# Vernor Vinge, author of A Fire Upon the Deep RIP **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 21, 2024, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136 "2024-03-21T10:51:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/1 "2024-03-21T10:51:26Z")
Also of such works _The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime,_ and _True Names,_ credited as one of the earliest depictions of the cyberspace concept. [RIP at 79](https://file770.com/vernor-vinge-1944-2024/). He had a good run at least. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/2 "2024-03-21T11:09:20Z")
Crap. So much for a good conclusion to the Zones of Thought series. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/3 "2024-03-21T20:22:41Z")
Aw, damn. One of my favorite authors. ☹ > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So much for a good conclusion to the Zones of Thought series Crap. You’re right. The cliffhanger at the end of _The Children of the Sky_ is still hanging. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/4 "2024-03-21T20:31:36Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Crap. You’re right. The cliffhanger at the end of _The Children of the Sky_ is still hanging He is one of the few authors who I still think about his books years after I last read them. I always loved the way he got fantasy like FTL into the hard sci-fi _Zones of Thought_. Physics is different in different places. Things we think are impossible are impossible _for us_. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/5 "2024-03-22T06:17:09Z")
Didn’t care for _The Children of the Sky_, personally. Too much “local politics”. But _A Fire Upon the Deep_? Absolute top-tier sci-fi. Agreed with **echoreply** that the ideas in his books stick with you years (decades) later. I’ve re-read _AFUtD_ and _ADitS_ fairly recently, but I grabbed _Marooned in Realtime_ off the shelf. Been a while but I enjoyed it. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/6 "2024-03-22T14:31:31Z")
I too wish he’d written more. I did enjoy his whole ‘Zones of Thought’ universe concept. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/7 "2024-03-22T18:11:01Z")
Apparently he’d been suffering from progressive Parkinson’s for many years, tot he ;point that he had to be in a care facility. That is no doubt why his output slowed down, and why there was no resolution of the cliffhanger that ended _The Children of the Sky._ It’s a huge loss to the SF community, but I am grateful for the books he wrote that we DO have. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vernor-vinge-author-of-a-fire-upon-the-deep-rip/999136/8 "2024-03-22T19:27:43Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > Apparently he’d been suffering from progressive Parkinson’s for many years Parkinson’s. Fucking Parkinson’s. I lost my father-in-law, a dear man with an outsized wit, and encyclopedic knowlege of many topics, and an amazing skill at and love of chess, to the slow ravages of this scourge. I watched him fade away, first into clumsiness, than incoherence, than silence, and finally complete passivity. His last breath was hard fought but the freedom from the suffering both broke my heart and made me grateful through the tears that the travesty of his destroyed existence was at an end. And now another great mind choked out like a tree killed by parasitic weeds.