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True Names
Disaffected computer wizard "Mr. Slippery" (True Name Roger Pollack) is an early adopter of a new full-immersion virtual reality technology called the Other Plane. He and the other wizards form a cabal to keep their true identities — their True Names — secret to avoid prosecution by their "Great Adversary" — the government of the United States.
The lines that define us are not always black and white, though. There's a new wizard in the Other Plan and they're recruiting for a scheme to translate cyberspace domination into real world power.
The lines that define us are not always black and white, though. There's a new wizard in the Other Plan and they're recruiting for a scheme to translate cyberspace domination into real world power.
153 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1981
About the author
Vernor Vinge
48 books2,456 followersVernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels
A Fire Upon The Deep
(1992),
A Deepness in the Sky
(1999) and
Rainbows End
(2006), his Hugo Award-winning novellas
Fast Times at Fairmont High
(2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/vernor...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/vernor...
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February 7, 2017
Roman True Names se smatra začetnikom cyberpunk žanra. Vinge je ovaj roman napisao 1981., tri godine prije kultnog Neuromancera Williama Gibsona i dvije godine prije kratke priče Cyberpunk Bruca Bethkea gdje se izraz prvi put i pojavljuje.
Radnja je smještena u svijet nama bliske budućnosti gdje mnoge državne i financijske poslove obavljaju samostalna računala. FBI otkriva glavnog lika, "kompjuterskog čarobnjaka" koji radi sitne prekršaje u virtualnoj stvarnosti i regrutiraju ga da im pomogne u otkrivanju hakera koji je neprimjetno promjenio mnoge kritične postavke državnog sustava i skoro ga stavio pod svoju kontrolu.
Unatoč temi i godini izdavanja roman i nije toliko zastario. Vinge je dobro prikazao opasnosti prevelike automatizacije bilo kojeg sustava. Mudro je izbjegavao većinu računalne terminologije pa je priča razumljiva i onima koji nisu programeri, što je prava rijetkost u cyberpunk žanru. On koristi poznate simbole da bi objasnio komplicirane koncepte, na primjer kada glavni lik dolazi u siguran dio virtualnog svijeta gdje je njegova ekipa, taj dio je prikazan kao dvorac, a na ulazu je čuvar koji traži lozinku da bi spustio most. Neuroznanstvenik Marvin Minsky je u zanimljivom pogovoru napisao da i naš mozak na sličan način obrađuje informacije i stvara sliku o svijetu. Dotaknuo se i identiteta, svijesti, umjetne inteligencije...
Uglavnom, kratak roman koji je zabavan i brzo se čita, a ipak nije plitak.
Radnja je smještena u svijet nama bliske budućnosti gdje mnoge državne i financijske poslove obavljaju samostalna računala. FBI otkriva glavnog lika, "kompjuterskog čarobnjaka" koji radi sitne prekršaje u virtualnoj stvarnosti i regrutiraju ga da im pomogne u otkrivanju hakera koji je neprimjetno promjenio mnoge kritične postavke državnog sustava i skoro ga stavio pod svoju kontrolu.
Unatoč temi i godini izdavanja roman i nije toliko zastario. Vinge je dobro prikazao opasnosti prevelike automatizacije bilo kojeg sustava. Mudro je izbjegavao većinu računalne terminologije pa je priča razumljiva i onima koji nisu programeri, što je prava rijetkost u cyberpunk žanru. On koristi poznate simbole da bi objasnio komplicirane koncepte, na primjer kada glavni lik dolazi u siguran dio virtualnog svijeta gdje je njegova ekipa, taj dio je prikazan kao dvorac, a na ulazu je čuvar koji traži lozinku da bi spustio most. Neuroznanstvenik Marvin Minsky je u zanimljivom pogovoru napisao da i naš mozak na sličan način obrađuje informacije i stvara sliku o svijetu. Dotaknuo se i identiteta, svijesti, umjetne inteligencije...
Uglavnom, kratak roman koji je zabavan i brzo se čita, a ipak nije plitak.
