Book Log #10: Accelerando, by Charles Stross

[annathepiper]

My reaction to Accelerando can be summed up thus: What the hell did I just read?

This is not to say that I think this is a bad book. On the contrary, there's a lot of hard SF goodness to be found it these pages, from space elevators to computronium, wormhole traversals to Matrioshka brains. All of these things are set off against three generations of a brilliant family at the forefront of the rapid evolution of humanity from the species we know to a godlike collection of intelligences who have devoured the solar system in its quest to create enough processing power to sustain itself. What plays out in our neck of the cosmic woods is a subset of the universe at large, where existence itself is portrayed in terms of one great big gigantic network.

And it's all woven together into a tapestry so dense that as a reader I found myself with only two options for how to approach it: either take it slow and digest every idea as I found it, or say ctrl-alt-fuckit, charge through the thing, and worry about absorbing it all once I was finished. Needless to say, I wound up going the latter route.

Here's the thing, though--for me at least, it was ultimately not as satisfying as Stross' later novel, Glasshouse. The same crystalline precision of language is present, but the book's packed with far more ideas than it is a truly cohesive plot, and the ending in particular was a letdown.

Still, though, this is worth checking out as a character study, both at the individual level and at the species level. For a more polished work, you should check out Glasshouse; for this one, three stars.

Comments

[hyperbard.livejournal.com]

I love that book -- yeah, it's confusing as all hell at times, but I got it several years back and even the confusion seemed to make sense in context. I think it takes that left turn into absolutely confusing when they go more into the Internet, and then I think his writing suffers a bit; it seems to be more scattered from then onward, shifting from place to place. I remember the weird cube-within-cube and the fantastic online Vtech castle, and I sort of lost track there, I recall. But on the other hand, there's some amazing writing in it, so even through years of culling my books, I've kept that one. "Glasshouse" is better, huh? Hm, maybe I should add that to my "to get" list...

[annathepiper]

I liked Glasshouse better overall as a story just because there's a cohesive start-to-finish plot. There's a progression of action in Accelerando, to be sure, but there's not really an ending per se, and in fact the ending kind of irritated me.

Both books have the potential to confuse the hell out of you if you don't keep up, and that, I agree, is part of the fun. ;)

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

weirdly enough, you just convined me to go hunt up this book, tho it has to wait in line behind a few others . .. that sounds really neat. Shall check out Glasshouse also . . .

[annathepiper]

Cool, hope you enjoy both books. :)

[denelian.livejournal.com]

i read (and adored!) glasshouses; that was my intro to Strous.

but i could not get through Acclerando. it's the same problem i was with Tolkein and Rice, i think... i can't read them, either. but i will continue to try and read his other works, as i really REALLY liked Glasshouses, it may just be a hit-or-miss thing with me.

if you really like beautiful writing, though, i Recommend "Sunshine", a VERY novel vampire book. it was very strange, very beautiful, and very anti-vampire. Robin McKinnley

[annathepiper]

Way ahead of you on Sunshine; that was one of my 2007 Book Log books, and one of the first I did a formal Book Log review on. :)

I can see where you're coming from on this book, re: comparing it to Tolkien. With Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, you have an overall cohesive plot and very dense, richly packed language; with The Silmarillion, the language is even more richly packed, but the plot is not nearly as focused, and individual character studies as well as overall portraits of a species take precedent over any particular line of action.

That's about what I get as a reader comparing Glasshouse and Accelerando. It'll be interesting to me to see how Halting State, another Stross, compares against 'em; I've got that on my To Read shelf too.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

funny - i have that on order from the library lol

i just started reading your blog, mostly bevause you have a book i want to read coming out, so i didn't know you gad aleady read "Sunshine". i just found it like a monthago, and have been spreading it everywhere.

[annathepiper]

I remember you from comments on solarbird's journal, yeah. :)

And no worries! The McKinley love is well worth spreading. I've loved her books ever since I read The Blue Sword.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

ha! another book i have ordered from the library, although i have picked it up, an its next on my to-read list :)

she has totally sucked me in. and i tend to prefer Sci-fi. she is wonderful.

speaking of, when does you book come out? i rememeber reading that it will be an ebook exclusivly, at least at first, but i am not finding the specific post. may i have a link to the info? (i am one of those people who keeps a calender of what books come out when so i can get them. addicted, i am soooooo addicted...)

