Great book

[Frank]

Second best editor's pick of 2005 at Amazon:

Paper is so 20th Century! Step into the future and follow the links below to download Accelerando, the new science fiction novel by Charles Stross, in its entirety, for free. Or order a physical copy and keep living in the past.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I've recently read this book and it's really great if you like the Alastair Reynolds style of hard techno sci-fi and mind expanding ideas. Took Stross five years to write. His fantasy books arn't supposed to be very good, but I really enjoyed Accelerando and his other SF books "Iron Sunrise" and "Singularity Sky".

 

[digitalwanderer]

Sell me on the book a bit more, I'm a sci fi junky who hasn't read a book in too long...

 

[Frank]

Sell me on the book a bit more, I'm a sci fi junky who hasn't read a book in too long...

This is just the Uber Geek Cyber Punk book you plain have to read after finishing Snow Crash. And try to keep your brain inside your head while you do.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Sell me on the book a bit more, I'm a sci fi junky who hasn't read a book in too long...

Read the Amazon reviews. It basically follows this one guy, his family and immediate decendants through a few hundred years up to and past a singularity where humans upload into a super fast electronic life - and those that don't. It's a very clever book.

I can also recommend books by Neal Asher, Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Tony Ballantyne, Ken MacLeod, Peter F Hamilton and (of course) Ian M Bainks.

 

[Mariner]

I can also recommend books by Neal Asher, Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Tony Ballantyne, Ken MacLeod, Peter F Hamilton and (of course) Ian M Bainks.

I can agree with you on most of those authors. I'd also add Vernor Vinge and David Brin to the list as well.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I can agree with you on most of those authors. I'd also add Vernor Vinge and David Brin to the list as well.

I'm not that familair with Brin, but Vinge's "Across Realtime", "Fire Upon The Deep" are classics, if a bit cutesy in places. "Deepness In The Sky" is also pretty good. Vinge doesn't seem to publish that often, especially compared to the prodigious output of the new wave UK authors who seem to be able to do one or two new books a year.

 

[Babel-17]

Big thumbs up to Iain M. Banks, add Varley to that list.

Hehe, I can remember decades ago when Ben Bova was pimping the notion of hyper-books.

http://www.ruthnestvold.com/cyberbooks.htm

Off Topic: A tip of the hat to Alfred Bester, he was an innovator imo (foreshadowed cyberpunk) and I loved how he added to the already considerable verbal impact of The Stars My Destination (Tiger! Tiger!) by incorporating a really wild style of type formatting for some sections.

It had to done as a custom job by his harcover publishers IIRC, afaik it hasn't been fully reproduced in e-books. I'm referring to the scenes involving synaesthesia.

http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/bester.html

I think I had a rare edition (it had some formatting I don't find mentioned anywheres) and gave it away. Oh well ....

Edit: Thanks for the link!

 

[Babel-17]

Btw, for those who haven't seen it, here's a link to a pile of free e-books, sci-fi, from Baen Books.

http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

Oh, and David Gerrold has a free e-book too.

http://www.benbellabooks.com/gerrold

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Big thumbs up to Iain M. Banks, add Varley to that list.

Ahh, John Varley. "Millenium", "The Opichuri Hotline" and quite possibly one of the best SF books of all time "Steel Beach". Again, hasn't published much and not for a while.

Off Topic: A tip of the hat to Alfred Bester, he was an innovator imo (foreshadowed cyberpunk) and I loved how he added to the already considerable verbal impact of The Stars My Destination (Tiger! Tiger!) by incorporating a really wild style of type formatting for some sections.

I was a fan of Bester for a long time having read many of his books while I was young and some of his stuff being out of print for a long time. "Tiger Tiger", "Demolished Man", "Gollum 666", "Extro", are quite good and the stories stand up well, but I'm afraid to say I don't think his style has aged very well. Having re-read his stuff as an adult, I found a lot of it seemed dated. I suppose it's just the passage of time eventually catching up in the same way that Jules Verne or HG Wells seems to treat the reader in an old fashioned way.

 

[Crisidelm]

Yes, all fine and dandy (if you like reading books, that is) but WHY this title: "Accelerando"? I just can imagine how you say it, I mean you 100% "only" anglophone, and that's already enough to make me laugh
Is there any Spanish/Italian character in the plot?

 

[Graham]

I've only recently given up on petre f hamilton... So I may be looking for a new author to bide my time..

Sure, The nights dawn was excellent (if far too long) but his other books seemed to slowly fall apart in my view. Mindstar etc were good, but the later ones didn't hold my attention unfortunatly.

is there concensus here that author X is an absolute must read?