8 ms·
Accelerando (2005)
- cafard 4y agoA friend chose Accelerando as his household's choice for the neighborhood book club. I enjoyed it, but it was otherwise unpopular.
- r00fus 4y agoDefinitely a seminal book on the nature of unbounded AI feedback loops and how disastrous that ends up for the meat.
- hyperkewb 4y agoThis is one of my favorite sci-fi books of all time. The explorations into autonomous corporations comprised primarily from software as some of the main economic and legal actors was quite interesting.
- PhasmaFelis 4y agoI still think about the bit where they weaponized a sentient alien pyramid scheme.
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- Abekkus 4y agoAnd then we got bitcoin. When you read good satire, bet on the world falling for it in the future.
- roughly 4y agoI was going to say - that was the part of the book that felt the least plausible when I first read it, but by god, here we are.
- ineedasername 4y agoIIRC the weaponized sentient pyramid scheme was weaponized against what, if we’re following the book as a map, is today the crypto economy (Economics 2.0 in the book) Part of the book also fall together nicely if you realize that IRL Stross is a cat person.
- nicopappl 4y agoConsider reading Existence by David Brin. The book premise is the first alien contact being a pyramid scheme.
- XorNot 4y ago1. Definitely read this. 2. Be careful when you start because for me it was a solid 3 solid late nights because I couldn't put it down. The most electrifying read I've never had.
- yurymik 4y agoIt seems to be a third book in a series. Do you need to read Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise before this one?
- egypturnash 4y agoNo, it is not related to those two books except insofar as they all involved writing around The Singularity.
- pinewurst 4y agoStross has explicitly written that he will not write a sequel to those two books.
- PhasmaFelis 4y agoIIRC, Because he realized he made a crucial mistake in the second one and it's too late to unpublish and rewrite it. Which I might understand from most authors, but it seems oddly faint-hearted from Stross. Fuckin' retcon it, dude. Push updates for the ebooks, start the third book with a forward saying "the book you thought you read was a lie, here's what really happened." If any writer on Earth could get away with that, it's Stross.
- KineticLensman 4y ago> Fuckin' retcon it, dude. Push updates for the ebooks Not going to happen. Stross has a significant workload to deliver other anticipated books (e.g. to complete the Laundry and New Management series) and has blogged about the difficulties and undesirability of revisiting older stories. He has also abandoned other promising sequences (e.g. Halting State) when real-world events overtake his own near-future universes.
- winReInstall 4y agoThey came before and were better in all aspects.
- deleted 4y ago
- _jal 4y agoStructurally, the book is a mess. But it is a narrative disaster much like Snow Crash, in which it doesn't matter because you're so busy trying to integrate all the mind candy you don't notice until a re-read. I feel like there are other science fiction books like this - overstuffed with lovely things to think about, from an author who is either inexperienced or doesn't care about the craft side. (In this case, Charlie was a fairly fresh author, he's improved a lot.) Some of Greg Egan's writing fits that, but I'm having trouble thinking of other authors.
- richardhod 4y agoIt's not a mess structurally. If you read the notes on it, you will will find Stross wrote a series of nine loosely connected short stories, which follow each other temporally and thematically. If you you try to remember it's not a novel as such it will help you relax and enjoy each section better. Stephenson's inability to finish books coherently is a completely different issue
- BMc2020 4y agoI liked it, but I ended up only reading the boldface text. Very prescient in what we are seeing in the media today. The vile offspring eventually simulated every permutation that could be simulated. Today we quickly see everything than can be claimed about an issue is claimed. TL:DR; If lobsters ask for your help, do so.
- gmuslera 4y agoSometimes the style of writing is part of the message too. Like with qntm's Lena (https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo) that looks like a Wikipedia's page. A rushed writing on the topic of going too fast could be appropriate.
- jasonladuke0311 4y agoQntm (Sam Hughes) has a number of works like this. Ra, Fine Structure, and There is no Antimemetics Division are fun reads that get really messy at times.
