Monday, January 19, 2009

Across Realtime - Vernor Vinge.

Ah, it’s Mr Singularity himself with tales of pre then post singularity worlds ‘bobbles’ can isolate and freeze in time their contents. It’s dated a bit now what with these two written in 1984 and 1986 and a world war in 1997 but enjoyable none-the-less. There’s also something very believable about the abilities of the future humans and, frankly, all the characters are engaging and you regret knowing no more about them when the story ends.


Note, don’t make the mistake of buying this if you already have either Peace War or Marooned in Realtime because those are the two tales here. I’d also recommend, if you haven’t read them yet A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.

13 comments:

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

hey bobblehead, there are paisleys on the side of this war plane.

Marooned in Realtime was a hyper mystery version of the preceding book. what a great ride.

Martin Sommerfeld said...

This Realtime-Omnibus is indeed a good investment.

And A Fire Upon the Deep is one of my favorite science fiction books. Ever. Interesting from the first to the last page, in no way dated, cool characters (Pham Nuwen went straight into the Pantheon of the most memorable science fiction characters, sitting right next to Gully Foyle) and interesting aliens, full of wonderful ideas. I enjoyed it so much that when I was finished I looked around for more books that feature far-evolved AI and what that means for humanity. Someone recommended some stuff by Stross and of course... Gridlinked. So, 11 books later, that's how my Asher-Love-Story began. ;-)

Coming back to Vinge: Look also for his "Collected Stories", there is some fantastic stuff in it. Such a pity that Vinge is kind of a slow writer, with something new only every couple of years. :-(

Jim Shannon said...

I have both these books A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. I hear they're quite good.

Neal Asher said...

I intend to order some more Vinge books, just as soon as I get around to checking which ones I have up in my loft.

Martin Sommerfeld said...

Well, Rainbows End is worth reading, but a bit overrated with it's Hugo, imho.

Anonymous said...

If anybody hasn't read it yet, his new(ish) novel, Rainbows End, really is very good.

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

for some reason i have a feeling that Rainbow's End will be perfect description of the near future.

i really don't like his aliens, theyre too warm and fuzzy. comprehensible and human-like. if they ate their young more i could forgive "A Deepness in the Sky" as the best book ever, but i cant. daily struggle for a year then the decision that i couldn't bring myself to give it the gold star sticker. it gets a silver with a check mark next to it.

Jim Shannon said...

Kind of off topic but Eric Brown's "Helix" is a tough act to follow, it was So good. I'm reading William C Dietz's "Runner" right now and "Helix" is still in my mind grrrr.

Don't you guys hate books that do that?

Martin Sommerfeld said...

Well the dogs in Fire were alien enough for me, but you are right about the spiders in Deepness. I am quite sure he deliberately modelled this whole spider-society very similar to earth 1950-2000 to make the Emergents and Focused look even more alien to the reader. In this he succeeds, but I agree that there are flaws in the way he does it, it's a bit too superficial to be fully believable.

That's why I prefer Fire (10/10), but still loved Deepness (9/10). I hope he really writes a sequel this time, no matter to which of the two.

Martin Sommerfeld said...

I forgot... A short-story in the same setting as Rainbows end is available for free here: Synthetic Serendipity

With the ieee publishing it one can see that Vaude has a point about the "perfect description of the near future".

Anonymous said...

I hope Neal doesn't mind be carryin on the off-topic thread, but I've been baffled for a very long time why Eric Brown isn't a much bigger name than he is; he's a fantastic writer.

Alex Cull said...

I thought A Fire Upon the Deep absolutely brilliant, A Deepness in the Sky good but needed some revision and editing, moved too slowly for me. Haven't read Rainbow's End yet, but it's on my TBR list. Re Eric Brown, I agree with hutch0 - thoroughly enjoyed the Virex novels, and intend to read more of him.

Unknown said...

I'd be amazed if there isn't a Deepness sequel. Sherkaner knows too much.