Accelerando (book)
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Accelerando (ISBN 0-441-01284-1) is a 2005 science fiction short story collection by British author Charles Stross. It has been released online [1] under a creative commons license. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2005 BSFA award and has been shortlisted for the 2006 Arthur C. Clarke Award .
The book is a collection of short stories telling the tale of three generations of a highly dysfunctional family before, during, and after a technological singularity. It was originally written as nine novelettes and novellas, all published in Asimov's Science Fiction. The first three stories follow the character of "venture altruist" Manfred Macx starting in the early 21st Century, the second three stories follow his daughter Amber, and the final three focus largely on her son Sirhan in the completely transformed world at the end of the century. 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 of the 1990s [2].
The original stories, as published in Asimov's Science Fiction:
- "Lobsters" (June 2001) was shortlisted for the 2002 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and Nebula Award for Best Novelette, and was runner-up for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.
- "Troubador" (October/November 2001)
- "Tourist" (February 2002)
- "Halo" (June 2002) was shortlisted for the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and Theodore Sturgeon Award.
- "Router" (September 2002) was shortlisted for the 2003 BSFA Award.
- "Nightfall" (April 2003) was shortlisted for the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.
- "Curator" (December 2003)
- "Elector" (September 2004) was shortlisted for the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Novella. The original version is available online.
- "Survivor" (October/November 2004)
Accelerando won the 2006 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
A sequel novel entitled Glasshouse, loosely set in the same universe, was published in June 2006.
[edit] See also
- Accelerando Technical Companion (on wikibooks)
[edit] External links
- Accelerando website containing the full text of the novel as well as Stross's notes for the series.
- Interview conducted by Lou Anders at RevolutionSF, with extensive discussion of the stories.
- Charlie Stross offers latest novel, Accelerando, for free (The Alien Online, 8/26/2005): Includes commentary from Stross about reasons for releasing freely-downloadable novels.fr:Accelerando
