Rapture of the Nerds: A tale of the singularity, posthumanity, and awkward social situations

Cory Doctorow · Charles Stross

Apr 2013 · Titan Books

About this ebook

At the dusk of the twenty-first century, Welsh technophobe Huw is one of the billion or so hominids left on Earth, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. The rest have emigrated, uploading their consciousness to a vast cloud that fogs the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery, and occasionally spams Earth with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies. Wary of anything more sophisticated than his bicycle, Huw jumps at the chance to attend tech jury service and defend the Earth from the scum of the post-singularity patent office. But his long-awaited stint is cut short when he becomes infected with an itchy technovirus, and unwittingly becomes the last hope of the entire universe.

Ratings and reviews

A good premise, but hard to relate to the characters. A roller coaster of a plot and lots of humour and tech geek references. Good fun.

About the author

Writer and activist Cory Doctorow was born in Toronto, Canada on July 17, 1971. In 1999 he co-founded a free software company called Opencola and served as Canadian Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. For four years he worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and in 2007 won its Pioneer Award. His first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, won a Locus Award for Best First Novel. His short story collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More won a Sunburst Award, and his bestselling novel Little Brother received the 2009 Prometheus Award, a Sunburst Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Doctorow also writes nonfiction books and articles, and he co-edits the blog Boing Boing. Born in Leeds, England, Charles Stross knew he wanted to be a science fiction writer from the age of six. Despite this, he went to university in London and qualified as a Pharmacist. He made his first writing sale to Interzone in 1986, and sold about a dozen stories elsewhere throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. He now writes fiction full-time, has sold about 16 novels, has won one Hugo award and been nominated nearly a dozen times, and has been translated into about a dozen languages. He is the author of the Merchant Princes series. His latest book, The Revolution Business, is the fifth in this series. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag.