Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

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Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge

by: Vernor Vinge

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A career-spanning collection of science fiction from one of the field's most highly regarded writers, The Collected Stories contains all of Vinge's published short fiction with the exception of two stories--almost 40 years of work including his first professional sale and his most recent novella (published here for the first time). It's a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable review of his career, made richer by the addition of forewords and afterwords to the individual stories in which he discusses everything from the ideas that drove the story to insights on his own writing process. Vinge's writing is characterized by a clear love of science and an empathy for human needs and feelings. He's intensely curious about what happens when people and science collide. His stories explore the legacies of racism and xenophobia, the pros and cons of anarchy, alien contact, and the sometimes even more difficult contact between humans. He's a master of big ideas, epic settings, and stories well told. --Roz Genessee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly
Though probably best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels (A Fire Upon the Deep; A Deepness in the Sky), Vinge, a mathematician and computer scientist, began his writing career with short stories, most of which are gathered in this not quite definitive collection (where are cyberpunk precursor "True Names" and "Grimm's Story"?), along with one new entry, the pop culture-weighted "Fast Times at Fairmont High." Vinge's stories are prime hard SF and also rich with ideas, if often weak on character. Some are also quite dated now, such as the Cold War setting of "Bookworm, Run!" where the future rests on an escaped experimental subject, the first "person" enhanced by direct computer link. "The Accomplice" predicts computer animation the hard way, while "The Whirligig of Time" anticipates space-based missile defenses like SDI. Vinge frames many stories, such as "The Ungoverned" and "Conquest by Defeat," which consider future anarchies, with the idea of a technological singularity the belief that we can't accurately predict what life will be like after the creation of "intelligences greater than our own." Too short to be a story, "Win a Nobel Prize" is a humorous deal with the devil with a biotech twist. "The Barbarian Princess," with its sly pokes at some of the oldest tropes of speculative fiction writing (and editing!), maintains all the color and charm of its original publication. Vinge's comments surrounding each story provide entertaining counterpoint. This collection is a bonanza for hard SF fans, particularly those who prize challenging extrapolation.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal
In "Fast Times at Fairmont High," original to this volume, hard sf veteran Vinge (A Deepness in the Sky) takes a look at the high school of the future at exam time. That story is accompanied by 16 others that span the years 1966-2000, including classics such as "The Ungoverned" and "The Blabber," as well as tales published only in periodicals. Vinge demonstrates his keen grasp of a wide variety of styles and subjects in a collection that belongs in most sf collections.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Booklist
*Starred Review* Brilliant what-if plots and on-the-mark technological imaginings distinguish Vinge's stories, old and new. In "Fast Times at Fairmont High," one of the newest, two eighth-graders struggle to pass an exam for which using outside information sources--the Net, satellite links, or . . . ready-to-wear surveillance systems (!)--is verboten. Flying FedEx packages and a woman running a 411 service from her kitchen are two of the speculative delights in this gem. Whereas others' '60s and '70s stuff is dated, Vinge's stories are written so clearly and matter-of-factly that they seem timeless. And the science in them! Vinge handles biotech links between flesh and machine and sentient interstellar probes with equal aplomb, never losing sight of his characters' desires and fears. Several stories examine the possible postholocaust societies. In "Apartness," humanity hangs on, after a nearly totally fatal nuclear war, in the Southern Hemisphere, slowly recovering forgotten technology. In the highly entertaining "The Ungoverned," private "security" organizations, such as Big Al's Protection Racket, provide the limited policing available to the well-armed residents of Midwest America when they face sudden invasion by the Republic of New Mexico. Whether amusing, chilling, or poignant, each of Vinge's stories is a winner. Roberta Johnson Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved Review
"A masterful novel, complex in style and plot, heavy with science and social speculation . . . . Vinge is truly an original writer." --NOVA Express on A Deepness in the Sky "Thoughtful space opera at its best, this book delivers everything it promises in terms of galactic scope, audacious concepts, and believable characters both human and nonhuman."
--The New York Times Book Review on Fire Upon the Deep "True science fiction and a delight." --Publishers Weekly on True Names "No summary can do justice to the depth and conviction of Vinge's ideas."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on A Fire Upon the Deep Review
"A masterful novel, complex in style and plot, heavy with science and social speculation . . . . Vinge is truly an original writer." --NOVA Express on A Deepness in the Sky "Thoughtful space opera at its best, this book delivers everything it promises in terms of galactic scope, audacious concepts, and believable characters both human and nonhuman."
--The New York Times Book Review on Fire Upon the Deep "True science fiction and a delight." --Publishers Weekly on True Names "No summary can do justice to the depth and conviction of Vinge's ideas."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on A Fire Upon the Deep About the Author
Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin and raised in Central Michigan, science fiction writer Vernor Vinge is the son of geographers. Fascinated by science and particularly computers from an early age, he has a Ph.D. in computer science, and taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University for thirty years. He has won Hugo Awards for his novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and A Deepness in the Sky (1999), and for the novella "Fast Times at Fairmont High" (2001). Known for his rigorous hard-science approach to his SF, he became an iconic figure among cybernetic scientists with the publication in 1981 of his novella "True Names," which is considered a seminal, visionary work of Internet fiction. He has also gained a great deal of attention both here and abroad for his theory of the coming machine intelligence Singularity. Sought widely as a speaker to both business and scientific groups, he lives in San Diego, California.

