[ExI] Fw: upon pondering your next million years

[spike]

> ...I enjoyed 
> >the Spike much more at the time I read it although that 
> could in part 
> >be because it was my first book length treatment on the 
> subject when I 
> >was younger in this "cult".  :-)  Samantha

... 
> No, that's not the reason (he said, straining for modesty).
> 
> Damien Broderick


No need for polite modesty Damien; The Spike is a far better book than is
Kurzwiel's TSIN.  The Spike is to other books as the classic Beatles
Sargeant Pepper's is to other albums.  In the Spike and Sgt Pepper, the
whole is greater than a collection of songs, or cool chapters and ideas.
Rather it has an overall theme, a direction and flow, a shape.  It
accelerates.  The Spike makes one struggle to read faster and faster, in
order to devour it all before it is too late.  It feels like one is rushing
towards the singularity.  

Compare with works on the same general topic, Arthur C Clarke's 1962 classic
Profiles of the Future, which is excellent but outdated, James Gleick's
Faster (which isn't) and Kurzweil's TSIN which has plenty of cool stuff in
it but somehow makes the reader feel the singularity is far.  The Spike just
has that exponential feel to it.  

Damien you have singlehandedly written the book version of Sargeant Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band.  May you sell a trillion copies and be constantly
surrounded by adoring fans eager to do anything for you that Barbara will
allow.

spike