Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
I have read and enjoyed a few Stross books before, but never any by Doctorow, so was looking forward to this one.
Huw is infected with a technovirus, and his hope to be part of a tech jury defending against the singularity patent office is cut short. He is dragged over to America, which has a really odd version of the church there, and returns to the jury knowing he is the last hope for the universe.
It is packed full of ideas, from parallel memories, uploaded humans, gender changes and a mix of sophisticated tech and steampunk tech. All good stuff, or so you would think, but the characters and the plot really didn't work for me. Some of the time I wasn't completely sure what was going on, and I didn't really get the whole point of it in the end.
Huw is infected with a technovirus, and his hope to be part of a tech jury defending against the singularity patent office is cut short. He is dragged over to America, which has a really odd version of the church there, and returns to the jury knowing he is the last hope for the universe.
It is packed full of ideas, from parallel memories, uploaded humans, gender changes and a mix of sophisticated tech and steampunk tech. All good stuff, or so you would think, but the characters and the plot really didn't work for me. Some of the time I wasn't completely sure what was going on, and I didn't really get the whole point of it in the end.
If you've read any of Stross' earlier stuff (other than the Merchant Princes, that's a whole different kettle of fish) and liked it, you'll like this one too. It's set in a post-Singularity world, with a heavy emphasis on "post" - almost everything we consider important in today's society is either gone or considered anachronistic. I enjoyed it greatly, but be warned...if you're easily offended (especially in the religious or sexual arenas), this ain't your book.
Better than other Doctorow I've read, either because it isn't as preachy or because it's coauthored by Stross
Written as a collaboration between two of my favorite authors, you can see how much fun they had working together as you read this book. If you're a fan of kooky post-cyberpunk nonsense, this is a great book for you.
Well they've finally admitted that even the singularity won't bring true post scarcity.
That is what The Rapture of the Nerds is about.
A fun romp with a lighting rod hero that keeps ending up in the middle of the mess.
Full of caricatures rather than real people the whole experience is aimed at having fun and lots if fun I had.
That is what The Rapture of the Nerds is about.
A fun romp with a lighting rod hero that keeps ending up in the middle of the mess.
Full of caricatures rather than real people the whole experience is aimed at having fun and lots if fun I had.
A more comedic take on the singularity as compared with Stross's more serious (but still fairly hysterical!) modern classic Accelerando. The breakneck pace of neologisms and sly asides is somewhat more moderated (or maybe I'm acclimatized). It's pretty much what it says in the title: of course the ascended dense-thinker clades swarming in a proto-Matryoshka brain, confusing the billion remaining future shocked naked apes with downloads of strange technologies and busily dismantling Jupiter for more computronium are still nerds at their non-beating non-hearts.
I had several laugh-out-loud moments reading the book, and overall enjoyed myself immensely. Of course, my shifting between phone, tablet and ereader places me bang in the middle of its primary audience. People who aren't familiar with Kurzweil, Gödel and the pages of Wired and slashdot seem to find it a bit heavier going.
I had several laugh-out-loud moments reading the book, and overall enjoyed myself immensely. Of course, my shifting between phone, tablet and ereader places me bang in the middle of its primary audience. People who aren't familiar with Kurzweil, Gödel and the pages of Wired and slashdot seem to find it a bit heavier going.
An absurd book with an excellent title. The first half is chaos and kind of hard to follow because almost every sentence is filled with new ideas from the post-singularity future. Don't let your eyes glaze over; hang in there for the crackling second half.
3/5 pg 1-150
5/5 pg 151-end
3/5 pg 1-150
5/5 pg 151-end
It was OK, there were some interesting ideas and the writing was decent to good, bug after rushing along at first and establishing the post singularity world (often with not quite enough explanation of what was going on) it really slowed down and probably included too much by the end. Worth a read, but not if you've got something better around.