Reviews:

Enlightening anthology, though with its ups and downs:
Vernor Vinge is perhaps the premier craftsman of stories which turn on novel changes in the nature of reality. He's a master of plumbing the depths of an idea and crafting a fully-realized world around one or several fantastic notions. Collected Stories has plenty to reward the Vinge fan: Insightful annotations by the author suggesting his thoughts on writing each story, or expanding on his notion of the Singularity which our technological progress is pushing us towards, and how that idea has shaped his excellent novels. Several stories ("The Ungoverned", "The Blabber", "The Barbarian Princess") which occur in the worlds of his novels. Even a new novella, "Fast Times at Fairmont High", printed here for the first time, conjecturing a near-future junior high school where all the students are wired into the net and teachers must pose new and unusual tests for them to complete. Despite this, the collection is nonetheless uneven. A couple of stories take a hardly-believeable turn into libertarianism or anarchic capitalism, failing to persuade me that their societies wouldn't destroy themselves in mere days. And a couple are based on disappointingly simple ideas, such as what sort of people might someday be forced to colonize Antarctica, or the impact that certain detritus in space might have. Even "Fast Times" I found disappointing as it seemed reluctant to resolve certain details of its plot, and it seemed also to undercut its own message of the importance of basic skills over specific knowledge. The best stories in this collection combine Vinge's knack for ideasmanship with his best storytelling. "Original Sin" has humanity confronting an up-and-coming race which has all of our talents and advantages in spades, and plopping its heroes at ground zero among these people; it's a pretty terrifying story. And "The Blabber" explores some elements from his novel A Fire Upon the Deep in a somewhat different setting, with some implications that make you wish he'd return to continue the story someday. Reading this collection suggests that Vinge perhaps works best in a long format, as nothing here equals his best novels, Fire and Marooned in Realtime. But there's entertaining stuff here, and if you've enjoyed his novels then you'll probably find this worth a shot.

Fantastic compilation of one of the greatest of SF authors
_The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge_ is a wonderful compilation of most of Vinge's short stories and novellas (there are only two omissions, _True Names_ and _Grimm's Story_, the latter of which became the core of one of his novels, _Tatja Grimm's World_). The short stories range in dates from the very first stories he ever had published, such as _Bookworm, Run!_, copyright 1966 and written while Vinge was a senior in high school, to one written just for this collection, _Fast Times at Fairmont High_, copyright 2001. They range in length from the 900 word story _Win a Nobel Prize!_ to the novella length _Blabber_, though most range somewhere in between. All told there are seventeen stories in this collection, two of which were collaborations (_The Peddler's Apprentice_ was written with Joan D. Vinge and _Just Peace_ was a joint effort with William Rupp). I really enjoyed the collection, there weren't any stories that I disliked and some were extremely good. His earlier stories, notably _Bookworm, Run!_, were a bit rougher, not as well done as later stories (which is understandable) but even those I liked. There were several themes explored in his stories, many of them noted by Vinge himself as a foreword and in several cases an after word accompanied each story, where Vinge discussed where he was in his writing career at that time, inspirations for the story, earlier versions of the story, how well he felt that tale has held up to the test of time, and whether or nor he planned (or plans) to further develop the characters or the setting. He revealed for instance in his commentary on _The Blabber_ that that story was both the sequel to the novels _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and _A Deepness in the Sky_ and at the same time a prequel, as he wrote _The Blabber_ first. Several of the stories were a bit dated, dealing with computer technology that has since become obsolete or with Cold War situations (or with post-World War III scenarios, which one can debate whether or not these settings are obsolete), though they were nonetheless well done fiction. One of the themes explored by Vinge was the concept of the Technological Singularity or simply the Singularity, a problem he ran into as far back as his story _Bookworm, Run!_. Vinge felt that eventually thanks to biological evolution and to advances in technology future humanity will surpass current humans in terms of intellectual ability. Such superbeings would be nearly impossible to write about, that at that point human history will have reached a point that is impossible for modern humans to imagine, a "place where extrapolation" breaks down, a world that will be beyond our understanding. Such superbeings should be kept off stage, hinted at, perhaps only dealt with when they are children or otherwise weakened if at all. His coming to terms with the Singularity was behind the development of the various galactic zones of mental abilities and technologies (the Zones of Thought) in his critically acclaimed _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and _A Deepness in the Sky_ and in this volume _The Blabber_, behind the concept of the Slow Zone, a region of the galaxy where faster than light travel for instance was not possible and where superhuman intelligences could not function at greater than human levels, a region where one could set far future stories, have superhuman intelligences hinted at, but avoid going into realms that were "overtly science-fictional" or even fantasy. Another concept that Vinge explored was the idea of anarchy, as both a model of future human society and as one that alien beings might follow. _Conquest by Default_ examined how an anarchical system might exist within an alien society (and what would happen when this technologically and numerically superior civilization arrived on Earth) while _The Ungoverned_ (a short story set between two other novels of his, _The Peace War_ and _Marooned in Realtime_, all of which can be found together by the way in the book _Across Realtime_) looked at how such a (largely peaceful) system might arise in a post World War III America. In both stories Vinge explored what set of assumptions exist for why the participants cooperate at all in such a system as well as what exists to prevent the formation of power groups that would be large enough to in effect constitute a government. While I don't agree with anarchy in any form, both stories were entertaining, with the aliens in _Conquest by Default_ quite alien indeed. Several stories obviously dealt with aliens, from the anarchic Mikin in _Conquest by Default_ to the charming, funny, titular creature in _The Blabber_ to the frightening super race known as the Shimans in _Original Sin_. Vinge in my mind has always done an excellent job in constructing believable, interesting, and original alien species and civilizations. In closing this was an enjoyable collection, one that provided a lot of insight into Vinge's creative process and thoughts behind his stories, providing more details on some of his novels, and was useful I think to budding writers, illustrating things to do and not do in writing fiction (and selling it too). Hard to pick a favorite story, but I loved _The Blabber_ a lot, greatly enjoyed _Gemstone_ (a very atmospheric tale, to say anything about it would spoil it), and I also liked _Conquest by Default_ and _Original Sin_ a great deal as well. _Fast Times At Fairmont High_ I feel will likely prove very prophetic on many levels and enjoyed that one for that reason as well as it being good fiction.

