Given how much I liked his previous books, I started reading Stross’ Accelerando as soon as it arrived from Amazon. Accelerando is both a novel and a series of linked stories, following three generations of one family through the massive effects that exponential growth of computing power could bring to human society. The concept of “singularity” is familiar enough from Vinge, MacLeod, Stross’s previous works, and a host of other contemporary writers, but Accelerando gets inside the singularity itself, instead of considering it an “unknowable” event.
As befits an account of runaway technological evolution, the book moves fast, and is packed with as much terminology and technology per square inch as one is likely to find. And it’s fun — the hardest part of reading the book was slowing down and trying to make the book last for a day or two. I suspect one needs to be somewhat computer-philic to really enjoy the book, and possibly to enjoy Stross at all, but Wikibooks does have a “technical companion” developing nicely for those who might wish for a glossary.
Damn, now I have to wait for his next book.
