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Rudy Rucker has seen the future. . . and it is extreme.

The Godfather of cyberpunk – a mad scientist bravely meddling in the outrageous and heretical – Rucker created Bopper Robots, who rebelled against human society in his award-winning classic Software.

Now, in 2953, "moldies" are the latest robotic advancement – evolved artificial lifeforms made of soft plastic and gene-tweaked molds and algae, so anatomically inventive and universally despised that their very presence on the planet has thrown the entire low-rent future into a serious tailspin. So the moon is the place to be, if you're a persecuted "moldie" or an enlightened "flesher" intent an creating a new, more utopian hybrid civilization. Of course up there, there are other intergalactic intelligences to contend with – and some not so intelligent – who have their own agendas and appetites.

This is scientific fabulation at its most brazenly inventive – funny, cutting-edge and deeply informed. No writer alive puts it all together like Rudy Rucker. Artificial life forms made of soft plastic and gene-tweaked mold and algae, moldies are evolved robots in the year 2053 – anatomically inventive and universally despised. In a sleazy, low-rent future, sexual fraternization with moldies is strictly taboo – a societal sin that is of no concern whatsoever to Randy Karl Tucker. A Kentucky boy who has seriously strayed from the Heritagist religion's stern teachings about the evils of artificial life, Randy feels a definite something for Monique, moldie bookkeeper and maid at the Clearlight Terrace Court Motel But Monique's sudden and inexplicable abduction from the planet – coupled with unsettling revelations about Randy's own dubious origins – is dragging the degenerate flesher and all those around him into an ugly, conspiratorial mess... even as it pulls an unsuspecting humanity ever-closer to a stunning encounter with intergalactic intelligence.