Postsingular is a 2007 science-fiction novel written by the American writer Rudy Rucker. It focuses upon a cast of San Franciscans and their relationship with emerging uses of nanotechnology. It was the first of Rucker's works to be licensed under a Creative Commons license and released to the public on the Internet. A sequel, Hylozoic, was released in 2009, but was not released under a free license.
Summary
The novel is divided into four parts. Most of the events in the story take place in a future version of San Francisco.
Part 1 The first part begins on a New Year's Day, in which a young, 17-year-old Jeff Luty and his friend Carlos Tucay are about to light bottle rockets on Stinson Beach. The two boys, who are interested in the young but growing nanotechnology industry, dream about establishing Lu-Tuc Space Tech, and have inserted nanorobots into the rockets. After a passing dog had urinated on the rocket, the rockets are lit again. However, the rocket eventually misfires, and a launch lug is sent flying into Carlos' right eye, killing him. The first part fast forwards several years later, in which Jeff is the CEO of Nantel, the leading nanotechnology company in the world. One of the leading employees of the company is engineer Ond Lutter, who works on a project to create "nants". However, when Jeff, who is still distraught over Carlos' death, comes to blows with Ond over the creation of a virtual earth with the nants. The US government buys the nants, and the president, Dick Dibbs, announces that the Earth will be eaten by the nants and converted into a virtual version of the Earth, or "vEarth". Ond and his family, however, do not agree. Ond, who is fired after arguing with Luty and defying him, sets about to write code on paper by hand which should disable the nants and builds an antenna to resist the advance of the nants until the house is the last of the holdouts to persist on physical Earth. Ond's 9-year-old son Chu, however, is an autistic savant and is able to retain Ond's written code to memory and jumps into the wall of nants that has grown in the Lutter house. Chu subsequently jumps back out of the nant wall and the nants begin to retreat. By the next day, the nants have mostly reversed all their advances across Earth and restores it in its entirety until they return to the Moon and are seemingly shot out of existence by a Chinese satellite. After the reversal and destruction of the nants, Dibbs is arrested by the government and executed for his role in the "vEarth" conspiracy (classified as "treason"). Luty is now a wanted fugitive and goes into hiding; Ond, who is rehired by Nantel, now renamed as ExaExa Labs, however, is inspired by nanorobotics to create a new type of nanorobot, which becomes known as the "orphids". When he tells a gathering of his and fellow co-worker Craigor Lundquist's families in San Francisco Bay, however, Nektar becomes angry against Ond and argues against Ond over the nants, for fear of a repeat of the events. Chu, irritated by the shouting, seizes the jar and smashes the glass open, releasing the orphids to rapidly self-replicate. Within hours, the orphids, which are heavily connected to the Internet, spread to most of the West Coast, and Ond is wanted by the San Francisco Police Department. The orphids also provide displays for augmented reality, ridding society of the need for AR contact lenses (or "webeyes"), throat microphones and other AR utilities. The city has a hard time adapting to the orphids and the sensorally immersive version of the Internet, or "orphidnet", presented by the orphids. The advanced properties of the orphidnet allow for opportunities not possible with prior computing technologies, such as advanced teleconferencing, telepathy and even remote sex between physically separated partners. However, this leaves little room for privacy, as the orphids barely allow for any living thing to be non-connected to the orphidnet, meaning that Ond is the subject of a mob which seeks to lynch him for "Orphid Night". Nektar, irritated by Ond's release of the nants, separates from Ond and becomes intimate with a cook at a nearby restaurant who she met through the orphidnet, leaving Ond to take care of Chu; furthermore, Ond and Chu discover the existence of a higher-intelligence dimension which somewhat mirrors earth. One of the rulers of the so-called "Hibrane" version of San Francisco, Gladax, tries to remove the means of "Lobrane" access to the Hibrane in order to keep Lobraners out, going so far as to penetrate Chu's mind. The pursuit of Ond and Chu by both Gladax and the anti-nant/orphid mob ultimately send the two teleporting from the Merz Boat to the Hibrane version of San Francisco, where everything is slower and larger.
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