- PhasmaFelis 4y ago
- joshka 4y agoI have a vague recollection of reading parts of a novel something like this in comments on slashdot around the early 2000s, was this released that way? All I recall about it was it was 3 parts, pre-singularity, singularity, post-singularity or something like that.
- e12e 4y agoSounds more like "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge (iirc it was initially published online - I used to have a printout of the book, but I've since given it away): https://archive.org/details/rainbowsend00ving https://archive.org/details/rainbowsend00ving http://vrinimi.org/ http://vrinimi.org/ https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/04/07/07/1623227/sneak-preview-of-vernor-vinges-next-book https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/04/07/07/1623227/sn...
- e12e 4y agoOr maybe not: https://slashdot.org/story/05/07/13/236203/doctorow-and-stross-release-latest-novels-for-free https://slashdot.org/story/05/07/13/236203/doctorow-and-stro... > Two prominent science fiction authors have recently released their newest novels as free downloads to coincide with their in-store releases. The first is Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, by Cory Doctorow. This is an unconventional story about an entrepreneur (who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine) who gets involved in a scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless mesh network, among other things. The second is Accelerando, by Charles Stross, which tells the tale of three generations of the Macx family (beginning with perptually-slashdotted venture altruist Manfred Macx) in the years leading up to and beyond a technological singularity
- e12e 4y agoThe "splash"-page might be a better link (eg: there's an epub version, not to mention a few interesting paragraphs about the origins of the book - of particular interest to the hn crowd): https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
- senectus1 4y agoLOVE this book. its one of those books that "blew my mind" when I read it. Incidentally, The good Author himself reads and posts here :-)
- jes5199 4y agoI read this again, a couple years ago. The assumption that increasing MIPS alone would drive societal change felt quaint, like it was an idea from the 1990s preserved in a time capsule. But things have gotten strange since then, and tech is changing fast again. I can no longer dismiss this book’s conceits as pure fantasy.
- pixelpoet 4y agoBest work of fiction I've ever read, the fuller continuation of my posthuman thinking that began with Ghost in the Shell.
- richardhod 4y agoDo please note that Stross is quite well known not to a fan of the idea of the Singularity, and that his book should not be taken as a manual for the future, and rather as a cautionary tale and fantastically creative techno future
- joe-collins 4y ago> Some of you might assume that, as the author of books like "Singularity Sky" and "Accelerando", I attribute this to an impending technological singularity, to our development of self-improving artificial intelligence and mind uploading and the whole wish-list of transhumanist aspirations promoted by the likes of Ray Kurzweil. Unfortunately this isn't the case. I think transhumanism is a warmed-over Christian heresy. While its adherents tend to be vehement atheists, they can't quite escape from the history that gave rise to our current western civilization. Many of you are familiar with design patterns, an approach to software engineering that focusses on abstraction and simplification in order to promote reusable code. When you look at the AI singularity as a narrative, and identify the numerous places in the story where the phrase "... and then a miracle happens" occurs, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that they've reinvented Christianity. > Indeed, the wellsprings of today's transhumanists draw on a long, rich history of Russian Cosmist philosophy exemplified by the Russian Orthodox theologian Nikolai Fyodorvitch Federov, by way of his disciple Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose derivation of the rocket equation makes him essentially the father of modern spaceflight. And once you start probing the nether regions of transhumanist thought and run into concepts like Roko's Basilisk—by the way, any of you who didn't know about the Basilisk before are now doomed to an eternity in AI hell—you realize they've mangled it to match some of the nastiest ideas in Presybterian Protestantism. > If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And if it looks like a religion it's probably a religion. I don't see much evidence for human-like, self-directed artificial intelligences coming along any time now, and a fair bit of evidence that nobody except some freaks in university cognitive science departments even want it. What we're getting, instead, is self-optimizing tools that defy human comprehension but are not, in fact, any more like our kind of intelligence than a Boeing 737 is like a seagull. So I'm going to wash my hands of the singularity as an explanatory model without further ado—I'm one of those vehement atheists too—and try and come up with a better model for what's happening to us. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-you-broke-the-future.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-yo...
