I figure most of you have read Accelerando by Charles Stross*. Remember Spring-Heeled Jack and his rocket boots? Stross didn’t just make them up out of thin air, you know - they were a genuine invention, a product of Cold War Russia’s military technology industry that never made it into large-scale production. Pity, that - I’d quite like a pair.

*If you’ve not read Accelerando yet, what the hell are you waiting for? It’s not like you can’t download it for free with the author’s blessing or anything …

I’m ashamed to say that I’d have forgotten if it weren’t for Jamais Cascio, who is also (I presume) the source of the image:

This is the oldest living animal (if you don’t bother counting certain invertebrates):

Harriet, pictured above, was brought back from the Galapagos Islands by good old Charles Darwin himself. She’s still alive and kicking (albeit very slowly) in Australia today.

Link collected from The Kircher Society.

Charles Stross has sold more than a dozen novels to publishers, but has done so in such a short period of time that less than half of them are actually in print yet. He’s a hot property, a supernova of the notorious Scotland set whose grip on the leading edge of British (and arguably world) SF grows stronger season by season. Stross’ writings are a case study in the talent that exists in this clade, and ‘Accelerando’, his latest to be published, a prime example of how invention and skill can combine in a synergistic fashion. Continue reading “Book Review: ‘Accelerando’ by Charles Stross”