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After On cover art

After On

By: Rob Reid
Narrated by: Sean Kenin, January LaVoy, Felicia Day, Patrick Rothfuss, John Hodgman, Tom Merritt, Jesse Cox, Leo Laporte
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Summary

The definitive novel of today's Silicon Valley, After On flash-captures our cultural and technological moment with up-to-the-instant savvy. Matters of privacy and government intrusion, post-Tinder romance, nihilistic terrorism, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, and much more are tackled with authority and brash playfulness by New York Times best-selling author Rob Reid.

Meet Phluttr - a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, and about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers - and they don't even know the tenth of it. 

But what's the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming "The UberX of Sex"? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will? 

Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it's not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her. 

After On achieves the literary singularity - fusing speculative satire and astonishing reality into a sharp-witted, ferociously believable, IMAX-wide view of our digital age. 

Narrated by Sean Kenin and January LaVoy, with:
Felicia Day: NETGRRRL.COM
Patrick Rothfuss: Special Field Operative Brock Hogan
John Hodgman: Charles Henry Higgensworth III
Tom Merritt: voice of The New York Times
Jesse Cox: Whistle Blowings Blog
Leo Laporte: voice of The San Francisco Chronicle

©2017 Rob Reid (P)2017 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

" After On is smart, hilarious, and properly cynical about our connected world. The story unfolds in surprising and fiendish ways, and while you're laughing you'll learn enough to confound a wily MBA, manipulate a board of directors, and maybe even outfox a superintelligence." (Ken Fisher, founder and editor in chief, Ars Technica)

"Rob Reid doesn't write science fiction; he writes future history. After On is the best account I've read of how superintelligence will arrive and what it will mean for all of us. Hilarious, frightening, believable, and marvelously constructed - After On has it all." (Hugh Howey, New York Times best-selling author of Wool)

"Enter a near-future Silicon Valley that is hilariously, creepily, mind-bogglingly fantastic, yet at the same time all too believable. It might turn out this way. No, really, it might! Along with After On's diabolically ingenious plot, there are crazy-plausible web startups, delicious parodies of social media, and a surprisingly convincing theory of human consciousness." (Chris Anderson, head of TED)

"Reading After On is like attending a master class in nearly every major issue haunting not only the tech industry but society itself. Only the professor is also a stand-up comic with a perfect ear for the foibles of Silicon Valley's most sacred cows. Part AI thriller, part arch social commentary, and part rollicking farce, After On will leave you smarter about just about everything the human species needs to work on if we're going to outlive our own creations - and our obsessions with them." (John Battelle, co-founder, NewCo, Federated Media, and Wired)

What listeners say about After On

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Great book!

Loved the story. Very well written. Ends at the right time with a heart warming twist. Characters are great. I thought the interludes would become annoying but they were all relevant. The narrators were brilliant and very engaging. Got lost in the middle as some sections are over indulged in but doesn’t let the story down. Very impressed by the way very complex concepts are explained simply and clearly so the average reader can understand them. Well worth a listen.

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One of the cleverest book I have read!

This is a very intelligent and well researched, very well woven fiction. Love it. A true must read!

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1 person found this helpful

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Compelling read

A vista of modern and future technology, wrapped in a fast moving plot. I can't quite decide if it's dystopia or utopia...

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1 person found this helpful

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Amazing!

Wonderful book! Loved it! It is challenging, engrossing and powerful. I was fully emerged in a world utterly recognisable and yet provocative and complex. A book I will read again.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Stick around for the second half.

This isn't Interstellar or The Martian, but it's still grand speculative fiction. The author demonstrates moments of incredibly clever writing, and uses an irregular, entertaining style. However, the whole execution of this story is thrown into wildly oscillating strength and weakness by the execution of its voice actors, who seem bound by Cthulhu to hunt for the most energetic, noisy and strange ways to act out even the calmest sections of this book.

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Informative, thought provoking and entertaining

Where does After On rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Loved this book. It's a nice side step from pure Science Fiction, more of a light hearted near future semi-dystopia.

What did you like best about this story?

It's tackles some great issues like AI, online privacy and governmental intrusion. It introduces lots of really amazing tech that could be just around the corner.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favourite?

Charles Henry Higgensworth III, great reviews. They all actually exist on Amazon

Any additional comments?

Make sure to check out the "after on" podcast, also a great listen.

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Really enjoyed this book

Fun scenes and realistic environment. The characters are diverse and interesting. Overall a story that kept my full attention. I recommend this book.

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superb

Loved this book, a gripping story line, truly fascinating ideas and my first book I suggest when asked for recommendations. It's one of a few I've gone back and listened to again.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Too many different story lines

I really liked the start of the novel, I liked the narrator, and I liked the first plot line. Then it cut to a second plot line (imagined story in someone's head) which was fine, then it jumped to some friends chatting in a bar and I quite liked them...and then all of a sudden we're in a board meeting twenty years previous with a racist depiction of an uptight German. At this point (chapter 7 = 3 hours in) I realise that I'm never actually going to get much depth or development of any one plot line, and sadly I decide to give up on the book. I did understand most of what was being said - I just didn't know enough about any of the characters to care.

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Hurry, no genocide!

Loved this book. Nice to have a story about an AI that doesn't kill everyone.

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