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Vernor Vinge has died

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Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#41

Post by homefree »

emmelaich wrote: post #27
jl6 wrote: post #8

Oh man, this makes me sad. I remember reading A Fire Upon the Deep based on a Usenet recommendation, and then immediately wanting to read everything else he wrote. A Deepness in the Sky is a worthy sequel. He wasn’t prolific, but what he wrote was gold. He had a Tolkienesque ability to build world depth not by lengthy exposition, but by expert omission . A true name in sci-fi.

'true name'? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Names THE cyberpunk book. Also, his later books are great but the "Across Realtime" trilogy has a special place in my heart. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/167844

I’m pretty sure Yudkowsky read true names and it’s what caused him to focus his life on the alignment problem.

That novella is basically an illustrated warning of misaligned super intelligence (it’s also really good!)

Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#44

Post by adrianhon »

A lot of love here for A Fire Upon the Deep (predicted fake news via "the net of a thousand lies") and A Deepness in the Sky (great depiction of cognitive enhancement, slower-than-light interstellar trade), but less so for Rainbows End, which is perhaps a less successful story but remains, after almost two decades, the best description of what augmented reality games and ARGs might do to the world.

Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#45

Post by denton-scratch »

I found a text/plain copy of A Fire Upon The Deep, and read it in a single sitting. I later found a paperback edition in a second-hand bookshop, and bought it. I've since re-read it at least twice.

I'm sorry he's died.

Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#47

Post by bsenftner »

boffinAudio wrote: post #30

I once worked with a guy who was a close personal friend of Vernor, and I remember with much joy the enormous collection of science fiction he (the friend) had at his place .. literally every wall was covered in paperback shelves, and to my eyes it was a wonderland. I casually browsed every shelf, enamoured with the collection of scifi .. until I got to what I can only describe as a Golden Book Shrine Ensconced in Ha…

Science Fiction - the literature - is so different from all other media forms of SciFi there needs to be a formal separate of Science Fiction Literature from SciFi films, live action and animated series, games, and comic books. These other forms, SciFi, are the cartoon abbreviated to something else that is fun, adventure but is not Science Fiction (Literature) and the existential examination of how Science Changes Reality.

Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#48

Post by ois_ultra »

Considering his novel Rainbows End is about a very sick author in his 70s getting brought back to the world by modern technological breakthroughs in the mid 2020s, I feel like we’ve let him down in some way. Maybe he knew he was already sick, even back then, maybe not. Your meticulous and inspiring level of detail will be missed.

Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#49

Post by unnamed76ri »

pontifier wrote: post #26

Oh man, I sincerely hope he was signed up for cryonics. If there was someone who deserved to see what the future holds, it was him.

From what I’ve read, cryonics seems like a massive scam pulled on rich people. The tissue damage in these frozen corpses is extensive and irreparable.

Re: Vernor Vinge has died

#50

Post by nabla9 »

reducesuffering wrote: post #16

It is astonishing how many of the great sci-fi writers are/were around California: Vernor, PK Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Huxley, Frank Herbert, Bradbury, Heinlein, Niven, etc. Per-capita has to be several orders of magnitude higher.

Scotland's per capita big name sci-fi writer contribution must be 1 or 2 orders of magnitude higher still.
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