October 15, 2019
I picked up this obscure 1981 novella by the insider-loved science-fiction author Vernor Vinge because of recently learning that it's demonstrably the very first story to define the trope we now know as "cyberspace," and that the authors who eventually created the "cyberpunk" genre in the late '80s and early '90s (William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, etc) were all passionate fans of this book and basically used it as a starting place for their own stories. And after reading it, I can attest that all this is very much true, and that you can see the seeds of all the cyberpunk novels that came after fully formed here in this one -- the internet as a 3D virtual reality space, connecting to it via biomech headgear that taps directly into your neurons, within a physical US that has become an endless sprawl of crappy exurban spaces hooking together all the major cities, which has led some people to enjoy the virtual version so much that they're happy to let their physical bodies entropy into immovable objects, and where the most talented hackers of this system achieve virtual godlike powers and battle entities that may or may not be self-sentient AI programs run amok.
But there's something really interesting going on here from a historical perspective too, which you can directly compare to another transitional period in literary history -- namely, the years in the early 1800s when the Enlightenment was falling out of favor as the main cultural force in the arts, and Romanticism was just beginning its ascendency. For those who don't know, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein just three years after Jane Austen published Emma, 1818 versus 1815; and while both are great novels, one is definitely the last gasp of the previous age, while the other is the explosive beginning of the next. And so too was True Names published in 1981, while just three years later Gibson published his debut novel Neuromancer, with both of them sharing many details but hugely different in tone and spirit; for in what was perhaps the most interesting thing of all about reading this, Vinge's story is very much steeped in the murky countercultural mores of such '70s authors as Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, with his hacker protagonist being a frazzled ex-hippie living in the woods of northern California, the means to connect online relying more on EEG manipulation aided by meditation than computer graphics zapped straight into one's neural cortex, the virtual world he inhabits being a pretty faithful reproduction of a backwoods castle from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth (and with the hackers calling themselves "warlocks" instead of cyberpunk's "cowboys"), and the cabal of troublemakers he belongs to (who refer to themselves as a "coven") having much more the playful, chaotic spirit of old '60s phone phreakers and merry pranksters, there mostly to have fun and to gently Stick It To The Man, and all of them shocked and disconcerted when one of the people in their circle decides that it's time for them to seize some real power since, after all, the world's banks and military arsenals are on the same information web that they are.
Gibson, Stephenson, et al take this jockeying for power and control as an act-one given in their novels, their own protagonists being skittish rail-thin speed addicts living in the grimy back corners of rainy London or a neon-lit New York, their virtual reality not a fairyland of castles and elves but the sleek black glass of a Brutalist fever-dream. So even though True Names undeniably lays the groundwork for the cyberpunk novels that came immediately after, it's not even close to being a book you could categorize in the same genre, instead being more of a bridge that helped science-fiction move from the hippie weirdness of the '70s to the slick grittiness of the '80s, exactly like how Joy Division, the Cure and the Smiths were doing so in the world of music in these exact same years. That's why it's not getting a full five stars from me today, because you can't rightly call it a "lost cyberpunk classic," and it simply can't stand as an equal in quality to those now beloved titles; but if you're an aging cyberpunk fan like me, or simply someone who enjoys doing a deep and wide look at the genre's entire history, certainly this is a must-read anyway, fascinating from a historical perspective even if the story itself contains flaws that were then corrected by the books right after it. It comes with a limited recommendation in this spirit.
But there's something really interesting going on here from a historical perspective too, which you can directly compare to another transitional period in literary history -- namely, the years in the early 1800s when the Enlightenment was falling out of favor as the main cultural force in the arts, and Romanticism was just beginning its ascendency. For those who don't know, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein just three years after Jane Austen published Emma, 1818 versus 1815; and while both are great novels, one is definitely the last gasp of the previous age, while the other is the explosive beginning of the next. And so too was True Names published in 1981, while just three years later Gibson published his debut novel Neuromancer, with both of them sharing many details but hugely different in tone and spirit; for in what was perhaps the most interesting thing of all about reading this, Vinge's story is very much steeped in the murky countercultural mores of such '70s authors as Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, with his hacker protagonist being a frazzled ex-hippie living in the woods of northern California, the means to connect online relying more on EEG manipulation aided by meditation than computer graphics zapped straight into one's neural cortex, the virtual world he inhabits being a pretty faithful reproduction of a backwoods castle from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth (and with the hackers calling themselves "warlocks" instead of cyberpunk's "cowboys"), and the cabal of troublemakers he belongs to (who refer to themselves as a "coven") having much more the playful, chaotic spirit of old '60s phone phreakers and merry pranksters, there mostly to have fun and to gently Stick It To The Man, and all of them shocked and disconcerted when one of the people in their circle decides that it's time for them to seize some real power since, after all, the world's banks and military arsenals are on the same information web that they are.
