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    The Accord
    The Accord
    The Accord
    Ebook494 pages7 hours

    The Accord

    By Keith Brooke

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    "One of the finest novels of virtual reality yet written... a dazzling work of the imagination." SF Site

    The Accord, a virtual utopia where the soul lives on after death and your perceptions are bound only by your imagination. This is the setting for a tale of love, murder and revenge that crosses the boundaries between the real world and this virtual reality. When Noah and Priscilla escape into the Accord to flee Priscilla’s murderous husband, he plots to destroy the whole Accord and them with it. How can they hope to escape their stalker when he can become anything or anyone he desires and where does the pursuit of revenge stop for immortals in an eternal world?

    "The emotion-driven love triangle neatly complements the tech- and philosophy-heavy nature of the Accord, making this rumination on posthumous, posthuman love a rare treat." Publishers Weekly 5* review

    "The Accord is a literary science fiction tour de force that is sure to be one of the best novels of 2009." SciFi Wire

    "First and foremost a superbly written novel, featuring beautiful prose that instantly hooked me from the powerful opening page and kept the pages turning... a rare combination of thought-provoking ideas including hard sf... a lyrical novel of love, loss, revenge, exploration and adventure... The Accord is highly, highly recommended." Fantasy Book Critic

    "A truly major sf work that should be considered for all eligible awards." SFF World

    "One of the finest novels of virtual reality yet written... a novel that combines elements of love story, thriller, and work of ideas, yet gains its impact from being more than the sum of these. And it all works. It works brilliantly. In The Accord, Keith Brooke has created a dazzling work of the imagination." SF Site

    "Keith Brooke's take on posthumanism is one of the best approaches of the subject I've ever seen." SF Signal

    "As well as being a masterful story, The Accord is a feat of daring and accomplished composition... Romantic, edgy, moving, tight and fast, The Accord is Keith Brooke on incandescent form and in an angry, sweary mood. The Accord offers a sense of obscene wonder the likes of which this reviewer might not have felt since Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden. This is Keith Brooke at his absolute best." Interzone

    LanguageEnglish
    Publisherinfinity plus
    Release dateDec 15, 2011
    ISBN9781466174283
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    2.5/5

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    • 1/5
      Some times you get to point in a book when you wonder if it will ever end. In a souped-up virtual world called The Accord, three characters, an unflappable, all-knowing Professor (The Accord's inventor), a scheming, vengeful Politician and the Woman (with no character of her own) that both love, engage in a love triangle that keeps on twisting through different scenarios in the Accord. Other stock characters (e.g. the Loyal Bodyguard, the Evil Hacker, the Efficient PA), and a host of those who end up in The Accord, have walk-on roles. If the people and situations are hackneyed, the science fiction element is even worse. Earth is dying so people will die trying to get into The Accord. But if the global ecosystem is collapsing then how can complex technology offer a way out? How The Accord works is never addressed. At one point The Accord needs to take over 'net resources' to go on, later it anchors itself in 'unused' quantum space. One needs a brain scan and then when you die (why wait?) you get uploaded. The Accord is a 'consensual reality' built from the memories of the uploaded: but how can unique but differing memories ever be reconciled? The upload is supposedly one way, but later the dead but uploaded Professor can roam the real world in a 'borrowed body' (another technology introduced like a rabbit out of a hat). Oh, and human personalities can also be spliced and diced (this happens to the Politician). The Accord itself looks like heaven but there is no escape as dying gets you slowly reconstituted. Why would people in it need to sleep or eat or do anything human at all? The unceasing repetition in this novel says more about The Accord as the new dystopia than the 'new frontier'.

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