FREEWARE

More kooky-future cyberpunk (following the paperbacks Software and Wetware) from the mathematician author of The Hacker and the Ants (1994), etc. ``Moldies'' are artificial lifeforms made of imipolex, a sort of intelligent plastic, combined with algae and fungi (they don't need to eat, drink, or sleep), and can assume several different body shapes; the main ambition of every moldie is to earn enough imipolex to be able to reproduce. But they usually smell bad, so humans who want to have sex with them (not an approved activity) are called ``cheeseballs.'' Young ``Heritagist'' and cheeseball Randy Karl Tucker's mission is to abduct moldies from Earth and send them off to the Moon (moldies can zoom through space like tiny rockets), where moldies and a few enlightened humans are building a new culture. After various complications involving the development of a polydimensional form of imipolex, it turns out that a loony moldie named Gurdle-7 has invented a decryption algorithm that allows beings who are traveling through space in the form of waves to take over moldie bodies; one such is the stupid and fixated Quuz from the Sun, who just wants to eat people, moldies, anything. Cheerfully amorphous, irreverent, and absurd, full of allusions to f/sf works and writers, but also cluttered and sometimes impenetrable: best for Rucker regulars, Valley types, diehard cyberpunks, and devotees of old comics like Metal Men and Doom Patrol.