Customer Reviews:
 Excellent. Thought-provoking. May 18, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A very well presented, and extremely well researched effort. Everyone should read this. One star deducted jointly for the shameless (and frequent) promotion of the author's other works, and the sometimes unnecessarily long-winded passages in the book - its still very well done, but this is my own opinion.
I strongly recommend this book, very hard to put down.
Contains some wonderful ideas. April 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those of you who don't know, Ray Kurzweil is the man who invented Optical Character Recognition, along with various other pattern-recognition technologies. He is well-versed in what technology is theoretically capable of, and has spent his professional life trying to make it do these things.
I have nothing but good things to say about Ray Kurzweil, and this book in particular. The ideas that he puts forward may seem very optimistic, sometimes verging on techno-fanaticism, but nothing he is saying is negative. If he's right, the human race only has to survive until the 2040s and things will markedly improve.
However excellent I found the technological predictions made in this book, there are two points that brought it down to four stars. First, and a matter I admit is one of personal preference, there were far too many graphs to do with economy and business. This is an American book, so capitalism has to figure somewhere, and he is forgiven. The other point is that some of the speculations he is making are sociological ones and these are far more spurious than any technological speculations. However, they are not fundamental to what he is arguing.
All in all, an excellent, if at times overwhelming, read. I heartily recommend it as an introduction to transhumanism and futurism.
 Revelatory March 21, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I discovered this book a couple of years ago. There was a sale at Waterstone's, and I had all but one of the books needed to take advantage of said sale. This took my interest, so I got a hold of it, and thank goodness I did.
I can honestly say that this is the most important non-fiction book I have ever read, and quite possibly one of the most important books period. Whilst I have always sensed something important might be taking place regarding technology, and I have always had a deep love of science and technology, Kurzweil highlights and articulates some incredible and illustrative concepts. I don't agree with everything he says, but the fundaments of the book seem entirely solid. Sometimes this terrifies me, but Kurzweil offers a great deal of hope as well.
Whether you embrace or reject the implications, however, Kurzweil's book makes an extremely imposing case that I have yet to see refuted. Reading it will prepare you for the future, whether that future looks glorious or horrifying to you.
Awesome book January 24, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
My heart sank when I got this book. An American book on science that had that many pages must be written by someone who got paid by how many times they were able to repeat themselves. This has been my experience with books much thinner than this. Yet I was quite wrong. There is very little repetition and it is all appropriate. The book is very well written with careful attention given to the order in which ideas are presented. It is an astonishingly wide ranging book and essential reading for anyone who is interested in where technology is taking us. How the author found time to write it, along with perfoming all his other duties beats me. He must be one hell of a guy!
The only thing I take issue with him on, is... no I won't spoil it for you! You can make up your own mind. Just read it!
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