ISBN 1-878914-01-4 (US hbk limited edition),,, 1-878914-00-6 (US pbk)

Introduction by Robert Sheckley;

Book One: Light Fuse and Get Away
Poems 1975-1982

Book Two: The 57th Franz Kafka
Stories 1980-1983

"The 57th Franz Kafka" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Spring 1980... originally published in The Little Magazine , Vol.13, Nos.3 & 4, 1982... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Schrödinger's Cat" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Spring 1979... originally published in Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact , March 1981... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"A New Golden Age" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Fall 1979... originally published in The Randolph-Macon Woman's College Alumnae Bulletin , Summer 1981... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983... reissued in the anthology Mathenauts , Arbor House, US, 1987)

"Jumpin' Jack Flash" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Geneseo, Spring 1976... originally published in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Sufferin' Succotash" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Swarthmore, 1967, and Heidelberg, 1979... originally published in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Faraway Eyes" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Fall 1979... originally published in Analog Science Fiction / Science Fact , September 1980... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983... features the characters Joe Fletcher and Harry Gerber)

"The Indian Rope Trick Explained" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Spring 1980... originally published in the anthology Changes , Ace Books, 1983... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"A New Experiment With Time" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Spring 1980... originally published in German translation in Sphinx Magazin , #16, Spring 1982... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"The Man Who Ate Himself" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Spring 1980... originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , December 1982... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983... features the characters Joe Fletcher and Harry Gerber)

"The Facts of Life" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Fall 1980... originally published in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Tales of Houdini" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Louisville, Summer 1980... originally published in the anthology Elsewhere , Ace Books, 1981... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983... and in the anthology Mirrorshades: A Cyberpunk Anthology edited by Bruce Sterling, 1986)

"Buzz" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Spring 1981... originally published in New Blood , December 1981... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"The Last Einstein-Rosen Bridge" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Spring 1981... originally published in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Pac-Man" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Summer 1981... originally published as "Peg-Man" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , June 1982... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Pi in the Sky" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Fall 1981... originally published in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983)

"Inertia" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Spring 1982... originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , January 1983... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983... features the characters Joe Fletcher and Harry Gerber)

"Message Found in a Copy of Flatland " by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Summer 1982... originally published in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983... reissued in the anthology Mathenauts , Arbor House, US, 1987)

"The Jack Kerouac Disembodied School of Poetics" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Spring 1982... originally published in New Blood , July 1982... reprinted in the collection The 57th Franz Kafka , 1983...
"Kerouac is one of my all-time favorite writers." --Rudy Rucker.)

"Monument to the Third International" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, 1983... originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , December 1984)

"Storming the Cosmos" by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg/Austin, 1985... originally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , December 1985)

"In Frozen Time" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, 1985... originally published in the anthology Afterlives , Vintage Books, 1986)

"Room to Grow" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Gloucester, Massachusetts, October 1982... originally published in Stardate , #11, March/April 1986)

"Soft Death" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, 1985... originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , September 1986)

"Bringing In the Sheaves" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, 1982... originally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , November 1986)

"Plastic Letters" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, November 1982... originally published in Live From the Stagger Café , #5, edited by Luke McGuff, Summer 1987)

"Inside Out" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos, Fall 1986... originally published in the anthology Synergy , #1, edited by George Zebrowski, HBJ Books, US, 1987)

"Enlightenment Rabies" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Geneseo, 1977... originally published in New Pathways , #9, November 1987)

"The Man Who Was A Cosmic String" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos, Spring 1987... originally published in the anthology The Universe , Bantam Books, 1987)

"Probability Pipeline" by Marc Laidlaw and Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos/San Francisco, 1987... originally published in the anthology Synergy , #2, edited by George Zebrowski, HBJ Books, US, 1988)

"Instability" by Paul Di Filippo and Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos/Providence, 1987... originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , September 1988...
also reprinted in the anthology What Might Have Been, Volume II edited by Gregory Benford, 19??)

"Wishloop" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Summer 1981... originally published in San Jose State University Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Newsletter , December 1988)

"As Above, So Below" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos, 1987... "the first installment of it came out in a Terra Nova , a hippie hacker zine published by Nick Turner and Romana Machado"... published in the anthology The Microverse , Bantam Books, 1989... a shortened version of this story also appeared in Kee Dewdney's small magazine Algorithm retitled as "Mandelbrot's Ma")

"Rapture In Space" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, Fall 1984... originally published in the anthology Semiotext(e) SF 14, Volume V, Issue 2 edited by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Rudy Rucker, and Robert Anton Wilson , Autonomedia, 1989)

"Drugs and Live Sex--NYC 1980" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Heidelberg, Spring 1980... originally published in Journal Wired , Winter 1989)

"The Central Teachings of Mysticism" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, December 1982... first published in the collection Transreal! , 1991)

"A Transrealist Manifesto" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, 1983... originally published in The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America , #82, Winter 1983)

"Phil Dick Lives, 1983 and 1986" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, 1983, and Los Gatos, 1987... the first part originally published in the Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter , 198?)

"What SF Writers Want" by Rudy Rucker
(originally published in The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America , #87, Spring 1985)

"What Is Cyberpunk?" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, October 1985... originally published in REM , #3, edited by Charles Platt, February 1986... reprinted as part of a "Cyberpunk Forum/Symposium" in Mississippi Review , MR 47/48, edited by Larry McCaffery, 198?)

"Access to Tools" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, March 1984... originally published in Astral Avenue , #7, May 1987... reprinted in Edge Detector , #1, edited by Glenn Grant, Summer 1988)

"Jerry's Neighbors" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Lynchburg, May 1984... originally published in Science Fiction Eye , #2, edited by Stephen P.Brown, August 1987)

"Report From Silicon Valley" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos, 1988... originally published in Science Fiction Eye , #4, edited by Stephen P.Brown, August 1988)

"'Bob''s Three Miracles and 'Me'" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Los Gatos, 1989... first published in the collection Transreal! , 1991... originally written for the anthology Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob" Dobbs , but rejected)

"Trip to Japan" by Rudy Rucker
(written in Tokyo, Summer 1990... first published in the collection Transreal! , 1991)

*note: Special thanks to Andy Watson for providing the much-appreciated hardcover edition.

"Every short piece Rucker ever wrote. Enormous. Like being hit in the head with a bowling ball." --Bruce Sterling (1992).

"In the Author Notes (very interesting!) Rucker says: 'Although I can get my novels and science books published pretty easily, I've always had difficulty selling stories to SF magazines'. Personally, I can't really understand why that is.

"OK, so the stories are mathematically oriented, presented with wacky humor, contain a surrealist slant, and have more than an aura of pot smoke. Is this too dangerous a territory for pulp publications?

"Reading Rucker puts us in cerebral space -- a vast ocean of cosmic ideas, psychedelic pipedreams, and infinite regressions. This is mental surfing among the coral reefs of the fourth dimension. I suppose that earthlings can't handle this kind of stuff. But I loved it. Read it and warp out!" --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , October 1997).