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The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

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Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#31

Post by vkou »

thriftwy wrote: post #28
vkou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#32

Post by sideshowb »

saiya-jin wrote: post #14
codeslasher wrote: post #8

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…

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…

> 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.

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#33

Post by jrgoff »

saiya-jin wrote: post #14
codeslasher wrote: post #8

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…

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…

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.

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#34

Post by sideshowb »

vkou wrote: post #18
saiya-jin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#35

Post by grogenaut »

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:)

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#36

Post by gpderetta »

grogenaut wrote: post #35

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:)

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!

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#37

Post by gpderetta »

vkou wrote: post #18
saiya-jin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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).

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#38

Post by le-mark »

flatline wrote: post #15
codeslasher wrote: post #8

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…

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.

Marooned in Realtime is probably my all time favorite work of science fiction. It altered my perspective on a lot of things.

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#39

Post by le-mark »

atombender wrote: post #24
saiya-jin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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, whil…

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.

Re: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

#40

Post by The_Colonel »

jrgoff wrote: post #33
saiya-jin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?"…

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.
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