klwilliams

On Tuesday I went to the latest SF in SF reading series with

madbaker. First, though, we had dinner. It's a lot of fun to have dinner with a foodie, even if he's not the one who cooks. This time we had tapas. Mmm. They weren't as good as Zarazuela, but they were still yummy. Next time, possibly Mediterranean.

The readers on Tuesday were Rudy Rucker and John Shirley, billed as "The Dread Lords of Cyberpunk" (Terry is the one who comes up with the great taglines). I hadn't read anything by either of them in years, and only short stories at that, so I didn't know what to expect. John Shirley is the more noir of the two, or should I say the only noir of the two, but his reading was also very funny. He read from his new novel, whose name I didn't catch but will be out this summer from Nightshade(?) Books. The impetus for the book is that since Left Behind, the series about what happens after the Rapture, has sold 60,000,000 copies, it's time for the radical Left to take back the Apocalypse from the Right, and the section he read concerned a Sacramento newspaper reporter looking for some illegal aliens in a trailer park when...something...happens. I'm going to get it when it comes out, and when I do I'll tell you what it's called.

I think the reason Rudy Rucker is considered part of cyberpunk is because he writes about computers (he was a computer science professor at San Jose State for over 20 years), not because he embraces the dark or punk aspects. He seems like a very happy, laid back person, and his stories are very funny. At least, his reading of "Chu and the Nants" was hysterical, and will be part of the basis of his next novel.

The Q&A/panel afterwards was also interesting, with the two of them discussing the early days of cyberpunk, with Terry Bisson and Adam Cornford.

The next reading will be May 16, "Islands in the Slipstream" with Terry Bisson and Pat Murphy. I hope to see you all there.