[HN Gopher] The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
___________________________________________________________________
The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 78 points
Date : 2023-11-26 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (adeeplookbydavehook.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (adeeplookbydavehook.wordpress.com)
| keikobadthebad wrote:
| The Peace War / Marooned in Realtime (in one book as "Across
| Rraltime" were his best works I read. Really impressive.
| WillAdams wrote:
| "Longshot" is heartbreaking, and certainly, "True Names" should
| be more widely read.
| inciampati wrote:
| True names is so far ahead of the world. What vision.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think "True Names" may have been a bit overshadowed by
| "Press Enter" written about the same time.
| h2odragon wrote:
| "A Fire Upon the Deep" is a great book for several reasons. I
| can't think of any better expression of what Usenet felt like in
| its prime, than portrayed there.
|
| "Hexapodia is the key insight"
| DougMerritt wrote:
| That hexapodia business seemed like a hint in a murder mystery;
| some of the connections to the rest of the story were
| reasonably clear, but I always felt like I was missing some
| insight there.
| h2odragon wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20150117043800/http://www.angelfi.
| ..
| fl7305 wrote:
| I really like his books. A fun anecdote is that I had him as a
| college professor in the early 90's before I knew that he was a
| SciFi author.
|
| Among other things, he taught me how to write pre-emptive task
| switching in 68k assembly language.
|
| Fun times!
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Was he that assembly professor who was way to interesting to be
| just a professor? Had a similar one.
| relwin wrote:
| I liked his test structure: write "I don't know" for minimal
| credit opposed to wasting his time with a false paragraph.
| Also, a very prepared prof.
| codeslasher wrote:
| I've only read A Fire Upon The Deep, which I found super
| interesting in terms of setting, but the storytelling felt a bit
| clunky to me at the time. I was still intrigued by the author
| though and I read A Deepness In The Sky and was blown away.
|
| Storytelling, setting, everything just clicked. I know there is a
| third book in the trilogy but it seems a bit back to the roots in
| terms of setting and I haven't touched just out of the fear that
| I wouldn't love it as much as ADITS... Should I?
| krasin wrote:
| A Deepness In The Sky is the best in the trilogy, by far.
| arghdos wrote:
| As a huge fan of both those books, no, the third book is only
| OK.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Probably just me, but it first book was such a schizophrenic
| experience. Loved every single bit of space part but couldn't
| care less about medieval cluster dog minds part, eventually
| grew bored of it and it felt disturbing. Especially when author
| thinks some minor medieval squabbles are equally important as
| the galactic space part, giving it same page count.
|
| Suffered till the end, and lost any motivation to continue
| since following books proudly advertised that the form is there
| to stay.
|
| There are vastly more diverse stories that still link well
| together, ie Hyperion cantos was an amazing experience for me.
| Literally 7 different stories coming together, from cyberpunk
| to high religious politics, but always connected to same
| technological universe.
| vkou wrote:
| The first Hyperion book is excellent, the second is decent,
| but for anybody not in the know - do yourself a favor and
| skip the two that follow.
| thriftwy wrote:
| I disagree, they have some stuff to think through, even if
| they're not as shiny as the first one. Perhaps he did
| himself a disservice by showing all he's got at the very
| begining of the series, though.
|
| That stuff has the Star Wars vibe where Ep 1-3 have much
| more grandiosity than the original series - luckily the
| weren't chronologically first.
| vkou wrote:
| The problem isn't the highlights of it - it's the low-
| lights, which make up most of those books. The main POV
| character is _incredibly_ annoying to follow around - he
| 's a dense, not-too-intelligent, but incredibly-long-
| winded everyman, who is never told to shut up by anyone
| around him.
|
| I don't need an everyman perspective[1] on an epic
| science-fiction story! I am an everyman! I can form my
| own opinion of it!
|
| They are also rather heavy on author-dictated philosophy
| (which is not particularly interesting, or insightful,
| and manages to fall flat in a pretty major self-
| contradictory way) - whereas the first two Hyperion books
| have much less of an author's voice in them, and are much
| more of a presentation of an interaction of different,
| competing value systems. _That_ is interesting! Listening
| to the chosen one go on and on about choosing again (when
| none of their disciples actually do) is not!
|
| The overall plot of them is fine. It's, unfortunately,
| all in the execution.
|
| [1] Or at least, not one that's hammered into me for ~60%
| of the book.
| sideshowb wrote:
| I disagree. Yes #1 was best. I thought #2 was the weakest
| link, but with the redeeming feature of getting you to #3
| and #4. Are they perfect, no, but they do have good moments
| aplenty and I thought the ending worth the journey.
|
| Edit: thinking back, the ending of #2 was bloody
| spectacular as well. I think the sheer volume of
| character/world building must help as preparation for
| impactful endings.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Strongly agree. There are some enjoyable bits in 3&r4 ( I
| just enjoy episodic travel adventures), but for the most
| part they are pretty bad, especially compared to the
| masterpiece of the first one (the second was an adequate
| ending to the story).
