X-Message-Number: 19082
From: "Steve Harris" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #19074 (Vernor Vinge)
Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:49:49 -0600

----- Original Message
 ----- > Message #19074
> From: 
> Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 17:55:40 EDT
> Subject: Re: CryoNet #19064- Vernor Vinge
>
> Rudi Hoffman writes:
>
> >
> > And how about Vernor Vinge?  I just today finished, "A Deepness in the
> > Sky."
> >
> >
> > Absolutely fabulous book.  Many of my extropian and cryonics buddies
have
> > told me how great Vinge's writing is, but this is my first book of his.
He
> >
> > teaches at a California college.  Does anybody on this list know him?
>
>
> I know Vernor, he was a teacher of one of my friends at either SDSU or
> UCSD... I always get that mixed up!  But I've spoken with him several
times
> at parties, and he is fun bright witty articulate and SMART.  I almost
envy
> you, you get the read A Fire Upon the Deep (the sequel and prequel to "A
> Deepness in the Sky")and The Peace War.  Every time I see him I threaten
to
> chain him to a word processor.  He takes a long time to write his novels,
but
> they are worth it.

Agreed. Vinge (pronounced VIN-jee) may be the writer of the most intelligent
SF out there.

> Now that he is retired, he claims he will write more.

Check out the last short story in his recently published collection of
them-- it's a new one called "Fast times at Fairview High" (FTFH)-- a story
of the near future with continuous VR, wearable computers, and what kids
growing up with them can do with them. You get a continuously linked webbed
distributed intelligence much like Steigler's Earthweb (also recommended,
and a novel Vinge himself thinks highly of). Vinge's presently writing a
prequel to FTFH.


> And, I think Peace War is an interesting book all Immortalists should
read,
> as it deals in great detail with human psyche and life extension and human
> modification and interstellar travel, and the singularity- for starters..

This is most often available as Marooned in Realtime, which is bundled with
The Ungoverned (its prequel) and The Peace War sometimes, and sometimes not
(I may not have this quite right, but there are two prequel stories to
Marooned, and you get sometimes one and sometimes the other and sometimes
neither). The earlier stories are of interest to lib-anarchists, but it's
the novel Marooned in Realtime where Vinge really takes off, and it's the
one you want to start with. Also the one being described above.

For the best speculations about the singularity and transcendence you'll see
in SF, Vinge's novel Fire Upon the Deep is the one you want. Vinge had to
partition his universe like a hard drive to have zones where critters can't
transcend to singularity(speed of c changes in zones) to make it work-- and
he also has a breathing space of 10 years between superintelligence and
singularity so we can examine THAT) but then, all that's a given with
intelligence- transcendence literature. Somebody has to stay behind to tell
us what happens from our wormlike perspective, as in Childhood's End (They
may even be stuck there--Vinge's Cricketsong in Fire Upon the Deep are
Clarke's Overlords!).  Lot's of Heinlein influence in Vinge also-- the deus
ex machina at the end of Fire Upon the Deep is very Heinleinian.

SBH

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