The Accord [Mass Market Paperback]

Keith Brooke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2009

A tale of love, murder and revenge that crosses the boundaries between the real world and a virtual reality.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this expansion of a 2007 short story of the same name, British writer Brooke explores the nature of love, self and reality in the Accord, a virtual reality populated by digital recordings of real people's souls. Its creator, Noah Barakh, is having an affair with several copies of politician Priscilla Burham. When Priscilla's powerful husband, Jack, finds out, he murders Priscilla's physical self. Noah promptly commits suicide so his last upload can continue the fling safely, far away from Jack, setting off a cascade of heated confrontations, bodies being hijacked by recorded selves and real and virtual deaths. Multiple copies of various characters move between realities as Jack and Noah search for a version of Priscilla who can love them even as they seek to destroy each other. The emotion-driven love triangle neatly complements the tech- and philosophy-heavy nature of the Accord, making this rumination on posthumous, posthuman love a rare treat. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Keith Brooke’s first novel appeared in 1990, and he has published four more adult novels, two collections, and over 60 short stories. Since 1997 he has run the web-based SF, fantasy and horror showcase infinity plus (www.infinityplus.co.uk), featuring the work of around 100 top genre authors. His most recent novel, Genetopia, was published by Pyr and received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Writing as Nick Gifford, his teen fiction is published by Puffin, with one novel optioned by Little Bird.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Solaris (February 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844165892
• ISBN-13: 978-1844165896
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,218,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Keith Brooke's first novel, Keepers of the Peace, appeared in 1990, since when he has published six more adult novels, six collections, and over 60 short stories. For ten years from 1997 he ran the web-based SF, fantasy and horror showcase infinity plus, featuring the work of around 100 top genre authors, including Michael Moorcock, Stephen Baxter, Connie Willis, Gene Wolfe, Vonda McIntyre and Jack Vance. His novel Genetopia was published by Pyr in February 2006 and was their first title to receive a starred review in Publishers Weekly; The Accord, published by Solaris in 2009, received another starred PW review and was optioned for film. His latest novel, The Unlikely World of Faraway Frankie, came out from Newcon Press in April 2010. His next novel is alt.human, due from Solaris in 2012. Writing as Nick Gifford, his teen fiction is published by Puffin, with one novel also optioned for the movies by Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish's Caveman Films. He writes reviews for The Guardian, teaches creative writing at the University of Essex, and lives with his partner Debbie in Wivenhoe, Essex.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brain vs. brawn in virtuality, June 3, 2009

By 

Nigel Seel (Wells, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Accord (Paperback)

In Keith Brooke's novel, earth is going to hell in a handcart under the burdens of overpopulation and climate change. Noah Barakh is the architect of the the Accord, the virtual reality to which people can be uploaded after their death on this earth, a kind of secular heaven. Straining available computing resources, the Accord soon migrates to some kind of superpositional quantum state (physics a bit dubious here) where it turns out that there will be many Accords, a kind of 'many virtual worlds' interpretation of QM then.

The Accord is actually a love story: brain and brawn competing for the feisty Priscilla. The brawn is elector Jack Burnham, a 'big man' who is used to getting what he wants and utterly ruthless in his methods. What he mostly wants is to possess his wife Priscilla and kill the man she has become attracted to, Professor Noah Barakh. This vendetta moves from real space-time to the Accord virtuality and then through many alternative virtual worlds.

Initially I thought the writing was a bit self-consciously clunky, but the pace soon gets up and the novel becomes a bit of a page turner. Brooke's characters are never less than real and what a scary bunch they are. He has a real feel for the dangerousness of powerful, implacable men. And this is a well-imagined description of what virtuality could really be like. With complex heros and antiheros, sex and violence, high-concept tech-extrapolation and a racy and intricate plot, what's not to like?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly well written, creative, and captivating story about the Man who Built Heaven, August 21, 2009

By 

Christopher J. Griffith "CG" (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Accord (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is a must for all of those who appreciate deeper level fiction. The book's concept is fairly simple, but it wreaks havoc in the lives of the characters involved.

Basically, mix a science fiction story of virtual reality, with the social and religious issues of "heaven," throw in a chunk of love triangle, and this story is the resulting love-child.

A man builds a virtual reality, into which people's minds are uploaded in the form of AI data. When these people die, they are "loaded" into the VR, and live on as if they were still alive, waiting for their fellow humans to "hurry up and die." As stories flood out from the "Accord," the name given to this virtual heaven, the old world starts to collapse as people commit suicide, among other catastrophic events. We see Malthus climb aboard as the new world starts to fill up, and expand beyond its capacity. On the smaller scale, the creator of the Accord falls in love with the wife of a political official that is responsible for funding the project. A very strange and chaotic love triangle ensues when the politician murders his wife for "virtually cheating," and she finds herself in her lover's heaven.

One strange situation in this book is a "mixing" of characters into one person. The author pulls it off very well, and we can see the development of a new character, derived from the old ones. We also see the linear development of singular characters, and again, the author does a good job in this area as well.

Again, I strongly recommend this book to those that are interested by issues of technology, love, and intense character development.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Better "Diaspora", March 25, 2009

By 

JFBeilman "Bibliophile" (Wichita, KS United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accord (Paperback)

I have just finished reading this book for the second time, and I find that this story makes better sense than Greg Egan's Diaspora.Unlike Egan's novel of post-human virtual realities,the Accord has smoother transitions between our world and the virtual world. Also, it is easier to sympathize with the various characters, even the bad guy! And there is just enough technical detail to make the worlds interesting, rather than incomprehensable.And finally, the transition from a recognizable present to an alien and exotic future in the Accord is handled alot better than the choppy transition in Egan's Diaspora.In conclusion, although these two novels both deal with the same theme of evolution in a post-human virtual reality, Brooke handles the subject matter with alot better skill than Egan.