Accelerando

Accelerando is a non-linear narration, a stream of consciousness that flows like a flooded river filled with debris in which we are stuck. The detritus bobs and swirls, shifts and changes as we go. There is no plot that I was able to discern, not even an intelligible story line. The characters are hardly characters, but names that float amongst the flotsam in various forms - human, AI, digital constructs, ghosts, lobsters, you-name-it.

Cyberpunk devotees may enjoy Stross's tongue-in-cheekiness, but most of it went over my head, along with tons of other unidentifiable wreckage. It is like the cyber dream of a sentient non-organic being (S.N.O.B.) with a financial element. There are frequent references to Economics 2.0. At one point, I grabbed desperately for a branch, a life ring, anything to get me out of here, but then I realized that I was pretty far along, so I might as well coast to the end to see if anything ever happens. Nothing does.

I hadn't read Charles Stross before. Unlikely to read him again.