Accelerando
Accelerando is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories written by British author Charles Stross. As well as normal hardback and paperback editions, it was released as a free e-book under the CC BY-NC-ND license. "Accelerando" won the Locus Award in 2006, and was nominated for several other awards in 2005 and 2006, including the Hugo, Campbell, Clarke, and British Science Fiction Association Awards. Title. In Italian, "accelerando" means "speeding up" and is used as a tempo marking in musical notation. In Stross' novel, it refers to the accelerating rate  at which humanity in general, and/or the novel's characters, head towards the technological singularity. Plot introduction. The book is a collection of nine short stories telling the tale of three generations of a family before, during, and after a technological singularity. It was originally written as a series of novelettes and novellas, all published in "Asimov's Science Fiction" magazine in the period 2001 to 2004. 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. The first three stories  follow the character of agalmic "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 Amber's son Sirhan in the completely transformed world at the end of the century. Plot concepts. Stross describes humanity's situation at the start of "Accelerando" as dire: In the background of what looks like a Panglossian techno-optimist novel, horrible things are happening. Most of humanity is wiped out, then arbitrarily resurrected in mutilated form by the Vile Offspring. Capitalism eats "everything" then the logic of competition pushes  it so far that merely human entities can no longer compete; we're a fat, slow-moving, tasty resource – like the dodo. Our narrative perspective, Aineko, is "not" a talking cat: it's a vastly superintelligent AI, coolly calculating, that has worked out that human beings are more easily manipulated if they think they're dealing with a furry toy. The cat body is a sock puppet wielded by an abusive monster. As events progress in "Accelerando", the planets of the Solar System are dismantled over time to form a Matrioshka brain, a vast solar-powered computational device inhabited by  minds inconceivably more advanced and complex than naturally evolved intelligences such as human beings. This proves to be a normal stage in the life-cycle of an inhabited solar system; the galaxies are revealed to be filled with such Matrioshka brains. Intelligent consciousnesses outside of Matrioshka brains may communicate via wormhole networks. The notion that the universe is dominated by a communications network of superintelligences bears comparison with Olaf Stapledon's 1937 science-fiction novel "Star Maker", although Stapledon's advanced civilisations are said to communicate psychically rather than informatically. Plot summary and breakdown by story. In the following table , the chapter number (#), chapter name and original magazine date of publication, and a brief synopsis are given. The nine stories are grouped into three parts. Allusions/references to contemporary science. The novel contains numerous allusions to real-world scientific concepts and individuals, including: Awards and nominations. "Accelerando" won the 2006 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the 2010 Estonian SF Award for Best Translated Novel of 2009. Additionally, the novel was shortlisted for several other awards, including: Individual short stories. The original short story "Lobsters" (June 2001) was shortlisted for: The original short story "Halo" (June 2002) was  shortlisted for: The original short story "Router" (September 2002) was shortlisted for: The original short story "Nightfall" (April 2003) was shortlisted for: The original short story "Elector" (September 2004) was shortlisted for: