A review by mckitterick
The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross

4.0

I have heard the argument that this book feels like Doctorow and Stross competing to see who's cleverer, but in fact that works in the book's favor. They both do their best to write the cleverest, most thoroughly imagined trans-/post-human work I've read to date, and for that it's worth the occasional eye-rolling while reading. Huw's (the main character) single-minded drive to live simply and to a certain aesthetic clashes with everyone else's plots and schemes, leading Huw deeper and deeper into the post-Singularity Solar System. Because Huw is a technophobic misanthrope, we as readers get to experience this truly alien land- and mind-scape as Huw does. So even though it's dizzying at times, it's also accessible to our un-evolved, baseline-human minds.

The last sections, which greatly expand the scope and stakes, really satisfy. I'll likely end up using this to represent post-Singularity fiction in my SF Novels or Science, Technology, & Society courses. If the Singularity is your thing, you'll love this book. Even if it's not a topic that interests you, it's still something we need to prepare for, and what better preps the human mind for inevitable change than SF? (Don't know about the Technological Singularity? See Vernor Vinge's essay where he first defines it: "What is the Singularity?") Recommended.