The novel “Software” by Rudy Rucker was published for the first time in 1982. It won the Philip K. Dick Award. It’s the first book of the “ware” tetralogy.

Cobb Anderson is dying. He doesn’t have enough money to afford a heart transplant and drowns his last sorrows in alcohol. When he lost all hope, he’s approached by a bopper, one of the sentient robots that evolved after the programming carried by Anderson himself.

The bopper offers Cobb Anderson immortality but he must go to the Moon, where the boppers have built their society and where there’s also the laboratory where they could cure their creator. Accompanied by the weird cabbie Sta-Hi, Anderson starts his journey but the boppers’ offer hides a catch because immortality can only be achieved by transferring his mind into a bopper body.

Rudy Rucker is considered one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement and “Software” is one of the first novels of this subgenre, published two years before “Neuromancer” by William Gibson. Rucker develops the themes related to technology in a very personal way being a scientist but at the same time being linked to mystical interpretations of reality.

In “Software” Rudy Rucker also introduces elements of the literary movement he proposed some time later, called transrealism. Put very simply, it consists in telling real life in fantastic terms and Rucker was for example inspired by real people to create this novel’s protagonists.

The beginning of the ware cycle is set in a future that is now close but refers to events from the beginning of the third millennium. Things turned out very different so today we must read it as a ucronia set in an alternative world where artificial intelligence was developed in recent years.

Cobb Anderson is the creator of boppers, sentient robots that initially were programmed with Asimov’s three laws of robotics they overcame thanks to a change made in secret by Anderson. The consequence is that the boppers received free will, rebelled and decided to build their own separate society on the Moon.

For his action, Cobb Anderson was tried for high treason but managed to get away with it. However, he was disgraced and reduced to an alcoholic. In 2020, He’s close to death because of heart problems but is approached by a bopper who invites him to go to the Moon, where he’d be given immortality.

On the Moon, the boppers’ society turns out to be complex, with a division between various types of boppers who may have different ideas about their future and this leads to contrasts that can be strong. It’s a society that in some ways mirrors that of humans, also from the point of view of the use of drugs and certain tendencies to mysticism.

Boppers change rapidly with new generations because their programming contains the equivalent of an evolutionary mechanism. Their society is brand new and yet there are already strong diversification and generational differences. Rapid technological changes affect boppers in a similar way to how they affect humans.

For Cobb Anderson, the problem is that he discovers that he’s be given immortality by transferring his mind into a bopper body through a process that destroys his organic brain. This allows the development of some of the central themes of the cycle, the nature of consciousness and mortality.

The result of all these elements is a hippie cyberpunk, more light-hearted than that of William Gibson, which instead has much darker tones. In “Software” there are dramatic moments as well and the protagonists must ask themselves serious questions to make very important decisions but it’s hard to take too seriously protagonists such as Cobb Anderson and Sta-Hi.

“Software” is a novel too short for Rudy Rucker to develop in depth the various themes contained. On the other hand, the pace remains fast with plenty of action and plot twists. The protagonists are quite developed while the other characters are a bit sacrificed.

The mix of elements created by Rudy Rucker in “Software” is unique. I wasn’t entirely convinced but overall I found it funny and an interesting source for some thoughts. It’s a bizarre novel so I recommend it only if you think you can appreciate that kind of ideas.