The posthumans terraforming Saturn call those in the central core the "Vile Offspring." They are "weakly godlike intelligences" who no longer need or want physical bodies. The activities of the Vile Offspring, combined with artificial and intelligent financial instruments operating on the basis of "Economics 2.0," pose a dire threat to Saturn's posthumans. Yet they and an increasing flow of immigrants—memories of human "ghosts" the Vile Offspring are uploading to the planet and that are being placed in bodies created from accompanying genome information—differ as to how to deal with the threat.
Yet all of this just touches the surface of the ribbons of ideas Stross unfolds in this work. Given the number of ideas and the complexity of some, Accelerando can drag at times. This may also be due in part that the book basically brings together nine novelettes Stross published in Asimov's Science Fiction from 2001 to 2004. Each novelette was nominated for recognized science fiction awards, with four earning Hugo nominations, but they won no awards.
Accelerando itself may be a publishing version of the "open source" ideas Manfred Macx exemplifies. Not only are the nine short stories upon which it is based available online, Stross has made the complete work available for free online in various electronic formats under a Creative Commons license.
Undoubtedly, Stross owes much to other thinkers and visionaries of the predicted Singularity. Yet in years to come, Accelerando may be recognized as a seminal work of science fiction. It certainly is deserving of a Hugo nomination for best novel. Someone may even have to create a new award for the work of science fiction that most makes the reader's brain hurt so good.
Edited: PC
Article comments
1 - Pilot Pirx
The Bootstrapped-Brain Early Response Team is tasked with formulating a set of defensive protocols in anticipation of potentially harmful activities of advanced artificial intelligence and the predicted "technological singularity" that may arise on Earth within the next 50 years.
For details, go to the Early Warning Station web site.
2 - Pilot Pirx
Bootstrapped-Brain Early Warning Station
3 - Mongo
This one was the hardest one to read of all the Stross books I've read but just brilliant ideas about permutations of advanced civilizations (including human civilization).