March 25, 2010 7:00 PM - 4 attended

Science and Religion in Fiction Book Club: Charles Stross "Accelerando"

Charles Stross "Accelerando"

From Amazon.com review:

Accelerando "follows several generations of the Macx family through the rapidly transforming, Internet-enabled global economy of the early twenty-first century to the human and transhuman populated worlds of the outer solar system a half century later. The saga begins with Macx patriarch Manfred, a freelance "venture altruist," giving away patentable high-tech ideas in exchange for endless handouts while looking forward to the day when nanotech-programmed smart matter surpasses humanity in intelligence and productivity. Fifteen years later, his adolescent daughter Amber is an indentured astronaut trolling the orbit of Jupiter, and by 2070, Sirhan is Amber's permanently space-bound offspring, paying witness to the fruits of his grandfather' s early innovations as something ominous and nonhuman is systematically dismantling the planets from Pluto to Earth.

Stross has his thumb squarely on the pulse of technology's leading edge and exults in extrapolating mere glimmers of ideas out to their mind-bending limits. His brilliant and panoramic vision of uncontrollably accelerating technology vaults him into the front rank of sf trailblazers, alongside Gibson and Stephenson, and promises to become a seminal work in the genre."

Your coordinator is Elze Hamilton.

  • You must be a member to post a comment. Join or login.

4 attended
4.00 4.001 (1 ratings)
  • Event Host
    Elze H
    Most of us liked the book, although we agreed that characters and their relationships wasn't this novel's forte. (For that matter, "Accelerando" can't really be considered a novel, as it is a collection of thematically related stories.) Its strong suit is the richness of its technological predictions. Along with its tongue-in-cheek humor, it makes this book fun to read, and even more fun to try to decipher what the author was trying to say in his densely futuristic, neologism-laden language.
  • A former member
  • A former member
Other nearby
Meetups
Why these groups?
x

The Meetup Groups shown here are topically similar to Center for Inquiry Austin.

Groups are more likely to be displayed here if they:

  • have a Meetup scheduled
  • have a high rating
  • have a group photo
  • are "public" and not "private"
  • have shown they are likely to stick around (older than 30 days)
Find more Meetup Groups
near Austin

Log in

  • Not registered with us yet?
or

Log in to Meetup with your Facebook account.

Log in using Facebook

Sign up

or

Join this Meetup Group even quicker with your Facebook account.

Sign up using Facebook
By clicking the "Sign up using Facebook" or "Sign up" buttons above, you agree to Meetup's Terms of Service