Accelerando

Stross presents a stunningly well thought out vision of the post-singularity future here. At times it's a exhilarating ride into some serious speculation that a will have you beliving in his vision. But beware, much of the text is written with expectations of a familiarity with the hard sciences. Particulary speculation in future I.T., A.I., and astrophysics. While this made for some fun wikipedia sessions it made the book a chore to read. The bigger problem for me was the plot. This story (what there was of one) could have been summed up on a napkin and the characterization was non-existent. You have the main charater as some kind of an alturistic generalist idea man who makes his living traveling the world , spouting off important concepts as an economic engine with the expectation to live off of others in return. This narrator is not only unreadable but almost completely unrelateable. The majority of his discourse here will feel extremely dated in a few years.