Product Description

Vernor Vinge is the only writer in science fiction history to win the Hugo Award for three consecutive novels and five Hugo Awards in total. He has also won a Hugo for the novella, Fast Times at Fairmount High , which is included in this edition in its first British publication. Vernor Vinge s career stretches back to the pulp magazines of the 1960 s and he introduces each story with an account of how it came to be written, a fascinating personal insight into the most celebrated career in contemporary science fiction. Consistently through a career of 40 years are the bold and challenging ideas, re-imagining how technology can enhance and endanger humanity, brought to life with compelling storytelling. Vinge was the first writer to imagine the concept of cyberspace and his themes of artificial intelligence and technological singularity (where technology develops to the extent that we cannot even speculate about its consequences) are even more important today than ever. Vinge s central question in Fast Times at Fairmount High asks: what happens when there is a human-computer interface that can be considered superhuman intelligence, will it mark the end of the human era? Vernor Vinge is truly the science fiction writer s science fiction writer. Few other writers have the capacity to understand how big the universe is, how complex its politics could be and still depict how the future will be.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151170 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 464 pages

Review
Anticipates our future like nobody else. --Gregory Benford

Vinge is one of the visionary writers of SF today. --David Brin

'SFX'
"A major SF author...you can see Vinge maturing from clever competence and slick storytelling to something rather special."

'Starburst'
"A near complete collection of Vinge's short fiction."

Customer Reviews

A must read for Vinge fans
After reading this collection one thing becomes completely obvious: the themes Vinge writes about in his later works - the technological singularity (A Fire upon the Deep), or the lack of it and the inevitable technological collapse (A Deepness in the sky), intelligence amplification and mind-machine interface (Fast time at fairmont high) - these are not new concepts for Vinge. He has been writing about them for nearly 40 years.

It is amazing how even his oldest stories has aged so little and is still very effective as near-future SF. Vinge seems to have a knack for prediction - Read "The accomplice" to see how he nailed dowwn computer generated movies decades before they became a reality.

Some stories have aged, though - the shadow of an all out nuclear war is evident in some. But still, for Vinge fans this is a book you just can't skip.