So I've read Accelerando.
My two cents:
It's an eccentric book with the unprecedented ambition of turning something like The Last Question (Isaac Asimov, 1956) into a whole full-lenght novel. To go ahead with this idea, it almost seems like mr Ross just wrote every single scifi meme or idea that he could think of and meshed it together into an almost coherent multi-generational story about the singularity, what it means for mankind and the universe. An amazing list of themes are in here, from the Fermi paradox to the concept of noosphere, capitalism, communism, cats and myasaki, wild virtual sex fantasies and adblocks for your brain wetware. Slowboating less-than-cee travel or wormhole communications system. Ressurection, cloning, virtual ghosts of oneself, teleportation. Anything you remember it's there.
The result of this extraordinary density of ideas (that is reminiscent to me of Hitchhiker’s Guide) is that the core story of the characters suffers a lot, many references to many different issues but few of them are actually developed. Characters do not grow, they remain static while the world turns around them. They become symbols and voices for the (simple, simplistic?) forces that actuate on the solar system (the communist innovator, the IRS dominatrix worried by the debt, the historian, the empress, the traumatized male concubine, etc.,etc.), always pontificating and confusing the “troubles of our current societie’s status quo” with actual real troubles. Love stories are forced and predictable. Oh and there’s a cat and a deus ex machina that is so glaring even the writer is forced to admit it in writing.
The jokes are almost all meta and hyperlinky. It is written in a post-internet language where so many one-liners are throwaways to other works of fiction or themes, fearless with the usage of more obscure terminologies for the intended audiences probably know how to google it in seconds. Speaking of which, the density of these threw me away constantly from the “suspension of disbelief”. making me go “oh another one in a single page? Come on”.
The core ideas of it are staggering and thought-provoking. To reach their profoundity however the writer sacrifices local complexities, rendering social and political developments with a polarized simplistic take. IOW, Ross sacrifices the realism of small leaves and trunks in order to focus on the design of forests. It’s a problem. It makes me question Ross’ idea that it is quite possible to write through a singularity. Vinge’s books are way more coherent, controlled and focused, with clear emotional and character arcs, although they do lack this gargantuan large-scale focus.
It’s a magnus opus in scope and I advise everyone to read it. Their stories, despite all the written things above, are entertaining and insightful in what ways it is possible to foresee our future socializations, woes and worries, as well as riches. The final conclusions are between dire lovecraftian and cornucopian, giving the word “Singularity” a new meaning to me that I found both ironic and interesting.
