cuídate.