Accelerando (Singularity)

Accelerando (Singularity)
by Charles Stross

Accelerando (Singularity)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Charles Stross
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-06-27
ISBN: 0441014151
Number of pages: 415
Publisher: Ace

Book Reviews of Accelerando (Singularity)

Book Review: Fun with Techno-babble
Summary: 5 Stars

I usually find that jargon or techno-babble in a science-fiction book puts me off. But here's a case where the lingo actually gave the book its character and made it enjoyable.

The story tells of several human generations who are influential during a time in the not-too-distant future when humans expand their consciousness through the use of computer technology. The tale is told in episodic form, so that at first one might think it was a loosely related series of short stories, but as it moves on, the relationship of the episodes becomes clear.

Stross sees the world of the future in technical and economic terms and in the first part of the book follows a computer geek who sees his role as helping to reorganize society so that all of its members can take advantage of its huge productivity. One of the tools that that he uses is the embedding of human personality into computer memory. The world that he helps give birth to is known as Economics 1.0. In the second part of the book, his daughter ventures far from the solar system in search of alien intelligence and in the finale the humans escape from the world they made into distant space.

What drives the story is not the plot, but rather the continual reference to the computer technology. While I'm certain you might enjoy the book if you knew nothing about how computers work, the more you understand about the innards and reasoning behind data processing the more you will be able to appreciate the tale. On the other hand, even though I consider myself quite familiar with technology, there were several events and characters whose significance I never quite understood because it was so buried in the technical language. Yet the jargon was so much fun that even though I knew I was missing something, I was absorbed by what I did see.

Stross gives some neat, humorous and nasty twists to the tale, like the central character who happens to be a masochist (believe it or not, that's not only funny, but sympathy inducing.) or the sarcastic cyber cat who is intimately involved in the story.

Stross throws around grand ideas about what the future will look like that invite speculation, even as they seem a little unlikely, but he presents the possibilities in such a way that you never think that he's wandered into fantasy.

It was difficult to develop deep feelings for the characters, although the author certainly shows aspects of their internal lives, and I'm not certain how many useful insights into our own lives or society he provided. Instead, he carefully constructed one possible future that he cleverly hung lots of technology on, so that the book was a great deal of fun to read.

Summary of Accelerando (Singularity)

The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day.

Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run from her domineering mother, seeking her fortune in the outer system as an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Amber?s son, who finds his destiny linked to the fate of all of humanity.

For something is systematically dismantling the nine planets of the solar system. Something beyond human comprehension. Something that has no use for biological life in any form...

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