Welcome to the fracturedfuture, at the dusk from the twenty-first century.

Earth includes a populace ofroughly a billion hominids. Generally, they may be happy with their great deal.Those who find themselves unhappy possess emigrated, joining the swarming densethinker cladesthat fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular equipment so thick itobscures sunlight.

The splinterymetaconsciousness of the solar system has generally sworn off its pre-post-humancousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander … and about The Rapture of the Nerds when that occurs, itcasually spams Earth’s networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptivetechnologies that emulsify whole industries, civilizations, and spiritual systems. Asane varieties would disregard these get-evolved-quick techniques, but there’s alwayssomeone who’ll take a bite from your forbidden apple.

So until the overmindsbore of stirring Earth’s anthill, there’s Tech Jury Program: random humans,selected arbitrarily, charged with assessing a large number of fresh inventions andruling on whether to permit them loose. Teen Huw, a technophobic, misanthropicWelshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he will his best toperform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and acouple of really awful moments on bathroom floors.

The Rapture from the Nerds is an excellent collaboration by Cory Doctorow andCharles Stross, two of the defining personalities of post-cyberpunk sciencefiction.