The Secret of Life

A 60s college student learns he's a saucer alien in this hilariously intelligent tale of adolescent angst and romance from Rudy Rucker. Conrad Bunger is one of those wild guys you think won't make it to legal drinking age. But, thanks to the strange powers he manifests in times of crisis-he can change his face, shrink to the size of a thumb, fly around the Eiffel tower, and hand out joints to everyone at the student assembly-not even the most ghastly mishaps interrupt his quest for visions, beer, and love. Gradually, Conrad awakens to his true identity as an energy being from outer space. As if he hadn't suspected it all along. Now, as he faces his true nature, he learns his ordained purpose: to proceed incognito and to reach the ultimate prize-the Secret of Life. Problem is, he's having too much fun to keep it together. Even with the government out to kill him . . . Night Shade Books' ten-volume series with Rudy Rucker collects nine of the brilliantly weird novels for which the mathematician-turned-author is known, as well as a tenth, never-before-published book, Million Mile Road Trip. We're proud to collect in one place so much of the work of this influential figure in the early cyberpunk scene, and to share Rucker's fascinating, unique worldview with an entirely new generation of readers.