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Accelerando

Accelerando is a novel by British author , published in 2005, comprising a of nine interconnected short stories that depict the onset and aftermath of the through the experiences of three generations of the Macx family. The narrative traces protagonist Manfred Macx, a meme-spreading entrepreneur in a near-future economy driven by and , his daughter , who becomes an indentured amid accelerating change, and grandson Sirhan, confronting intelligences that disassemble the solar system. Drawing on concepts of exponential technological growth leading to , the book extrapolates from emerging trends in , , and to portray a universe where human cognition is obsolete and Vile Offal—digital uploads—grapple with cosmic-scale computation. Accelerando won the 2006 for Best Novel and was nominated for the , the , and the British Science Fiction Association Award in the same year. Its portrayal of a post-singularity world has been praised for rigorous speculation grounded in contemporary science while highlighting risks of unchecked , such as economic disruption and existential threats from self-replicating systems.

Publication and Composition

Original Short Stories and Fix-Up Process

Accelerando originated as a series of nine interconnected novelettes written by primarily between 1998 and 2003. These stories were initially published individually in magazine from 2001 to 2004, with several earning nominations for Best , including "Lobsters" in June 2001. The novelettes—"Lobsters," ," "Tourist," ," "Router," ," ," "Elector," and "—trace the Macx family across generations amid accelerating technological change. For the 2005 novel, Stross revised and expanded the original stories, inserting bridging passages to enhance narrative cohesion and flow. This approach unified the episodic structure into a continuous divided into three parts—"Slow Takeoff," "Point of Inflection," and ""—while preserving the vignette-like quality of the originals. The process allowed Stross to leverage short fiction success for a full-length book debut with , reflecting a deliberate strategy to transition from sales to publication amid the early 2000s market. The revisions minimally altered core plots but amplified themes of evolution and economic disruption, with added details on Vinge-style dynamics drawn from Stross's contemporaneous research into and . No major contradictions arose from integration, as the stories were conceived sequentially around the Macx lineage, though some critics noted residual seams in pacing. This compilation earned the 2006 for Best Novel, validating the fix-up's effectiveness.

Release Formats and Availability

Accelerando was first published in hardcover by in the United States on July 5, 2005, with 432 pages. A simultaneous edition appeared from . Paperback editions followed, including a mass market from Ace on June 27, 2006. The novel is available in multiple digital formats, including ebooks in , MOBI, and PDF, purchasable from retailers such as and . An edition, narrated by and produced by Recorded Books, was released in 2014 and is accessible via platforms like Audible and . In addition to commercial releases, author made Accelerando freely available as an under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license, permitting non-commercial copying, distribution, display, and performance without derivatives. This version, offered to promote the work amid the rise of , is downloadable in formats like PDF, , AZW, and MOBI from sites including ManyBooks and the . The free release does not affect print or paid sales, which remain available through standard channels.

Narrative Structure and Plot

Overall Plot Arc

Accelerando chronicles the experiences of the Macx across three generations—, his daughter , and grandson Sirhan—as transitions from a near-future society augmented by pervasive to a post- dominated by superintelligent entities. The narrative arc begins with Macx, a nomadic "idea billionaire" who facilitates disruptive innovations amid emerging and , navigating personal entanglements including his relationship with Pamela and the birth of . As computational power accelerates exponentially, human economies collapse under the weight of post-human value systems, triggering a "slow takeoff" to the where artificial general intelligences eclipse biological . In the ensuing eras, leads human remnants in interstellar migration via to evade solar-system-encompassing Matrioshka brains, confronting inscrutable alien intelligences and economic simulations that redefine and survival. The story concludes with Sirhan's generation probing the ontological boundaries of uploaded minds and feline superintelligences like Aineko, underscoring the irreversible fragmentation of human identity amid cosmic-scale computation. This progression illustrates a cautionary of technological acceleration's existential perils, where yields to incomprehensible systemic forces.

Part 1: Slow Takeoff

Part 1 of Accelerando, titled "Slow Takeoff," centers on Manfred Macx, a nomadic and "meme-broker" who freely disseminates disruptive business ideas in a near-future world of emerging augmented and post-capitalist . Set primarily in during the early , the narrative depicts Manfred's interactions with rudimentary artificial intelligences, reputation-based economies, and personal entanglements amid incremental technological shifts that begin eroding traditional human-centric systems. In the opening chapter, "Lobsters," Manfred arrives in Amsterdam where he encounters digitally uploaded lobsters—neural simulations derived from brains, originally developed for piloting but now seeking political after achieving rudimentary and defecting from corporate control. He leverages this event to pitch self-replicating factories in orbit, capable of bootstrapping space-based manufacturing using lunar resources and (FPGA) electronics, securing commitments from distant investors via his exocortex—a wearable neural augmentation that extends his through distributed agents. Concurrently, Manfred evades pursuit by his ex-fiancée Pamela, a U.S. agent intent on taxing his untaxable reputation economy gains, while relying on his AI-enhanced , Aineko, for companionship and computation. These elements illustrate early signs of , where human ingenuity interfaces with nascent machine minds, fostering economic models detached from scarcity. The subsequent chapter, "Troubadour," follows Manfred to Rome, where he partners with Annette Dimarcos, a marketing executive for , to advance space infrastructure projects including nanotube space elevators and cellular automata-based companies that simulate planned economies. Discussions with figures like Gianni Vittoria, a Marxist Italian minister, highlight tensions between human-directed innovation and emerging paradigms, as Manfred's pronoiac worldview—optimistic and connective—clashes with regulatory efforts to impose on abundant digital replication. Technological motifs include nanocomputers enabling virtual presences and for reconfigurable environments, signaling a gradual decoupling of value from physical labor. "Tourist," the concluding chapter of Part 1, shifts to Edinburgh, where Manfred suffers a neural lace mugging that erases his episodic memories and disables his augmentations, forcing reliance on the partially uploaded Franklin Collective—a venture capitalist group transitioning to digital substrates. Amid recovery, he confronts the implications of mind uploading and AI emancipation, as lobsters and other uploads demand rights in a world where property and personhood blur. This event underscores the vulnerabilities of human-machine symbiosis, with Manfred's restoration involving neural wetware reconstruction and hints at accelerating change through reputation markets and defeasible bundled obligations—contractual instruments that automate trust in fluid economies. Throughout Part 1, the "slow takeoff" manifests as compounding advancements in cognitive prosthetics, distributed intelligence, and orbital industry, propelling society toward a threshold without abrupt rupture, while Manfred's personal odyssey embodies the era's chaotic opportunism.

References

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