- philipkglass 4y agoIf you liked Accelerando (and I sure did!), you may also like Stross's Palimpsest and Glasshouse [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest_(novella) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest_(novella) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel) The rougher The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams is also worth trying: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ Also A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, and Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series. The latter can be read out of order; I read The Cassini Division before any of the others. Excession by Iain M. Banks is also one of my favorites, though it has a significant learning curve if you haven't read any of his Culture books before. All of these have things to say about runaway technological change and superintelligence. They all have a high "sensawunda" index, for those who recognize this old SF fan term. [1] I have read and enjoyed most of Stross's output, but it has a lot of thematic variations and someone who loved Accelerando may not care for e.g. Rule 34.
- mindcrime 4y agoI have yet to read Accelerando, but Glasshouse was amazing. It definitely gets my endorsement. I would further suggest that anyone who likes Glasshouse might like Permutation City by Greg Egan.
- loxias 4y agoI have never read Glasshouse but I loved Permutation City (though I think Diaspora and Schild's Ladder were even better. Luminous/Dark Integers and Palimpsest are tied in my mind for "best short story") I would posit that since you like Greg Egan, I consider Egan one of my 3 fav. authors, and Accelerando was the book that...well... got me to read books! That it's reasonable to suspect you would strongly like it as well. :D
- mindcrime 4y agoI do expect to like Accelerando when I finally get to it. Stross is one of my favorite authors as it is. Beyond the aforementioned Glasshouse, I've also read and enjoyed Halting State and almost all of the titles in his "Laundry Files" series. I have copies of Rule 34, Accelerando, and Singularity Sky here waiting to be read. Just need to find time to get to them all. :-)
- annadiru 4y agoThere is so much to love about this book. I read it twice, back to back. It's probably one of the more concept-dense books you'll read from the period, but unlike lots of scifi lit stross wrote a very solid story that's worth reading in it's own right. Another good book by Stross that doesn't get much love is Saturn's Children. it has the same inventivness and story-telling prowess. the most outrageous elements of the story are the very glue that make the whole thing more tractable.
- pfdietz 4y agoHow did you like the sequel?
- annadiru 4y agoI havent managed to get my hands on the sequel =(
- myhf 4y agoNeptune's Brood is really good. It's set in the same universe as Saturn's Children but without the Heinlein-tribute sexpot focus. It takes a lot of concepts from "Debt: The First 5000 Years" and extrapolates them to the next 5000 years.
- aspectmin 4y agoI lovved Neptune’s Brood. I’ve listened to it in audiobook form probably 10x
- bdheifjsn 4y agoI don't think the lack of coherency is a problem I think it's part of the experience of being an obsolete meat machine that is getting a direct injection of the future right into your brain. If you feel slightly confused about the rushed pace of the story good because that's how everyone else is feeling experiencing it, it's a wild ride, you're not entirely sure what's going on but it sure is simulating. Also another relation, I see qntm's RA as a more recent rewrite of this story but with a rather different ending.
- endtime 4y agoI also always interpreted the beginning of the book as deliberately written to make the reader feel the future shock that Manfred is trying to stay ahead of.
- spiritplumber 4y agohttps://stefangagne.com/floatingpoint/ https://stefangagne.com/floatingpoint/ Something to the same tune, written by the dood who did "Sailor Nothing".
- BLKNSLVR 4y agoUpon frequent recommendations via HN, I found a copy in a second hand shop whilst on holiday in Perth. Once I'm done with Permutation City (by Greg Egan - who, conincidentally is from WA) Accelerando is top of the reading list.
- jkingsman 4y agoHuge fan of Greg Egan. Schild's Ladder was formative for me when I was growing up.
- r2_pilot 4y agoI read Schild's Ladder as an ebook in college, didn't pay attention to the author... Years later, I came across his other works and realized who wrote that; I too am a huge fan of his works.
- nickpp 4y agoEvery once in a while I re-read Diaspora. It's hard to read another sci-fi book afterwards, Diaspora just explains everything.
