After Life by Simon Funk

Rating - 4: worth reading multiple times (buy it)

This is the best science fiction story I have read in a long while. It takes the prescience of Rainbows End and applies it to different technology. It is a completely coherent vision of the future with several known and planned technologies implemented. It is also told in a compelling, non-linear style that makes multiple, partially integrated perspectives work.

I am not going to spoil a thing. I will, however, give you some keywords. If you read it and do not understand it, you should do some research and read it again. There is nothing here that should be outside human general knowledge, although it probably is for 90+% of the planet. We will catch them up.

Your easier introduction to concepts is Greg Egan's wonderful Permutation City, which you should ready anyway. "Upload" is your keyword there. Other terms you may want to consider are bootstrapping, recursive self-improvement, intelligence explosion, wire-heading, the selfish gene, and some others I will probably think of and edit in later.

As a bonus, the book is available free online. There are links there to pay for Kindle or a print edition, or to donate.

Go. Read it.