| duskwuff wrote:
| _Endymion_ and _Rise_ were to Simmons what _The Dying
| Earth_ was to Silenus. ;)
|
| They're sequels set in the same setting, with a few cool
| ideas, but the literary flair -- the _magic_ -- just isn
| 't there.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _Especially when author thinks some minor medieval
| squabbles are equally important as the galactic space part,
| giving it same page count._
|
| That was a major plot design point to me.
|
| That pre-spacefaring civilizations have things that are
| incredibly important _to them_ , but questionably important
| relative to order-of-magnitudes different power galactic
| civilizations.
|
| One of the reasons I like Banks fiction as well -- in all
| likelihood, given evolution and technological maturity
| timescales, advanced civilizations will be wildly displaced
| _in time_ as well as space.
| atombender wrote:
| Deepness has the same "split brain". Half the story is set in
| the future, but the other chapters are told as a picaresque
| fantasy in what appears to be a kind of fictional alternative
| reality circa World War I, that is eventually revealed to be
| a "humanized" version of the alien civilization's history
| (similar to how the aliens are described in The Three-Body
| Problem).
|
| I didn't love A Fire Upon the Deep because, while the sci-fi
| parts were amazing, the medieval fantasy telepathic dog
| society was much less interesting, basically a political
| fable with some children thrown in; it seemed like a
| different novel altogether, and in fact the plots don't
| really ever intersect except when the adults finally land. It
| felt like two very different books cobbled together from two
| different authors. The dog half reminded me of Terry
| Pratchett for some reason, another author whose schtick
| involves making the story go faster and increasingly more
| breathless towards the end, like some Hollywood action movie,
| often involving a bunch of running or flying.
|
| I liked Deepness even less, because once again you have
| fantasy politics, and while I understood the conceit, the
| storytelling just didn't work for me. Like before, the
| science-fiction stuff was fantastic and full of great ideas,
| but the other half was the exact opposite.
| le-mark wrote:
| Just a note that the dogs/Tines aren't telepathic but
| communicated via high frequency sound. The idea was
| exploring an entity that existed as a society of minds and
| how that would look from a practical perspective. There's a
| story in the compilation discussed here that feature the
| Tines in another setting one may find interesting.
| atombender wrote:
| Ah, it's been a while. It doesn't change anything,
| though. They might as well have been telepathic, since it
| appeared they formed a sort of hive mind when close to
| each other.
| natechols wrote:
| I had to read the book a couple of times before I
| completely understood this, but I'm pretty sure there's
| an implicit metaphor that ties the two plots together,
| and it's about the feedback between technological
| progress and intelligence, and how physical constraints
| (or accidents of evolution) limit progress. The society
| of the Tines is constrained by their peculiar path to
| sentience - they can't split up pack members and they
| can't co-mingle packs without losing coherence. From
| their perspective, early 20th century electronics are the
| equivalent of neural prosthetics, and might as well be
| gifts from the Transcend.
| dimal wrote:
| > author thinks some minor medieval squabbles are equally
| important as the galactic space part, giving it same page
| count.
|
| Since the showdown with the blight is in the medieval dogs'
| turf, the effects of that minor squabble could determine the
| fate of the galaxy!
| flir wrote:
| > medieval squabbles are equally important
|
| "As above, so below".
|
| I could have done with more space archaeology, and less human
| children. Apart from that I felt it was pretty great.
| sideshowb wrote:
| > minor medieval squabbles
|
| Are you perchance channelling that space-Usenet poster who
| was utterly dismissive of the main plot until the very end?
| ;-)
|
| Parent comment should be marked SPOILERS, this one also.
|
| Srsly tho, I appreciate your perspective. I found the dog
| part a little slow at times but still super interesting due
| to their collective identity which was explored quite a lot.
| As such it wasn't just a medieval squabble, it was entirely
| in keeping with the nature-of-consciousness theme that
| permeated the space part of the story.
| jrgoff wrote:
| I've seen others who felt similarly about the enjoyability of
| the space part vs the dog part. But for some reason I felt
| the opposite, the space part was alright but I didn't really
| connect with any of the characters or plot there much. But I
| loved the part on the dog planet, for me that world felt like
| he started with a question of "What might it look like if a
| pack animal achieved human-like level of intelligence?" and
| explored from there, and what he came up with made a lot of
| sense to me and was really interesting to think about.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I think the dog part really suffered from a quite common
| syndrome, that the sci-fi author gets some really cool
| idea/concept, and has to explore it in some context /
| story, but doesn't really deliver on it. For me the
| idea/concept was great, the story just boring filler needed
| to explore the idea.
| flatline wrote:
| _Deepness_ and _Marooned in Realtime_ are his favorites of
| mine. Both sequels to less impressive novels imo. I like his
| writing in general but those two were really brilliant.
| le-mark wrote:
| Marooned in Realtime is probably my all time favorite work of
| science fiction. It altered my perspective on a lot of
| things.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I love a good murder mystery. And the libertarian/anarchist
| setting is really fun.
| natechols wrote:
| If you haven't already read "The Ungoverned" I recommend
| it as well - although much shorter it's effectively the
| second part in a trilogy, bridging the two novels and
| featuring the same main character as "Marooned in
| Realtime".
