Digital Rapture — James Patrick Kelly

When the Singularity arrives and computers possess superhuman intelligence, will there be an ecstatic merging of machine and mind� -- or an instantaneous techno-apocalypse? Will there be the enslavement of humanity or �"the Rapture of the Nerds”? The post-human future is here in its wildest science-fictional imaginings and intriguing scientific speculations.

This far-reaching anthology traces the path of the Singularity, an era when advances in technology will totally transform human reality. It travels to the alien far-future of H. G. Wells (Mind at the End of Its Tether), to the almost human near-future of Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near), from Elizabeth Bear's fusion of woman, machine, God, and shark (�"The Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe”), to Isaac Asimov's evolution of ineffable logic (�"The Last Question”). As intelligence both figuratively (and possibly literally) explodes, science-fiction authors and futurists have dared to peek over the edge of the event horizon. Join them there.