One of the advantages of having a light term is that I have time for pleasure reading and I’ve been trying to take advantage of it. Here are my latest reads.

Accelerando
Charles Stross

Stross writes hyperkinetic science fiction that crosses hard scifi with cyberpunk. Accelerando spans several galaxies, a number of states of consciousness, and much of the 21st century. The speed at which he tosses out new ideas obscures the character development somewhat, but there are so many neat things to think about that it almost doesn’t matter. Stross did a particularly good job of capturing a modern vision of the future. Accelerando still features aliens and space travel, but the driving technologies are artificial intelligence and nanotech. I particularly recommend the Accelerando technical companion as a reference for some of Stross’s more out-there ideas and in true cyberpunk style, the entire book is available online.

The Oxford Murders
Guillermo Martinez
Trans. by Sonia Soto

The Oxford Murders continues the recent trend of “scholarly thrillers” that The Da Vinci Code reignited (though I wouldn’t call that particular novel “scholarly”). The Oxford Murders follows an Argentine mathematics student during a visit to Oxford, England, where he becomes involved in solving a sequence of mysterious murders (how come my REUs never turned out like that?) While a perfectly good mystery, I wasn’t blown away by this particular book. Maybe I was expecting too much, but the mathematics theme seemed superfluous. I gather that the author has a degree in Math, and I certainly sympathize with the desire to write a thriller in which the hero is a mathematician, but I think that in the process of making it accessible, Martinez turned the math into pseudo-philosophy akin to Dan Brown’s “symbology.” I certainly didn’t expect advanced math, but it was kind of weird when all the mathematicians started running around making weighty claims about Pythagorean cults and whatnot. All in all, I would say The Oxford Murders was a pleasant, but ultimately forgettable, diversion.