In the future of The Rapture of the Nerds, it has been decades since the Singularity--a point in technological evolution where god-like artificial intelligence begets increasingly more advanced versions of itself--and most of humanity has transcended from their fleshy bodies into a "computronium cloud" crowding the inner solar system. Huw Jones lives among the other billion humans who remain earthbound in what amounts to a combination nature preserve and hedonistic paradise. Huw, however, is a technophobic misanthrope who shuns the surreality of transhuman daily life by working as a potter in the Welsh countryside. His relatively quiet life is upended by a summons to Tech Jury Duty, where citizens judge the worthiness and potential destructiveness of technology beamed down from the Cloud (also known as "god vomit").
Cory Doctorow (Makers) and Charles Stross (Rule 34) deliver science fiction humor at its best--hilariously absurd and more than a little thought provoking. Their collaboration is reminiscent of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though far more vulgar. Nanobots redesign houses on a whim; bailiff-golems enforce order in a crazed reality TV star's courtroom; a holographic djinni in a teapot gives directions around Tripoli--and these are merely the tamest of Huw's wild encounters, which include an especially satisfying sequence among the petroleum purists and neo-Luddites of the hellish American "neverglades."
Doctorow and Stross do plenty of pandering to techies and trekkies, though readers without nerd credentials will still find amusement in this book's dry British humor, silly situations and high-tech speculation. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer