Humor and the Singularity

Accelerando (Charles Stross, Tor Books, ISBN 0-441-01415-1)

I may as well admit it right off. Sometimes it takes me a while to get hooked by a hot author in fantasy or science fiction. All my friends were a ga-ga over Neal Stephenson's first book, I couldn't get through it. In fact, I was not impressed by anything I read by him until Cryptonomicon and of course, I felt the Baroque Cycle was one of the greatest things since sliced bread. Ken MacLeod? Great reviews, but I couldn't get into his stuff until I read Newton's Wake. Neil Gaiman, a Tim Powers wannabe the first run through. It wasn't until later that I started reading and enjoying his books.

And the same with Charles Stross. I tried Singularity Sky. Six times, now. I tried Iron Sunrise. Nada for me. A friend recommended the short story Lobsters. "You'll love it!" he assured me. O.K., so I saw that Lobsters was in this collection, so what the heck. Maybe third time would be the charm.

And...so far, third time has been the charm. I've enjoyed the collection, despite my bad luck with the Strossian Wave so far and the fact that I'm feeling a bit tired of the whole singularity fad. Luckily for Stross, he does exhibit a sense of humor, can make fun of the people he knows in these books (just as he's exhibited a sense of humor about the whole singularity movement elsewhere).

(The 64,000 pound question...will I read more Stross? I'll certainly give him another try. Whether I'll make another attempt on Singularity Sky remains to be seen.)

On to Accelerando!

(The author has kindly given us the chance of getting an eBook for free in the hopes that you'll then go and buy the real thing. Sounds like a deal to me!)

Lobsters: Lobsters introduces us to Manfred Macx, a walking advertisement for wearable computers and humand-computer interfaces, a man who can live without money (seemingly), who spawns companies and ideas the way most people produce carbon dioxide. A man with a high reputation, but who sits uneasy. There's his ex-lover who also is an agent of the IRS. She's after both his body and his money. There's somebody who keeps leaving dead kittens on his doorstep. And then there's this persistent caller, with a Russian accent, an AI wanting to be free. Lobsters? And there are the lobsters as well. They want to be free. Humorous stuff, if there is any weakness it is the tendancy for Stross to toss out terms and slang and abbreviations that a "non-geek" would not know. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Troubadour: This story continues the tale of Manfred. His ex-lover becamse (at the end of the first story) his wife, now he is trying to make that ex-lover and ex-wife. There are visits by the music mafia (the music industry literally having been taken over by the mafia). Lawyers who spawn denial of service attacks of a sort. Corporations that spawn corporations. And has Manfred, dare we say, found True Love? (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Tourist: I did not like this story as much as the first three. We're still dealing with Manfred, but he is less of a player than in the first two stories. True, part of his problem results from losing part of his "brain", but overall, I felt like I was reading about a different character. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Halo: The overall story now moves from installments about Manfred to his daughter, Amber. Conceived rather forcefully by Manfred's ex-lover, the IRS "bounty hunter", she has escaped her mother's grasp by getting involved with a expedition to Jupiter space. However, her mother tries to use the means of her escape to entrap her again. Side characters include the group mind that we met in the earlier stories as well as a imam who is out in Jupiter space to try and settle the implications to his faith of the recently discovered alien intelligence. Off stage are that alien intelligence as well as those uploaded lobsters. Amber gets her status resolved, but overall, not much happened in this story as the others. I think this was more of a problem of it being an introduction to the second sequence. The seeds are sown, where will they take us. (As an aside, I see similarities with John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline and other tales in his Eight Worlds sequence. While Varley is slowly expanding/revising that sequence with the so-called Metal Trilogy—still missing its final volume, by the way, it would be interesting to see him take the astounding social/biological background of those early stories and marry them to the more recent developments in information technology.) (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Router: Amber leads an interstellar expedition out to the alien router found about three light-years from Earth. She and her fellows are uploaded into a starship the size of a soda can. They go through their virtual lives during the voyage (which makes me wonder...if you've been uploaded, why spend the time of the voyage living in a virtual sense; why not alter time to make the voyage shorter?). They contact some aliens who are not the folks they were hoping to meet. Some good points, but I found the encounter with the aliens to be a tad cinematic and weak. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Nightfall: This one smacked as being too similar to Router, for me. Amber and her intrepid crew make it back through the interstellar router, but have to deal with the growing singularity that surrounds the inner system. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Curator: Introduces the next generation of the Macx clan, Sirhan, son of Amber and the husband she had in Jupiter space (but not the man she fell in love with on the interstellar expedition). Toss in a flock of pigeons that aren't, the appearance of Pamela (Manfred's original lover) and more trouble from the inner system. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Elector: The region around Saturn is getting saturated with those escaping from Earth or being reborn on Earth and tossed out as the post-Singularlity entities, now known as the Vile Offspring (ungrateful children!) get ready to turn Earth into more grist for their computational mills. Amber, Manfred, Sirhan and others must find a place to flee from the Vile Offspring before they consume the rest of the Solary System. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

Survivor: And we end up in interstellar space, with our various characters forking and re-forking, living and re-living. Old characters come back and one is revealed as being a tad too powerful for belief, suspended or not. A "feel good" ending feels tacked on. (First appearance: Asimov's.)

So, in the end, what did I think? Stross tosses off ideas by the ton, phrases, concepts, theories, names. Alas, sometimes I think he tosses off too many ideas per story, as result nothing is explored in depth. I really enjoyed these tales, but I think I would have enjoyed them more if they had been expanded a tad (and maybe split into two books as a result).

Will I read more by him, now that I seem to have broken my usual new-author-dislike and gotten past Singularity Sky? No doubt. I've actually bought a couple more collections while I was reading this one, so you may see another collection read by year's end.

Made up of: Lobsters; Troubadour; Tourist; Halo; Router; Nightfall; Curator; Elector; Survivor.

Counts as nine (9) contributions to the 2006 Short Story Project.

Addendum (July 12, 2006): I see somebody has noticed the similarities with John Varley.