I read his book “Across Realtime” and I thought it was absolutely fantastic…
Really imaginative and detailed, I read it with growing amazement at the excellence of his story telling and scientific ideas. Much of the book concerns a singularity which Vinge wrote about for a NASA sponsered symposium in 1993:
This is a mite ‘Terminator’, but the Vinge is far from that sort of writer - although he goes to great lengths in order to define characters.
I’ve since read “A Deepness In The Sky” - a really convincing first contact novel.
There’s not much on the internet, and I know of no-one elase who’s read him. Surely there’re some Dopers out there with knowledge of VV…
I thought “A Deepness in the Sky” was an excellent book, as was it’s predecessor “A Fire upon the Deep”.
“Fire” is set in the same universe as “Deepness”. Most of the action takes place on a planet with a really unique sentient life form. They are dog-like creatures who are only intelligent in groups. A sentient person is a pack of several individual creatures, who are of dog-like intelligence when separated. Very good book.
I’m a big Vinge fan. One of his all-time best (currently out of print) is a book called True Names and other Dangers. It’s a short story collection and the title story is just incredible.
And A Fire Across the Deep is an all-time great. The Tines rock, and the depiction of the Usenet of the future is spot-on killer satire!
In addition to the ‘Accross Realtime’ book, I have also read his ‘Marooned in Realtime’ (a sequel/prequel) and enjoyed them both. I haven’t read any of his other books, though.
You all might be interested to know that all of Vinge’s shorter works have been published in one volume recently. I consider Vinge one of the most thoughtful and enthralling SF writers of today (because he’s written relatively little, I tend to think of him as new, but in fact, he was first published in the '60s). I just wish he’d quite his day job (university prof) and write more.
Andy L.
P.S. I met him once at a technical conference - he had done some interesting simulations in MATLAB (he said he was thinking of putting the results in a book someday).
BTW, if you read “True Names” after reading Deepness and Fire upon the Deep, you’ll notice the first inklings of the ideas that led to Skroderiders and a nasty strategy of the Emergents.
Oh, Vinge is just wonderful. I’ve only read two of his books (Fire and Deepness) but they’re two of the best sf books I’ve ever read. I liked A Fire Upon the Deep a bit better, but only because of the UseNet of the Stars.
I found this to be a very helpful thread that has added significantly to my “I really oughta get around to reading this” list. I especially like it because if I feel that if LOTS of posters recommend someone (particularly posters who also like many of the same books/authors I do), it MUST be good. Consequently, I’ve added Vernor Vinge and Terry Pratchett to my “gotta try them” list.
(This was very timely of you to bring this up, by the way. I know I’m going to be hit up with “What do you want for Christmas” questions next week at Thanksgiving. I’ll have to read back over this thread and start making my Christmas list.)
Vernor Vinge has written some of the very few science fidtion books of the past decade worth re-reading. He has not yet jumped the shark, as Baxter did.
> There’s not much on the internet, and I know of no-one
> elase who’s read him. Surely there’re some Dopers out
> there with knowledge of VV…
Vernor Vinge is modestly well known, so if you don’t know anyone else who’s read him, you need to make some new friends. Go to a few science fictions conventions and to a some meetings of science fiction clubs and ask people if they’ve read him. You’re sure to find people who have.
Yep, read 'em all, and I have to second the approval. I have a particularly soft spot for True Names, since it was a recommendation from Spider Robinson many moons ago when he sung its praises.
Dell SF was putting out a series called Binary Stars in which they would pair a couple of novellas by different authors to make a book-length product. It was a great name and a nice twist on the old Ace Doubles (except they didn’t print one of them upside down and backwards in reference to the other as Ace used to do.) There were some decent stuff in earlier numbers (Joan D. Vinge was in #4) but Binary Stars #5 featured the pairing of True Names with George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers. It’s one of the true stars of my collection.
Just went to check the copyright on it, and dang if it wasn’t 1981. How that tempus does fugit…
But in regards to the OP, I’d also highly recommend Vernor Vinge’s work. His main flaw is that he is not prolific; a determined fan could probably work through Vinge’s lifetime of work in a few months.
The name comes from an episode of “Happy Days” where Fonzie, in leather jacket, and bermuda shorts, gets on his motorcycle and…jumps a tank of sharks.
And Vinge fans…wanna cry? There was a Data-CD put out just before the 1993(?) Hugos that contained the text to all the nominees…including, of course A Fire Across the Sky. But wait…there’s more! Vinge allowed them to add his notes, hyperlinked the hell out of the story and made it into an Annotated Fire Across the Deep. Because of copyright issues the CD will never be rereleased (it’d be impossible to untangle permissions from all those authors), althought there’s talk every now and again that just the Vinge part will be reprinted. The last time one went on eBay, it went for $100+ < sob >
Damn you, Dr. F!!! Now everybody’s looking at me funny and wondering why I fell off my chair laughing hysterically!
Correct on the “spot on satire,” Fenris – some months ago, when I got totally frustrated with a GD thread I was participating, I’d simply take a break, read a little Fire Upon the Deep, see the parallels, and come back to the wars refreshed.
Twirlip of the Mists was right! Even if he was a little confused over the difference between six-leggedness and six-wheeledness…
When I realized that, I put Vinge onto my must-own list. Anyone who can throw that type of detail in (as comic relief, yet) is worth spending real money on.
I believe that “The Blab” is in Threats and Other Promises, and the title character is a lone Tine. VVinge said that he hoped to make a series from this start, in the story’s forward.
Across Realtime is, I believe, both Marooned in Realtime, a short story, and then another short novel packaged in one volume. I’ll be durned if I can remember the name of the short story or the second novel, though. It all hangs together wonderfully, unlike the binding of that particular book, which shed pages like my cats shed fur in the spring.
