I adored ACCELERANDO when I was first introduced to it, through one of the later stories Asimov's ran in mid-to-late 2003. It hit me right on my geek spot; I mean, an application of the Thomson hack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_hack#Reflections_on_Trusting_Trust) as a critical plot point, and an AI friendly to humans because it was trained on Sesame Street, and the horror when they stole Amber's cat by editing it out of her mind, and the "street drug called sensawunda".... how could I not?
I feel like it ages... OK. It actually does feel to me like a period piece from the dot-com bubble, which he's alluded to a few times since.
I share your opinion about the middle Merchant Princes books. I'm reading the most recent (THE MERCHANTS' WAR) right now, and there's one throwaway, universe-shifting OH NO YOU DI'NT moment that had me snickering again like the "squamous and rugose" finger-waggling-under-chin moment in THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES. It feels like he's getting the series-plot back under him in this one.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-11-30 09:46 am (UTC)I adored ACCELERANDO when I was first introduced to it, through one of the later stories Asimov's ran in mid-to-late 2003. It hit me right on my geek spot; I mean, an application of the Thomson hack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_hack#Reflections_on_Trusting_Trust) as a critical plot point, and an AI friendly to humans because it was trained on Sesame Street, and the horror when they stole Amber's cat by editing it out of her mind, and the "street drug called sensawunda".... how could I not?
I feel like it ages... OK. It actually does feel to me like a period piece from the dot-com bubble, which he's alluded to a few times since.
I share your opinion about the middle Merchant Princes books. I'm reading the most recent (THE MERCHANTS' WAR) right now, and there's one throwaway, universe-shifting OH NO YOU DI'NT moment that had me snickering again like the "squamous and rugose" finger-waggling-under-chin moment in THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES. It feels like he's getting the series-plot back under him in this one.