As a Stross fan I have been working my way quite happily through his work for some time and although I admire his range of styles and how his books can be very different I have to say I didn't like Accelerando. I found it very hard going indeed and it was only my stubborness that ensured I saw it though to the end. I'm not a fan of books that tell you something happened but then don't explain how or why, especially when the event is strange indeed. Accelerando is the story of the next phase of human evolution -powered first by multi-media and instantanous unlimited communication ability (not too far fetched at this point), to microchip implants and the 'acceleration' of the processing power of the human mind that enables people to eventually upload themselves into cyber-space and have no more use for their 'meat-bodies'.
When compared to his previous works, including the excellent 'Singularity Sky' and the very funny 'Atrocity Archives', this book doesn't do it for me.

Accelerando
Charles Stross
Ace, July 2005, $24.95, 400 pp.
ISBN 0441012841

On the dawn of the new millennium, technology has outpaced humanity's ability to keep up with it. Implants plug humans into the internet at all times. Artificial Intelligences have become smarter than its creators and people upload themselves into the neural net leaving their bodies behind. People can replicate themselves and live on two different time tracks and the ability to contact alien species is just a heartbeat away.

The three generations of the Macx clan have done their best to adjust to a brave new world. Manfred is working tirelessly to get the franchise for uploaded minds while his daughter Amber has sold herself into indentured servitude to get away from her mother who wants her to follow in her footsteps as an unaugmented human. Sirhan, the product of another Amber who didn't go through the wormhole has brought the family together from various incarnations to help them make the history museum on Saturn a reflection of the history of the humans. The Macx family also must find away to pull away from whatever is dismantling the solar system to create a Matrioshke brain that is clearly more brilliant than humans in all their various forms.

This novel has appeared as short stories in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 2001-2005. Each story has been extended with its own chapter in a seamless plot. The individual members of the Macx family and those who came into their orbit show three generations of technological change and how it affects society. All three Macx characters are fully developed and have their own distinct personalities but when they come together they are a force to be reckoned with. Charles Stross has written the singular most explosive work of his career.

Harriet Klausner