''Wetware'' is a 1988

biopunk Biopunk (a portmanteau of "biotechnology" or "biology" and "punk") is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on biotechnology. It is derived from cyberpunk, but focuses on the implications of biotechnology rather than mechanical cyberware and ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel written by

Rudy Rucker Rudolf von Bitter Rucker (; born March 22, 1946) is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known f ...

. It shared the

Philip K. Dick Award The Philip K. Dick Award is an American science fiction award given annually at Norwescon and sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and (since 2005) the Philip K. Dick Trust. Named after science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, ...

in 1988 with '' Four Hundred Billion Stars'' by

Paul J. McAuley Paul J. McAuley (born 23 April 1955) is a British botanist and science fiction author. A biologist by training, McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction. His novels dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternative history/alternative re ...

. The novel is the second book in Rucker's

Ware Tetralogy ''The Ware Tetralogy'' is a series of four science fiction novels by author Rudy Rucker: ''Software'' (1982), '' Wetware'' (1988), ''Freeware'' (1997) and '' Realware'' (2000). The first two books both received the Philip K. Dick Award for best ...

, preceded by ''

Software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

'' in 1982 and followed by ''

Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

'' in 1997.

Plot summary

Set in 2030–2031, ten years after the events of ''Software'', ''Wetware'' focuses on the attempt of an

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

-obsessed bopper named Berenice to populate Earth with a robot/human hybrid called a ''meatbop''. Toward this end, she implants an embryo in a human woman living on the Moon (Della Taze, Cobb Anderson's niece) and then frames her for murder to force her to return to Earth. After only a few days, she gives birth to a boy named Manchile, who has been genetically programmed to carry bopper software in his brain (and in his sperm), and to grow to maturity in a matter of weeks. Berenice's plan is for Manchile to announce the formation of a new religion unifying boppers and humans, and then arrange to have himself assassinated. (Rucker makes several allusions to the

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...

story; Taze's abbreviated pregnancy is discovered on Christmas Eve, for instance.) Before the assassination, Manchile impregnates several women, the idea being that his similarly accelerated offspring will create a race of meatbops at an exponential rate. The plot goes disastrously awry, and a human corporation called ISDN retaliates against the boppers by infecting them with a genetically modified organism called chipmold. The artificial disease succeeds in killing off the boppers, but when it infects the boppers' outer coating, a kind of smart plastic known as flickercladding, it creates a new race of intelligent symbiotes known as ''moldies'' — thus fulfilling Berenice's dream of an organic/synthetic hybrid. Both of the two main human characters of ''Software'' play prominent roles in ''Wetware'': Cobb Anderson, whose robot body was destroyed at the end of the last novel, has his software implanted in a new body so he can help raise Manchile; while Sta-Hi Mooney—now known as Stahn Mooney—is now working as a private detective on the Moon after accidentally killing his wife, and is used as a pawn in various bopper and anti-bopper schemes. The ''

Belle of Louisville ''Belle of Louisville'' is a steamboat owned and operated by the city of Louisville, Kentucky, and moored at its downtown wharf next to the Riverfront Plaza/Belvedere during its annual operational period. The steamboat claims itself the "most wi ...

'', a steamboat of historic significance located in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

(the setting for the earthbound portions of the book), occurs as a character in the book, in which it is revealed that the steamer has been imbued with an onboard

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

External links

* Novels by Rudy Rucker 1988 American novels 1988 science fiction novels American science fiction novels Cyberpunk novels Biopunk novels Novels set in Louisville, Kentucky Sequel novels Fiction set in 2030 Fiction set in 2031 Avon (publisher) books {{1980s-sf-novel-stub