Nearfi Reading List
punk6529 · Transcribed from the original post · Near-future fiction — networks, digital identity, AI agents, ownership
Reading this list added 5 works to the catalogue. Of its 19 entries, 6 could not be assessed — unreleased or unread — and are marked with a dash rather than guessed at.
- 1995 The Diamond Age · Manufactured scarcity
- 2006 Daemon · Allocated labour
- 2006 Rainbows End · Obsolescence
- 2009 The Unincorporated Man · Capital captures it
- 2010 Freedom™ · Allocated labour
How it was compiled. A themed recommendation list grouped by series, with a suggested reading order and a set of genre classics listed separately as assumed background. Series entries are audited here volume by volume, since the individual books diverge.
What it brings. Near-term extrapolation about networks, identity and ownership — very close to what this catalogue is looking for, and it delivered: Rainbows End, The Unincorporated Man and Freedom, three of the most concrete depictions of post-automation work here.
| Work | Year | AGI | Answers | What people do all day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daemon Daniel Suarez | 2006 | Yes | Yes | A distributed program hires people through a game interface, ranks them, advances them, and never explains what any task is for. Most of them prefer it to the employer they had before. |
| Freedom™ Daniel Suarez | 2010 | Yes | Yes | The darknet becomes an economy. Members hold levels and reputation instead of wages, take quests instead of jobs, and rebuild local manufacturing and farming under a network that allocates the work and audits the result. |
| Avogadro Corp William Hertling | 2011 | Yes | Partial | Ordinary product-management work at a tech company, carried out by people whose email is being quietly rewritten by the language model they shipped. |
| A.I. Apocalypse William Hertling | 2012 | Yes | — | Not assessed — unread. |
| The Last Firewall William Hertling | 2013 | Yes | — | Not assessed — unread. |
| The Turing Exception William Hertling | 2015 | Yes | — | Not assessed — unread. |
| Rainbows End Vernor Vinge | 2006 | Partial | Yes | Robert Gu, a celebrated poet cured of Alzheimer's, is sent back to high school in his seventies because his skills are worthless. Everyone else works in belief circles and shreds of contract labour, assembled and dissolved by the hour. |
| Nexus Ramez Naam | 2012 | Partial | No | Researchers and agents fight over a drug that networks minds. |
| Crux Ramez Naam | 2013 | Partial | No | The same fight, at a larger scale. |
| Apex Ramez Naam | 2015 | Partial | No | The same fight, at global scale. |
| The Unincorporated Man Dani & Eytan Kollin | 2009 | Partial | Yes | Everyone is incorporated at birth. Your education, healthcare and upbringing were financed by shareholders, and your working life is spent buying back your own stock. Most people never reach majority self-ownership, and the ones who do are a class apart. |
| The Unincorporated War Dani & Eytan Kollin | 2010 | Partial | — | Not assessed — unread. |
| The Unincorporated Woman Dani & Eytan Kollin | 2011 | Partial | — | Not assessed — unread. |
| The Unincorporated Future Dani & Eytan Kollin | 2012 | Partial | — | Not assessed — unread. |
| Snow Crash Neal Stephenson | 1992 | Partial | Partial | Deliver pizza against a franchise deadline, courier packages by magnetic harpoon, work a second job inside the Metaverse. |
| The Diamond Age Neal Stephenson | 1995 | Partial | Yes | The neo-Victorians cultivate hand-craftsmanship precisely because it is economically pointless. Matter compilers made everything else free. |
| Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson | 1999 | No | No | Codebreaking in one war; a data-haven startup fifty years later. |
| Neuromancer William Gibson | 1984 | Yes | Partial | Hustle. The Sprawl automated everything except crime, so Case steals data for whoever is paying. |
| Ready Player One Ernest Cline | 2011 | No | Partial | Live inside OASIS. School, work, friendship and treasure-hunting all happen there; reality is a stack of trailers. |
Linked titles are in the catalogue. Partial means the work gestures at the question without sustaining it.
Source
This list was not compiled with this question in mind, which is the point of using it. The verdicts and the daily-life summaries are mine and arguable: the Answers column has no bright line, andPartial is where the disagreement lives.