Postsingular
Rudy Rucker
 The novel is divided into four parts. Most of the events in the story take place in a future version of San Francisco. 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 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 Jumping into the wall of nants that has grown in the Lutter house, Chu immediately jumps back out and the nants begin to retreat. By the next day, the nants have mostly reversed all their advances until they return to the moon and are 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; Lutter, who is rehired 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 Craigor'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. Ond 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, tetepathy 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 separates from Ond and becomes intimate with a cook at a nearby restaurant, 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. Years later, San Francisco has become reliant upon the orphidnet, and the story focuses upon a group of teenage residents, known as "kiqqies", who are homeless but depend upon dumpster-diving and a particular portion of the orphidnet known as "the Big Pig". The Pig is seen as an addiction to those whose minds are clear, as it allows for its partakers to rapidly glean information for so long as one is accessing it. Jayjay, Thuy, Sonic and Kitty ===Part 4===