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A review by lunaseassecondaccount
Accelerando by Charles Stross
4.0
Okay.
Okay, okay, uh, geeze.
Firstly, I have to say that if I was rating this primarily on how much I liked or enjoyed this book, I would not give it four stars. If I was rating it on how much I enjoyed it, I'd give it two stars. If I was rating it on how much I understood it, I'd give it one star. I am way out of my depth with this book. I don't get hard sci-fi novels. I like TV shows, movies, comics and the like, and I like soft sci-fi novels, but I don't enjoy hard ones. This is hard sci-fi. This is also a business and ethics novel. And half of it just went over my head. Strike that, most of it went over my head. It wasn't until I checked out the Wikipedia page for Accelerando while I was on the fifth 'chapter' that I finally realised that people were only avatars of themselves. Nobody was essentially real anymore.
This is very different from the first novel of Stross' I read, The Atrocity Archives. The style of writing is very different, the ideas are different, and if I didn't know the authors were the same, I'd say they were written by different people.
I enjoyed parts of this book. I liked the interaction between Amber and Pierre and Sadeq. I liked the constant mentioning of the lobsters. I liked Aineko when I could make sense about what s/he was going on about. I liked Pamela and Manfred's kinky relationship (and how it's referred to at the end of Manfred asking Pamela to become his mistress again). I guess I sort of enjoyed how it turned out and was confirmed that Aineko had been manipulating them from the start.
But essentially, I didn't get most of it. It was difficult for me to understand. The concepts went over my head. But I can see why it works, and why it was nominated for awards, because it is a good novel. It's just not what I understand. But it is worth my vote for four stars.
Okay, okay, uh, geeze.
Firstly, I have to say that if I was rating this primarily on how much I liked or enjoyed this book, I would not give it four stars. If I was rating it on how much I enjoyed it, I'd give it two stars. If I was rating it on how much I understood it, I'd give it one star. I am way out of my depth with this book. I don't get hard sci-fi novels. I like TV shows, movies, comics and the like, and I like soft sci-fi novels, but I don't enjoy hard ones. This is hard sci-fi. This is also a business and ethics novel. And half of it just went over my head. Strike that, most of it went over my head. It wasn't until I checked out the Wikipedia page for Accelerando while I was on the fifth 'chapter' that I finally realised that people were only avatars of themselves. Nobody was essentially real anymore.
This is very different from the first novel of Stross' I read, The Atrocity Archives. The style of writing is very different, the ideas are different, and if I didn't know the authors were the same, I'd say they were written by different people.
I enjoyed parts of this book. I liked the interaction between Amber and Pierre and Sadeq. I liked the constant mentioning of the lobsters. I liked Aineko when I could make sense about what s/he was going on about. I liked Pamela and Manfred's kinky relationship (and how it's referred to at the end of Manfred asking Pamela to become his mistress again). I guess I sort of enjoyed how it turned out and was confirmed that Aineko had been manipulating them from the start.
But essentially, I didn't get most of it. It was difficult for me to understand. The concepts went over my head. But I can see why it works, and why it was nominated for awards, because it is a good novel. It's just not what I understand. But it is worth my vote for four stars.