''Accelerando'' is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories written by British author

Charles Stross Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964) is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine ' ...

. As well as normal hardback and paperback editions, it was released as a free

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

under the CC BY-NC-ND license. ''Accelerando'' won the

Locus Award The Locus Awards are an annual set of literary awards voted on by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine '' Locus'', a monthly magazine based in Oakland, California. The awards are presented at an annual banquet. Originally a poll ...

in 2006, and was nominated for several other awards in 2005 and 2006, including the Hugo, Campbell, Clarke, and

British Science Fiction Association Award The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, ...

Title

In Italian, ''accelerando'' means "speeding up" and is used as a tempo marking in

musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

. In Stross' novel, it refers to the accelerating rate at which humanity in general, and/or the novel's characters, head towards the

technological singularity The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. According to the ...

Plot introduction

The book is a collection of nine short stories telling the tale of three

generation A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–⁠30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and b ...

s of a family before, during, and after a

. It was originally written as a series of novelettes and novellas, all published in ''

Asimov's Science Fiction ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine edited by Sheila Williams and published by Dell Magazines, which is owned by Penny Press. It was launched as a quarterly by Davis Publications in 1977, after obtaining Isaac ...

'' magazine in the period 2001 to 2004. According to Stross, the initial inspiration for the stories was his experience working as a programmer for a high-growth company during the

dot-com boom The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Intern ...

of the 1990s. The first three stories follow the character of agalmic "venture altruist" Manfred Macx, starting in the early 21st century; the next three stories follow his daughter Amber; and the final three focus largely on Amber's son Sirhan in the completely transformed world at the end of the century.

Plot concepts

Stross describes humanity's situation in ''Accelerando'' as dire:

In the background of what looks like a Panglossian techno-optimist novel, horrible things are happening. Most of humanity is wiped out, then arbitrarily resurrected in mutilated form by the Vile Offspring. Capitalism eats ''everything'' then the logic of competition pushes it so far that merely human entities can no longer compete; we're a fat, slow-moving, tasty resource – like the dodo. Our narrative perspective, Aineko, is ''not'' a talking cat: it's a vastly superintelligent AI, coolly calculating, that has worked out that human beings are more easily manipulated if they think they're dealing with a furry toy. The cat body is a sock puppet wielded by an abusive monster.

As events progress in ''Accelerando'', the planets of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

are dismantled over time to form a Matrioshka brain, a vast solar-powered computational device inhabited by minds inconceivably more advanced and complex than naturally evolved intelligences such as human beings. This proves to be a normal stage in the life-cycle of an inhabited solar system; the galaxies are revealed to be filled with such Matrioshka brains. Intelligent consciousnesses outside of Matrioshka brains may communicate via

wormhole A wormhole is a hypothetical structure that connects disparate points in spacetime. It can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, different points in time, or both). Wormholes are base ...

networks. The notion that the universe is dominated by a communications network of

superintelligence A superintelligence is a hypothetical intelligent agent, agent that possesses intelligence surpassing that of the brightest and most intellectual giftedness, gifted human minds. "Superintelligence" may also refer to a property of advanced problem- ...

s bears comparison with

Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) was an English philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction''. New York ...

's 1937 science-fiction novel ''

Star Maker ''Star Maker'' is a science fiction novel by British writer Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937. Continuing the theme of the author's previous book, ''Last and First Men'' (1930)—which narrated a history of the human species over two billion ...

'', although Stapledon's advanced civilisations are said to communicate psychically rather than informatically.

Characters

*Manfred Macx: Venture altruist, protagonist of the early stories. *Aineko: Manfred's robotic, increasingly intelligent cat. *The Lobsters: Sentient nervous-system state vectors originating from ''Panulirus interruptus'', the California spiny lobster. *Bob Franklin: Billionaire investor; originator of the Franklin Collective, a "borganism" composed of multiple bodies sharing the same mind. *Annette Dimarcos:

Arianespace Arianespace SA is a French company founded in March 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It operates two launch vehicles: Vega C, a Small-lift launch vehicle, small-lift rocket, and Ariane 6, a Medium-lift launch vehicl ...

employee; Manfred's second wife. *Pamela: Manfred's partner, later first wife. *Gianni Vittoria: Former Italian Minister for Economic Affairs, sometime Minister for Transhuman Affairs, economic theoretician. *Amber Macx: Manfred and Pamela's daughter. *Dr. Sadeq Khurasani: Muslim

imam Imam (; , '; : , ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a prayer leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Salah, Islamic prayers, serve as community leaders, ...

, engineer, ''Field Circus'' crewman. *The Wunch: Predatory alien virtual constructs embedded in the wormhole router orbiting Hyundai. *The Slug: Sentient alien corporation/economy/ 419 scam from the router. *Sirhan al-Khurasani: Son of Amber and Sadeq's physical versions. *Vile Offspring: Derogatory term for the

posthuman Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human. The concept aims at addressing a variety of ...

