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

Cory Doctorow · Charles Stross

Sep 2012 · Sold by Tor Books

About this ebook

A brilliant collaboration from the two defining personalities of post-cyberpunk: Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross.

Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.

Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun.

The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander...and when that happens, it casually spams Earth's networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite from the forbidden apple.

So until the overminds bore of stirring Earth's anthill, there's Tech Jury Service: random humans, selected arbitrarily, charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

I just bought this book for $12 almost sight unseen. After having read his rationale for giving away his book through Creative Commons (the Tent analogy) and having read almost everything else he has written practically for FREE, I felt like I needed to send some whuffie his way. I just hope I'm not part of a small minority that thinks CC is Good and DRM is Bad. Please keep fighting the good fight!

First off I really liked this book, as far as the story goes, however, I wouldn't recommend to an 8th grader. I think the story is pretty original, and had some twists that don't normally take place in a conventional story line. My problem with it, is also something i kind of enjoyed, being the very big words used throughout. I found that I also liked it, because with a story so complex the words chosen created such a level of detail that w/o them the story wouldn't make sense. Lastly there are a few typos.

But it was certainly entertaining. A bit hard to follow in the beginning but its starts making a point early and you want to see it all the way through. It's fast paced and its fun. It is also deeply thoughtful.

About the author

CORY DOCTOROW is a coeditor of Boing Boing and a columnist for multiple publications including the Guardian, Locus, and Publishers Weekly. He was named one of the Web's twenty-five influencers by Forbes magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. His award-winning novel Little Brother was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

CHARLES STROSS, author of several major novels of SF and fantasy including Singularity Sky, Accelerando, Halting State, and Rule 34, is widely hailed as one of the most original voices in modern SF. His short fiction has won multiple Hugo Awards and Locus awards. He lives in Edinburgh.