I had read Vinge's Zones of Thought novels "A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky" before getting this. These two novels were vast, intricately plotted stories. Vinge does well to flesh out the characters and ideas in the relatively short stories of this book. It surprised me to learn he has been writing short fiction since his teens. One of the fascinating parts of reading this collection is seeing his writing style develop, although it was never too shabby in the first place. These stories were written over the last 30+ years, and his style varies from the classic Asimov-like tone of 60's sci-fi to one with more than a nod towards fast-talking cyberpunk. I found them all enjoyable in their own way - his speculative treatment of computer animation from the 60's is quaint, while "Fast Times" ended a bit abruptly just as it was getting interesting (it's being turned into a novel). The writing is never boring, and more often than not inspired - one of the better books I've read of late.

A writer's evolution
My introduction to Vernor Vinge was "A Fire Upon the Deep," the novel that finally won him the long awaited Hugo award. With that and "A Deepness in the Sky" as an introduction, I was a little surprised to discover that Vernor Vinge was also once a beginning writer, just like the rest of us. This collection of short stories is interesting both for the stories themselves and for the way they chart a truly excellent writer's evolution. The first few stories are amateurish and awkward. Very soon, they improve in both content and style. I ended up buying several of the books that grew out of the short stories included in this collection, and they were even better than the stories that inspired them. I really enjoyed this collection of stories. Mostly, I was just pleased to realize that even someone who is as mind-blowingly intelligent and skilled as Vinge did not spring full-formed from his father's forehead, but developed incrementally into the writer he is today. I especially recommend this book to aspiring writers as inspiration.

t's no secret that Vernor Vinge is an accomplished novelist (Need proof? He's won Hugo Awards for each of his last two novels). But how is he at short fiction? This is the question I was asking myself when I picked up this volume. I've read and greatly enjoyed all of his novels (save the fix-up effort 'Tatja Grimm's World), but haven't read (or even heard) of any of his shorter works. I was by and large satisfied with this collection of short fiction. While there are no excellent stories here, neither are there any bottom-dwellers. Many of the stories take place in the settings of Vinge's novels. 'The Ungoverned' takes place after the events in his 'Peace War' series. 'The Blabber' fits into his Deepness duology. 'The Barbarian Princess' is part of the Grimm's World book. But the stories that don't fit into Vinge's novels share many of the same ideas and themes. Many, if not all, of the stories posit a Technological Singularity, an occurence that is featured prominently in nearly all of Vinge's work. My favorite story is 'Original Sin' a fascinating and evocative depiction of an alien society. The sole story original to the collecton, novella 'Fast Times at Fairmont High' is an enjoyable depiction of a future junior high school. None of the stories in the collection have the depth or Importance of Vinge's award-winning novels, but nearly every story is compulsively readable and entertaining. This is a fine addition to the Vinge completist's book shelf.