- HyperSane 4y agoI've read almost all of his books and short stories. Quarantine, Permutation City, and Diaspora are my faves. Go find Egan and get a picture of him. There doesn't seem to be any on the Internet, which is pretty strange.
- chadcmulligan 4y agoFor any fans Stross is quite active on reddit https://old.reddit.com/user/cstross https://old.reddit.com/user/cstross. I was pleasantly surprised when I mentioned one of his books and got a reply from him, he seems very happy to talk about his craft.
- necubi 4y agoAnd here: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross
- loxias 4y agoThis book was THE ONE that made me realize, far FAR later in life than my peers, (my early 30s) that reading fiction -- that horrible chore you were forced to do in high school -- can be fun. You never forget your first time. A close and long time friend* kept pushing it on me, saying gibberish like "intelligent space lobsters!!" while I rolled my eyes at him. Finally, I gave in and agreed to read a few chapters. I ended up not putting the book down for hours. After that, it was undeniable I had managed to acquire yet another addiction. ;-) Quickly it progressed, intentionally alternating between "books my friends think I will like"** and "things from the canon for a well balanced diet". A Fire upon the Deep, Foundation series, Halting State***, Rendezvous with Rama, Snow Crash, Permutation City, Dune, Diaspora, Schild's Ladder... ... and then a friend handed me Player of Games, then Excession. Wow. Luminous. Dark Integers. I worry that I've only been enjoying written fiction for fun for a few years, but, because I am surrounded by aficionados, am already spoiled by having experienced "the best of the best" :) *Thanks, Gene :D That was a gift that keeps on giving almost 10 years later. **being a nerd, many of my friends are scifi book experts, you know the sort, shelves and shelves of books. ***Thanks, kcr <3 for knowing how much I love $TROPE, I hate spoilers, and not telling me more than "just read it".
- kwhitefoot 4y ago> already spoiled by having experienced "the best of the best" I know you aren't serious but just in case there is someone thinking that they have run out of mindblowing reading: you couldn't read more than a fraction of the 'best of the best' in a whole life time. Try Peter Watts.
- Haga 4y ago
- thom 4y agoVivid memories of downloading and reading this (in one of its earlier forms before 2005) over a couple of days of commute on my HTC Typhoon smartphone. Definitely felt the future beginning to arrive.
- cstross 4y ago/me: waves Be aware that this novel is a cautionary tale, not some kind of technological utopia. And for a contrarian take, I co-wrote another novel with Cory Doctorow, "The Rapture of the Nerds", which is also a free download here: https://craphound.com/rotn/download/ https://craphound.com/rotn/download/ (I'm currently working on another singularity-themed SF novel, this time a far future space opera, but there's no ETA to publication—it won't be ready for print before 2024 at the earliest.)
- geoah 4y agoAineko really deserves its own spin off book series. :D Something overarching/spanning multiple books would be even better, maybe like neal stephenson's Enoch Root?
- cstross 4y agoNope, not going there. (You are not going to get me to write a sequel to something I began 25 years ago!)
- Communitivity 4y agoThank you sir for books that are captivating, thrilling, and make me think (I've read and loved Rule 34, Glasshouse, Accelerando, Singularity Sky, Halting State, and all the Laundry files).
- lxgr 4y agoAnd thank you for experimenting with Creative Commons e-books! Accelerando was one of the first e-books I ever read as a result.
- shadowofneptune 4y agoWhat is the best way to compensate you for this wonderful book I stumbled upon here? I do not know how much authors actually get for books after the initial printings.
- helloworld11 4y agoProbably been recommended here many times before, but for fans of these, I'd recommend Permutation City, by Greg Egan too. It's one of the most existentially depressing sci fi (or any kind) of books I know of, but it's damn good.
- Communitivity 4y agoI can't recommend this enough. Stross predicted DAOs, and if you look between the lines you can see hints of cryptocurrency, if I remember right (it's been years since I read it - it's time for another read). The book also explores what it means to be human in an age of Centaur systems combining man and machine, and when people can upload their minds then then download into different bodies.