Couple Singularity books
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:45 pm
The Singularity is starting to show up in Science Fiction. I have just read The Complete Atopia Chronicles by Matthew Mather (available for a limited time half-price on Kindle). The "Crisis of 2020" turns out to be a massive cyberattack which collapses the infrastructure for several weeks in a bitterly cold Feb 2022. Much if not most of the population starves and/or freezes to death. There is a technophobic neo-Luddite reaction which delays the Singularity a decade or two (I hope not...I want to have at least a slim chance of living to see it) but it is finally arriving. Hyperinteligent AIs project "phutures", simulating the world in such detail as to be able to project disasters, which can then be avoided in the real "future". Nanorobotic "smarticles" interface with peoples nervous systems and allow merging of minds, splitting of minds into multiple streams of consciousness, inhabiting animals' bodies and other transhuman abilities.
Perhaps the best sci-fi novel I have ever read (and I have read thousands).
Another one I am currently half-way through is The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross. It is 46 years after ~90% of the population have ascended into a matrioshka brain surrounding the sun. The ones who stayed behind have to deal with occasional "gifts" from this Overmind which tend to transform the world. Also a pretty good book.
Perhaps the best sci-fi novel I have ever read (and I have read thousands).
Another one I am currently half-way through is The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross. It is 46 years after ~90% of the population have ascended into a matrioshka brain surrounding the sun. The ones who stayed behind have to deal with occasional "gifts" from this Overmind which tend to transform the world. Also a pretty good book.