Vernor Vinge 1944-2024

Notices around the web for Vernor Vinge. David Brin has a memorial on his website.

Damn. Time to reread A Fire Upon The Deep.

>2 lorax: You have to reread A Deepness in the Sky if you reread Fire! I had reread "True Names" a couple months ago.

He was so clear-sighted in many ways. From an article I wrote about artificial intelligence back in 2006:

In 1993, Vernor Vinge, at the time a professor of math at San Diego State University (SDSU) and now Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at SDSU, gave a talk at the Vision-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute. It was called “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” and Vinge suggested that progress in computer science and technology was rapidly driving us to the verge of one of two things, artificial intelligence (AI) where machines achieve the power of independent thought beyond that for which they have been programmed *or* alternatively, intelligence amplified (IA) where the capabilities of humans and machines have melded so intimately that human productivity and creativity are “amplified”. https://edoras.sdsu.edu/~vinge/misc/singularity.html Once we’ve reached that point (his so-called Technological Singularity), Vinge suggests, human capabilities will be such that we will achieve ends not yet imaginable – no slight admission from a writer who won the 1991 Hugo Award for his science fiction novel, A Fire Upon The Deep. He’s not a blithe optimist. Vinge recognizes that the Singularity could trigger some unfortunate consequences and he suggests the need for thought, particularly since he specifies a time frame for the occurrence of the Technological Singularity as some point between 2005 and 2030. Even now, when invited to predict the future for his scientific colleagues in a 2006 issue of Nature, Vinge writes, “In the end, computers plus networks plus people add up to something significantly greater than the parts. The ensemble eventually grows beyond human creativity. To become what? We can't know until we get there.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/440411a .

Note both of those URLs take you to non-firewalled full text.

I remember a colleague (who'd read the article I'm quoting from above) texting me in excitement when she heard him speak at an ALA Midwinter Meeting back in 2011.

>4 jillmwo: We are approaching the end of that 2005-2030 window. I don't doubt that intelligence greater than human is possible (have you seen the news recently? Or ever?) but think it'll be a harder problem, needed more decades to solve.

I just read A Deepness in the Sky a short while ago, and I already had Children of the Sky on my list to read this year.

Wrt "the Singularity," I think we've already reached what artist Paul Laffoley called the Bauharoque, where our technology has changed human perceptions of space and time in ways that would have been unimaginable to people just a generation or two earlier.

Vinge is one of the few authors I've met in person and one of only a few scifi authors to appear at the Library of Congress National Book Festival. Back then it was held outdoors on the Mall, he sat out in the sun and signed hundreds of books.

dukedom_enough (#3):

I'm a firm believer in publication order, even for rereads. And frankly I'm not sure how the "weaponized hyperfocus drug" in Deepness will hit as the parent of a kid with ADHD.

>8 lorax:

Having read it recently, I think "drug" sells that "focus" technology short.

New member but what a way to say hello by getting a chance to make some comments about how great Vinge was as an author. He really was the big deal with these magical realms inhabited by alien species that don't quite fit the normal Perspective. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in his works and will revisit them again over the tears. I think I prefer The Deepness in the Sky just a little bit more than The Fire in the Deep. I find the "aliens" possessing a greater sense of humanity than the people they have to deal with but the same can be said with Tchaikovsky's treatment of the same "aliens" in his amazing book. RIP VV

I am currently about 70% through Children of the Sky. It was deeper down in the TBR pile, but got pulled to the top by Vinge's death, alas. I'm really enjoying it, of course. I just found out that a traditional Tine clown costume includes what our Earthly pet owners call a "cone of shame."

>11 paradoxosalpha: The inter-Tine politics was my least favorite part of Fire, though it's my impression it's very popular with most readers. Is Children of the Sky all Tines politics, or is there something about the galaxy outside of the Tines' World?

>12 dukedom_enough:

So far, Children of the Sky is all on Tines World, focused within the community of human survivors, but extensively involving Tines politics. The larger galactic scenario of the Blight is still present as a driving motivation.

I just now remembered that I do not have a copy of Children of the Sky. A problem that must be fixed.

>13 paradoxosalpha: Thanks

I finished The Children of the Sky and posted my review. Generally, I concur with other reviewers that this one fell a little short of the other books in the series.

>16 paradoxosalpha: Good review. Convinced me not to read it for the time being. The reveal you hide behind spoiler tags was, IIRC, already in Fire Upon. Just once, during the battle of the Aniara Fleet, I recall.

>17 dukedom_enough: The reveal you hide behind spoiler tags was, IIRC, already ...

Likely enough. But Vinge constructs a whole page or two around it in Children, where it has received no prior mention in that book.

>18 paradoxosalpha: Maybe too many readers missed it in the first book.

I recently read his Across Realtime stories. I really enjoyed The Peace War, but didn't enjoy the follow-up Marooned in Realtime nearly as much. The plot of the second one didn't seem nearly as tight and actually became a little hard to follow.

Is it just me? Curious to see what others think.

>20 blakelylaw: I had a similar reaction to both books, but I haven't read them for some time and there was a time when I read on a daily commute and so went in 15-minute snatches. Quite a few books I read at that time didn't gel with me but did so on a re-read. I read A Fire upon the Deep when it came out and could see why it was acclaimed. I have A Deepness in the Sky still in the TBR pile; and I read Rainbows End a while back and found a lot good with it.

>21 RobertDay: Those sound intriguing. They've been added to my Wish & TBR lists.