The Rapture of the Nerds

There were parts of this that were amazing. Rapturous prose sparkling with trippy ideas and ideals in equal measure. There were also parts where the main character wore out their tiresome entitled welcome, and I wanted to slap them. But I never wanted to put the book down. I felt from some early-ish part of the story that there’s a good chance this was inspired by the work of Rudy Rucker. And if it wasn’t, the authors (the two of them) were just in a similar headspace while writing it. Although this book is now over 10 years since publication year, so it’s possible the Rucker books this reminded me of actually came out after. Still, similar levels of reality fluidity, which is a hallmark of his work.

In short, I loved this. Do recommend.

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.

A satisfying Singularity narrative full of nerdy in-jokes. If you don't care for jargon, look elsewhere.

Every word a gem. Read it.

You get the feeling that the authors were having a ball writing this book. There is a sense of loving craft invested in maximising the absurdity metric on each and every sentence.

Sometimes you can pack too much good into a very small space.
When you do this, an explosion is probable.

The explosion is not as good as if you had just packed fewer things into that space.

Good strange things that I like:
Gender swapping protagonist
A hacker's exploration of transhumanism
Resource constraints in the virtual world
The inevitable myspacification of virtual worlds
The ethics of forked virtual characters
What it would feel like to modify your own thought patterns
Zeppelins
Post Rapture societies and who would stay behind

And oh so much more. This novel is so fizzy with amazing things that it bubbles away, leaving almost nothing behind. And that is not as good as it could be.

Still, worth reading.

It was special.

Took me forever to read. Mostly due to changing jobs and schedules, but also just because it took a lot of effort to digest. Was really expecting a Doctorow book, but it felt a lot more like stross.

I'm not really sure I processed most of it, especially really the very end.

At times, it feels like the two authors ate competing to write each other into more and more bizarre predicaments. But that is part of the fun.