His most ambitious novel to date, ACCELERANDO is a multi-generational saga following a brilliant clan of 21st-century posthumans. The year is some time between 2010 and 2015. The recession has ended, but populations are ageing and the rate of tech change is accelerating dizzyingly. Manfred makes his living from spreading ideas around, putting people in touch with one another and leaving a spray of technologies in his wake. He lives at the cutting edge of intelligence amplification technology, but even Manfred can take on too much. And when his pet robot cat picks up some interesting information from the SETI data, his world - and the world of his descendants - is turned on its head.
Accelerando
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Stretches the limits of narrative to make us see how wonderful ideas can be (TIME OUT )
Stross's most accomplished and strikingly imaginative SF book so far (STARBURST )
Utterly original, gripping the reader with the power of its ideas (DREAMWATCH )
Intelligent future history grounded by terrific characters (DREAMWATCH )
Stross's most accomplished and strikingly imaginative SF book so far (STARBURST )
Utterly original, gripping the reader with the power of its ideas (DREAMWATCH )
Intelligent future history grounded by terrific characters (DREAMWATCH )
Book Description
The third novel from one of the most exciting new British SF writers of the decade.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By protorp
Format:Paperback
Don't believe the detractors, this is one of the most far sighted, visionary and original pieces of SF to emerge in the past 20 years.
Accelerando takes the reader into a future not so far from our own in subjective time (most of the book is set less than 100 years in the future) but through, as another reviewer said, tackling the idea of the technological singularity head on Stross delves into a world which by its very definition is at an incomprehensible remove from that of the reader. His masterstroke lies in sustaining this sense of alien change whilst keeping enough of a thread of understandable humanity runnning through the story.
Be prepared to have to re-read passages and to take the time to do a bit of side research on his ideas, technical details and vocabulary, but prepare also to be rewarded by a true 'sense of wonder', that of standing teetering on the brink of a fathomless gulf of experience over and above and beyond your ken . . .
Woven through these towering ideas there is a hugely powerful thread of character, for those who read carefully enough . . . the Macx family with its forks, twists and disfunctions is presented, in a way, as a reflection of the future shattering of human values as we currently understand them. And, whilst trying not to give anything away, the thread which ties all this together is a character who I think is one of the most believably, spine chillingly developed images of an alien intelligence yet written.
My caveat would be that this is not a book for those who are just starting to delve into sci-fi. There are both explicit references to and subtle echoes of many previous works of SF. Some obvious authors (again, as others have said) who have influenced Stross and the genre he writes in are William Gibson, Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson and Ian M. Banks, and these all offer their own delights which are, for the most part, easier to tackle and digest than Accelerando.
But if you put the effort into understanding it, the vision, innovation and control of ideas in Stross' writing will leave you reeling.
Addendum: If the book's world were true the Amazon sentient class action lawsuits might come knocking at my door for this - the full text of Accelerando has been made available with full permission of author and publisher at accelerando dot org for free download. Good to see Stross backing the convictions on drm expressed in the book for real!
Accelerando takes the reader into a future not so far from our own in subjective time (most of the book is set less than 100 years in the future) but through, as another reviewer said, tackling the idea of the technological singularity head on Stross delves into a world which by its very definition is at an incomprehensible remove from that of the reader. His masterstroke lies in sustaining this sense of alien change whilst keeping enough of a thread of understandable humanity runnning through the story.
Be prepared to have to re-read passages and to take the time to do a bit of side research on his ideas, technical details and vocabulary, but prepare also to be rewarded by a true 'sense of wonder', that of standing teetering on the brink of a fathomless gulf of experience over and above and beyond your ken . . .
Woven through these towering ideas there is a hugely powerful thread of character, for those who read carefully enough . . . the Macx family with its forks, twists and disfunctions is presented, in a way, as a reflection of the future shattering of human values as we currently understand them. And, whilst trying not to give anything away, the thread which ties all this together is a character who I think is one of the most believably, spine chillingly developed images of an alien intelligence yet written.
My caveat would be that this is not a book for those who are just starting to delve into sci-fi. There are both explicit references to and subtle echoes of many previous works of SF. Some obvious authors (again, as others have said) who have influenced Stross and the genre he writes in are William Gibson, Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson and Ian M. Banks, and these all offer their own delights which are, for the most part, easier to tackle and digest than Accelerando.
