In A Fire Upon the Deep, Vinge perfectly pegged the conversational
trends of the Usenet. Fifteen years later, he’s hit instant messaging
culture right on the head. Along the way, he presents a tour of a
world in the elbow of the singularity, and a coming-of-age story for a
man who almost ran out of time.
I’d like to avoid spoilers, which prevents my discussing more than a
cursory outline of the plot: too much is involved with who’s
pretending to be whom. It does become clear that Vinge is a major
Pratchett fan, and has read at least a little of Dewey.
Far less is resolved than in Fire: the end is very ambiguous.
There, and at more than a few points along the way, this reminds me of
Charles Stross in Accelerando: similar presentation of a world where
generation gaps emphasize the repeated occurrence of the singularity.
I suspect that’s an artifact of my ordering, and that Stross should
have been reminding me of Vinge for some time.
Books read this year: 23
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