"weakly godlike intelligences" that inhabit the inner Solar System by the novel's end.

Plot summary and breakdown by story

In the following table, the chapter number (#), chapter name and original magazine date of publication, and a brief synopsis are given. The nine stories are grouped into three parts.

Allusions/references to contemporary science

The novel contains numerous allusions to real-world scientific concepts and individuals, including: * The lobster stomatogastric ganglion (STG) * Rubberized concrete * The Fermi paradox: Stross offers a solution to the paradox, claiming that the apparent lack of intelligent life in the universe is an illusion created by a shortage of

bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...

(see

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

). * The

Menger sponge In mathematics, the Menger sponge (also known as the Menger cube, Menger universal curve, Sierpinski cube, or Sierpinski sponge) is a fractal curve. It is a three-dimensional generalization of the one-dimensional Cantor set and two-dimensional Sie ...

* The Austrian roboticist and

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

Hans Moravec Hans Peter Moravec (born November 30, 1948, Kautzen, Austria) is a computer scientist and an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial inte ...

, who is mentioned numerous times *

Quantum state In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that embodies the knowledge of a quantum system. Quantum mechanics specifies the construction, evolution, and measurement of a quantum state. The result is a prediction for the system ...

vectors * The nanoassembly conformational problem *

Ken Thompson Kenneth Lane Thompson (born February 4, 1943) is an American pioneer of computer science. Thompson worked at Bell Labs for most of his career where he designed and implemented the original Unix operating system. He also invented the B (programmi ...

's compiler hack *

Penrose tiling A Penrose tiling is an example of an aperiodic tiling. Here, a ''tiling'' is a covering of two-dimensional space, the plane by non-overlapping polygons or other shapes, and a tiling is ''aperiodic'' if it does not contain arbitrarily large Perio ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

's example sentence,

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously ''Colorless green ideas sleep furiously'' was composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book '' Syntactic Structures'' as an example of a sentence that is grammatically well-formed, but semantically nonsensical. The sentence was originally used ...

* A

Dyson sphere A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to imagine how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy re ...

and its variants *

Aerogel Aerogels are a class of manufacturing, synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas, without significant collapse of the gel structure. The result is a solid wit ...

Awards and nominations

''Accelerando'' won the 2006

for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the 2010 Estonian SF Award for Best Translated Novel of 2009. Additionally, the novel was shortlisted for several other awards, including: *2005 BSFA award *2006

Hugo Award for Best Novel The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year by the World Science Fiction Society for science fiction or fantasy stories published in, or translated to, English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is ava ...

*2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award *2006 John W. Campbell Memorial Award

Individual short stories

The original short story "Lobsters" (June 2001) was shortlisted for: *2002

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

Nebula Award for Best Novelette The Nebula Award for Best Novelette is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) to a science fiction or fantasy novelette. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novelette if it is between 7,5 ...

Theodore Sturgeon Award The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to the author of the best short science fiction story ...

The original short story "Halo" (June 2002) was shortlisted for: *2003

The original short story "Router" (September 2002) was shortlisted for: *2003 BSFA Award The original short story "Nightfall" (April 2003) was shortlisted for: *2004

The original short story "Elector" (September 2004) was shortlisted for: *2005

Hugo Award for Best Novella The Hugo Award for Best Novella is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novella award is available for works of fiction of between ...

Release details

* Ace (US), hardcover, July 2005, *Ace (US), paperback, July 2006, *

Orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit (also known as orbital revolution) is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an ...

(UK), hardcover, August 2005, *Orbit, UK, paperback, June 2006,

Online versions

*The original short story ''Elector'' (September 2004) is available at ''Asimov's Science Fiction''. *A searchable

SiSU is a Finnish word variously translated as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness. It is held by Finns to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a single-word ...

version of the complete novel is available in multiple formats. *A ''ManyBooks'' version with format selection is also available. *Charles Stross also makes epub, mobi, aportis and rtf versions of ''Accelerando'' available for download from his blog.

References

External links

Official page
(includes downloadable ebooks in several formats) * ''Accelerando'' Technical Companion (on wikibooks)
SciFi.com interview

Accelerando
at Worlds Without End * {{Locus Award Best SF Novel 2005 British novels 2005 science fiction novels British science fiction novels Creative Commons-licensed novels Short stories by Charles Stross Novels by Charles Stross Postcyberpunk novels Transhumanist books Ace Books books Fiction about asteroid mining Fiction about wormholes Novels about artificial intelligence Novels about virtual reality Orbit Books books Novels about technological singularity Locus Award–winning works