[annathepiper]

There's no date set yet, but I am informed by my editor that I should be receiving requested edits some time in the next week. We're hoping to get the ebook released by early March at this point; Drollerie will be doing a promotion for Read an Ebook Week, so that's got us something to shoot for as a target.

Also, I have surgery in early March, so we're hoping to get it dealt with before my brain goes offline for a week. *^_^*;;

When I have more data I shall be sure to post!

[denelian.livejournal.com]

oooo

surgery sucks. i had 4 over the summer on my hip (2 from MRSA, i looked like i had an alien baby!). i'm STILL not fully recovered. so i send good wishes!

[annathepiper]

Thanks! Yeah, it's draining. I don't know if you've seen solarbird posting about it, but I've been dealing with the aftermath of breast cancer. This is reconstruction surgery I've been having, and the 5th is hopefully the last of it. I'm almost okay at this point, it's down to the level of nuisance.

But oh my yes the nuisance. Many sympathies to you for having to deal with four procedures in one summer!

[denelian.livejournal.com]

i have read solarbirds; but i had gotten the impression that you were done. i guess what she meant is that you were done with the scarey-SCAREY parts? probably.

it's just all so... unfair. (yes i'm 32 and still want things to be "fair", sigh). but really, GOOD THOUGHTS. and i will emphasize in those good thoughts that this should be the last one (its as close as i get to praying).

good luck. don't eat the food! (well, hospital breakfast isn't TOO bad, but the dinners?!) and i hope you have a VERY speedy recovery.

[annathepiper]

I'm done dealing with the more serious parts, yeah. At this point it's all about the reconstruction surgery, and this is the final bit of that. Well, at least for the next 10-15 years, until the implant wears out. (Bah.)

Thanks very much for your good thoughts, and likewise to you and your own medical woes! Thankfully the food at Evergreen actually doesn't suck. It's edible.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

oh, wow. is it LEGAL for hospital food to be edible?

i am glad the serious scarey parts are over. i hope the implant last the maximum. and thank you - i am so sick of being sick it makes me sick. *eyeroll*
i swear if i could find my warranty papers i would return this body :p

[janne.livejournal.com]

I actually really liked the 'accellerating' nature of that book, from something I could keep up with to something that just went ZOOOOOOOM out of my reach at a faster and faster pace. Very appropriate for all the discussion of singularities. There came a point where I just went WHEEEEE! and stayed around for the rollercoaster ride. (Reminded me rather of the Illuminatus! books in that regard...)A book to be experienced rather than understood.

[annathepiper]

Oh sure, the rollercoaster ride to WTFistan was very much part of the point. I just didn't like where the rollercoaster dropped me off, as it were. ;)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I think Accelerando is a fix-up, compounded of several short stories with intertext: which might explain something of its idea-heaviness - because novels tend to start out with their ideas and then examine them at leisure, while with fix-ups you're constantly getting new ideas poured in, with concomitantly less space for examination - and possibly also its unsatisfactory-endedness, because short stories only seek to end themselves and not all the other matter they've been woven in with. (I haven't read it yet myself, so this is offered from theory rather than experience...)

[annathepiper]

I haven't visited Stross' website and/or journal to learn more, but I could buy this as a theory; it's definitely got a feel about it of interconnected short stories, what with the jumping around of who gets to be main character when.

I suppose part of my overall issue with the ending was that the main POV character for the last third of the book just wasn't nearly as interesting to me as the two main characters who came before. And in fact, they overlapped a lot into the final third.

[jgstewart.livejournal.com]

LOL at 'ctrl-alt-fuckit'.

Accelerando was the first Stross I read, and I really liked it - I agree w/ janne above, I love how the craziness of the language mirrors the accelerating craziness of the world it describes.

I also though Halting State was great. It's a bit more conventional (if that's the word to describe anything Stross writes), but it still plays some fun language games (most obviously in using second-person present to make the whole book read like you're playing a text-based rpg).

I finished Glasshouse a month or two ago and though it was ok... I liked the other two better. I suppose it depends on the order you read them - if you start with book A you have a different set of expectations for book B then you would if you reversed the order.

[annathepiper]

As I recall, ctrl-alt-fuckit comes from my partner. I have not yet determined which key on the keyboard is the fuckit key; it may be platform-dependent!

I'm dealing with a sample set of two so far, but yeah, you're right, "conventional" seems to be the last word I'd apply to Stross. And HAH, now that I know a little bit more about Halting State, I'm all the more interested in reading it. We'll see how fast it pops off my queue; this is what I get for having over 250 things on the To Read shelves. ;)