<p>Welcome to the fractured future at the dusk of the twenty-first century.</p><p>Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part they are happy with their lot. Those who are unhappy have emigrated joining the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick it obscures the sun. </p><p>The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside but its minds sometimes wander … and when that happens it casually spams Earth’s networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries cultures and spiritual systems. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes but there’s always someone who’ll take a bite from the forbidden apple.</p><p>So until the overminds bore of stirring Earth’s anthill there’s Tech Jury Service: random humans selected arbitrarily charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw a technophobic misanthropic Welshman has been selected for the latest jury a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus the apathy of the proletariat and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.</p><p><i>The Rapture of the Nerds</i> is a brilliant collaboration by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross two of the defining personalities of post-cyberpunk science fiction.</p>