But if you put the effort into understanding it, the vision, innovation and control of ideas in Stross' writing will leave you reeling.
Addendum: If the book's world were true the Amazon sentient class action lawsuits might come knocking at my door for this - the full text of Accelerando has been made available with full permission of author and publisher at accelerando dot org for free download. Good to see Stross backing the convictions on drm expressed in the book for real!
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By mpgc
Format:Paperback
Vernor Vinge created something of a problem for SF authors with his idea of a technological singularity. Accelerando is possibly the first novel to tackle this head on. Starting in the near future, it narrates along the exponential curve of computer power that rapidly leads all the way to solar-system-spanning AI. Stretching characters and a plot across such a canvas is a tall order, and inevitably the story is a little ragged at times, particularly toward the end. However, Stross really manages to pull it off remarkably well. This is SF that takes the idea of exponential progress and runs with it further and deeper than anything I've seen before. It's not a perfect book, but if you like the SF of ideas, you'll enjoy the ride.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By Lee A. Fox
Format:Paperback
An occasionally confusing and sometimes confused narrative, this is nevertheless a compelling read. The high-octane style of its opening chapters give it an escape velocity that takes it beyond Gibson, and plunges into a world strikingly reminiscent, if more believable than 'The Dangers of the Last Days'.
Taking near future technologies as it departure point, it accelerates inexorably towards the event horizon of that obsession of postmodern apocalyptic - the collapse of the 'real'. And in doing so, it does what all good science fiction does. A family saga, set across three generations, it takes relations that we would normally recognise and re-imagines them, using technology and the 'real' to examine the notion of identity and what, ultimately, it means to belong to humanity. And all with a wry smile.
Definitely worth a read.
Taking near future technologies as it departure point, it accelerates inexorably towards the event horizon of that obsession of postmodern apocalyptic - the collapse of the 'real'. And in doing so, it does what all good science fiction does. A family saga, set across three generations, it takes relations that we would normally recognise and re-imagines them, using technology and the 'real' to examine the notion of identity and what, ultimately, it means to belong to humanity. And all with a wry smile.
Definitely worth a read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Unnecessary and overcomplicated grammar, but technologically...
Let me try to explain the 3 star rating.
On one hand, the technology used and described in the book is fantastical and brilliantly researched. Read more
On one hand, the technology used and described in the book is fantastical and brilliantly researched. Read more
Published 1 month ago by D. J. Burton
3.0 out of 5 stars
Or how economics ate the world (literally)
All you needed to know about the Fermi paradox (if there are all those clever aliens out there, how come we've never met them? Read more
Published 2 months ago by 70s Guy
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ghastly
Having read other reviewers comments on Charles Stross, I REALLY tried to get through this book BUT it is just to artie for me. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Karen Kennedy-Milne
1.0 out of 5 stars
Amazon stop overcharging for Kindle e-books
Amazon you need to respect your customers - stop abusing your monopoly over Kindle e-book distribution by overcharging. Read more
Published 5 months ago by AJ White
5.0 out of 5 stars
Snapshots of the future?
For me this is Charles Stross's best book. In a sense though its not a complete book, more a collection of short stories, keeping most of the same characters, at different moments... Read more
Published 6 months ago by infrequent
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, perhaps not great
I hadn't realised before purchasing Accelerando that it was constructed from a series of previously published short stories Stross had written; thus it feels rather more episodic... Read more
Published 10 months ago by James C. Foreman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Out-Stephensoning Neal Stephenson...
Having been blown away by Stephenson's enormous intellect in gems such as Zodiac, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash, I've just discovered his successor: Chris Stross. Read more
Published 15 months ago by MadaboutDana
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rich in limited ways, flourishes in space scenes
Having read Stross' Halting State already this year, I kind of knew what to expect- high lingo density with tenacity for accurate futurology. Read more
Published 19 months ago by M-I-K-E 2theD
5.0 out of 5 stars
An amazing adventure across generations and technical revolutions
By far, onr of the best sci-fi books I have ever read.
Mr Stross has the ability to dream and write fictions that many belive will never happen. Read more
Mr Stross has the ability to dream and write fictions that many belive will never happen. Read more
Published 22 months ago by D. C. Mulholland
4.0 out of 5 stars
This e-Book is available for free...
If you want the print version, then by all means buy it here, but the author has made the e-Book available under a creative commons license, and a free download is only a Google... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Daniel Carter
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