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on December 27, 2016
Some interesting ideas, and decent plot with a somewhat expected ending. I preferred both Halting State and Rule 34, but Stross writes well.
on December 25, 2016
This is so far the only author that comes close to Peter Watt's "Blindsight". Very provocative and futuristic. For mind-numbing science and soul- numbing philosophy you can't do better then this!
on November 1, 2016
One of the best transhumanist/futurist sci-fi novels ever written, and the last one you'll ever need to read.
on October 18, 2016
Terrible to read. Confuse not in a good sense. Although many ideas are original and promising and that you can get to learn some concepts, the book makes you feel you wasted your time.
on September 25, 2016
great book
interesting clever plot
will go down as one of the greats, i think
interesting clever plot
will go down as one of the greats, i think
on September 10, 2016
A fantastic and utterly realistic speculation of what comes from the race for bandwidth in Stoss' signature hard science style. It has all the hallmarks of a space opera with the gritty realization that connectedness of minds and information isn't always inherently good but more or less the amoral steamroller of the future paving its way through to our current technological extrapolations.
on September 8, 2016
Really enjoyable and thought provoking. Great on a conceptual level and pretty well executed. I found the main actors pretty well characterized throughout. While there are some threads left hanging in the end, I feel like he was able to wrap things up nicely in the end. I found the narrative structure worked well w/ just the right amount of narrative "State of the civilization" type breaks to give you the bigger picture of what's going on elsewhere while keeping the main body of the book in a character-centric/personal voice.
The biggest negative I've come away w/ is that Stross seems to know his stuff when he writes about semi-obscure and/or complex math and physics concepts but in both of his books I've read so far (Attrocity Archives and this one) he seems to assume all of his readers do to. I've found myself really wishing he'd add a bit more exposition when he references this stuff, or failing that, an appendix w/ more information on some of the concepts. A lot of them wind up reading as (Insert random technobabble here) as it stands.
The biggest negative I've come away w/ is that Stross seems to know his stuff when he writes about semi-obscure and/or complex math and physics concepts but in both of his books I've read so far (Attrocity Archives and this one) he seems to assume all of his readers do to. I've found myself really wishing he'd add a bit more exposition when he references this stuff, or failing that, an appendix w/ more information on some of the concepts. A lot of them wind up reading as (Insert random technobabble here) as it stands.
on August 15, 2016
a classic, must-read, must-have, must-know
on August 9, 2016
If readability were the only factor I considered in rating this book, I'd have given it only two stars. Frequent naps were needed to get through the book because it kept making me drowsy. But the author did try to imagine the unimaginable - that is, to conjure up a picture of the post-singularity future. So I'll give him credit for taking a stab at the impossible. That vision, unfortunately, lacks even the tiniest smidgen of credibility. It's just out-of-control imagination, and it's very tedious to read.
Iron Sunrise was by far the best book of the series. Its plot line and characters were intriguing, and it hinted that some race (the Remastered or perhaps their "gods") was able to hide events from the Eschaton and maybe even threaten or destroy them. This turned out to be a major, dangling plot thread that was never addressed in Accelerando. The lack of follow-up was very disappointing.
So Accelerando is the back-story for books 1 and 2. Pre and post singularity events play out, starting on Earth and spreading out vastly, that presumably lead to the rise of the Eschaton. But that eventuality is only very loosely implied by the ending, and the Eschaton is never actually encountered in book 3.
Iron Sunrise was by far the best book of the series. Its plot line and characters were intriguing, and it hinted that some race (the Remastered or perhaps their "gods") was able to hide events from the Eschaton and maybe even threaten or destroy them. This turned out to be a major, dangling plot thread that was never addressed in Accelerando. The lack of follow-up was very disappointing.
So Accelerando is the back-story for books 1 and 2. Pre and post singularity events play out, starting on Earth and spreading out vastly, that presumably lead to the rise of the Eschaton. But that eventuality is only very loosely implied by the ending, and the Eschaton is never actually encountered in book 3.