| duskwuff wrote:
| > I haven't touched just out of the fear that I wouldn't love
| it as much as ADITS... Should I?
|
| Don't. It's nowhere near as good as either of the previous
| books, and the ending leaves some important plot points
| unresolved.
| hinkley wrote:
| I just read it a couple of years ago, missed the memo that
| there was a third book. It feels like book 3/4 but he has not
| finished the story and I worry if he ever will.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > It feels like book 3/4 but he has not finished the story
|
| Worse: _Children_ felt like the author stalling for time on
| the greater plot. Chekov 's gun isn't just left unfired;
| the author takes it down, polishes it a bit, and puts it
| back on the mantle without firing a shot.
|
| Assuming that it's still canon, _The Blabber_ tells us how
| it ends, but there 's some very interesting stuff in
| between we're still waiting for.
| steve1977 wrote:
| AFAIK he's not of very good health unfortunately and won't
| be writing any further books.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I want to make the Localizer thing happen, but at a more
| practical (macro) scale. Experimenting with Semtech chips with
| LoRa/ranging.
| Vecr wrote:
| DARPA wanted to work on it as well (look up "Total Domain
| Awareness"), but I think the power vs jam resistance (even
| against non-intentional emissions, such as a broken
| computer/microwave or a malfunctioning localizer) tradeoff is
| just not tractable at this point.
| nacho-daddy wrote:
| Is this a successful attempt to game the hackernews algos? The
| referenced WP page is obviously written by gtp-3, and the
| comments sound like a troupe of sock puppets in chorus. Yet here
| we are on the front page. Good job!
| hvcc65 wrote:
| Have to say Rainbows End is one of my favorites. It's got
| everything AR, VR, AI, Social media/belief circles, mass behavior
| manipulation, reverse aglng etc etc. I felt like I was looking
| into the near future.
| swayvil wrote:
| The Cookie Monster
|
| It's got the right stuff.
|
| His other stuff. A lot of it is pretty good. There's that trilogy
| with the layers of space. I guess I need to look at it again. But
| the group mind dogs. Interesting but not amazing. And then we
| have your usual good-bad conflict, which is boring. So anyway.
|
| But ya. Cookie Monster. That shivers my things good.
| bigdict wrote:
| Cookie Monster was my gateway to Vinge, highly recommend.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| The fact that the malevolent AI could escape by buffer-
| overflowing a sensor, but didn't realize that only ram-drive
| ships were being targeted was insulting plot-wise.
| jefftk wrote:
| Note the zones, though: the AI was far smarter in the
| environment where it did the former.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Personally I liked spiders more than dogs. There's more dogs
| though, and the dogs are enjoyable enough. I need to finish that
| series. And re-read spiders. All in all both spiders and dogs sit
| near the top of my personal scifi lists. They're uncomfortable
| because they're twisting your brain. Just like a good yoga
| session also can feel awkward or a stretch:)
| gpderetta wrote:
| I also liked the spiders way more than the dogs. During the
| dogs scenes I just wanted to skip ahead and find out what was
| happening in the rest of the galaxy.
|
| The spider were just great though!
| KingEllis wrote:
| Can someone explain this? One three occasions in the essay,
| including the title. he adds a cryptic "2001 Tor". What does that
| mean? It does not exist in the many other mentions of the same
| book title. Also, Amazon believes the publication year is 2002.
| What is "2001 Tor"?
| dgeiser13 wrote:
| 2001 is a year. Tor is a publisher.
| allturtles wrote:
| Per [0], the book was published by Tor in 2001.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collected_Stories_of_Verno...
| steve1977 wrote:
| His books certainly belong those where "I would love to see this
| as a movie but I know I would hate the movie and be
| disappointed".
|
| Some stories probably can only be told properly in written words,
| and that's ok.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| You never know. I thought this about my favorite short story
| Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. I didn't think it was
| possible to turn it into a movie at all and yet Denis
| Villeneuve did an amazing job with Arrival which is based on
| the story.
| cubefox wrote:
| Vinge was one who very early recognized that the invention of
| artificial intelligence didn't just imply androids (as Asimov or
| Roddenberry imagined them) on roughly the level of humans, but
| rather the existence of a vastly superhuman species that would
| change the future completely.
|
| In 1983 he wrote in the SF magazine Omni:
|
| "We will soon create intelligences greater than our own. When
| this happens, human history will have reached a kind of
| singularity, an intellectual transition as impenetrable as the
| knotted space-time at the center of a black hole, and the world
| will pass far beyond our understanding. This singularity, I
| believe, already haunts a number of science-fiction writers. It
| makes realistic extrapolation to an interstellar future
| impossible. To write a story set more than a century hence, one
| needs a nuclear war in between... so that the world remains
| intelligible."
|
| Ten years later, in is his famous essay "The Coming Technological
| Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era" he went into
| more detail and predicted the singularity to occur between 2005
| and 2030:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180410074243/http://mindstalk....
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-11-26 23:01 UTC)