Gibson, Stephenson, et al take this jockeying for power and control as an act-one given in their novels, their own protagonists being skittish rail-thin speed addicts living in the grimy back corners of rainy London or a neon-lit New York, their virtual reality not a fairyland of castles and elves but the sleek black glass of a Brutalist fever-dream. So even though True Names undeniably lays the groundwork for the cyberpunk novels that came immediately after, it's not even close to being a book you could categorize in the same genre, instead being more of a bridge that helped science-fiction move from the hippie weirdness of the '70s to the slick grittiness of the '80s, exactly like how Joy Division, the Cure and the Smiths were doing so in the world of music in these exact same years. That's why it's not getting a full five stars from me today, because you can't rightly call it a "lost cyberpunk classic," and it simply can't stand as an equal in quality to those now beloved titles; but if you're an aging cyberpunk fan like me, or simply someone who enjoys doing a deep and wide look at the genre's entire history, certainly this is a must-read anyway, fascinating from a historical perspective even if the story itself contains flaws that were then corrected by the books right after it. It comes with a limited recommendation in this spirit.
September 26, 2020
se consideriamo l'anno di pubblicazione è un romanzo pieno di buone idee, risulta oggi ingenuo e in alcuni punti datato, ma qualcosa lo ritroviamo in opere più recenti. Bella l'ambientazione fantasy della rete, forse il primo autore ad aver immaginato il mix
April 5, 2017
Originally published as a novella in 1981, this version of True Names contains illustrations by Bob Walters and an afterword by Marvin Minsky. I read this back in 1984, and really enjoyed re-reading it on a plane flight across the country. Recommended!
While some of the tech is a little dated, Vinge keeps it mostly in the background. At one point, the protagonist utilizes other computers to increase his "power" online, and this is not so different from networked computers participating in a DDOS attack today. For a story written in 1981, the author was remarkably prescient.
Other aspects of the plot are also well done, and I found the female protagonist (Erythrina) well written. Using fantasy metaphors for the imagined "cyberspace" works well. The conclusion provides a satisfying and believable resolution to the story.
This novella was republished a few years after that in a collection titled True Names... and Other Dangers, which I need to read next. I plan to hand this publication to a friend who absolutely hated Neuromancer, in an attempt to show that not all cyberspace is bad.
While some of the tech is a little dated, Vinge keeps it mostly in the background. At one point, the protagonist utilizes other computers to increase his "power" online, and this is not so different from networked computers participating in a DDOS attack today. For a story written in 1981, the author was remarkably prescient.
Other aspects of the plot are also well done, and I found the female protagonist (Erythrina) well written. Using fantasy metaphors for the imagined "cyberspace" works well. The conclusion provides a satisfying and believable resolution to the story.
This novella was republished a few years after that in a collection titled True Names... and Other Dangers, which I need to read next. I plan to hand this publication to a friend who absolutely hated Neuromancer, in an attempt to show that not all cyberspace is bad.
January 8, 2021
Clunky, but only because it was foreseeing two different cultural shifts (black hat hacking and AI safety) decades ahead.
There's a limit to how bad Vinge can be - even when he's distracted by his enormous ideas (which need a postscript by Marvin Minsky to drag out fully) and the complete absence of our vocabulary, it's fine.
There's a limit to how bad Vinge can be - even when he's distracted by his enormous ideas (which need a postscript by Marvin Minsky to drag out fully) and the complete absence of our vocabulary, it's fine.
March 11, 2018
My first Vinge, even if A Fire Upon the Deep is still waiting to be read as well. 'True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier' is a re-release of Vinge's same-titled novella, caught between introductions, essays, and an afterword.
The introduction of this edition is by Hari Kunzru, whom I've never heard of, to be honest. He gives a bit of background on the novella and the period in which is was written. Editor James Frenkel reminisces about his time as Vinge's editor at Tor Books and of course about the novella, obviously. Then comes Vinge's own introduction. He tells about how the novella came to be, what influenced him, what it's about, and so on. The afterword is by Marvin Minsky, another unknown name to me. Neatly put after the novella itself, he uses the events as basis for his view on the matter, on how the future might (have) look(ed).
The essays are by various experts in the field of information technology. The themes range from cryptography, encryption, big data (sort of), artificial intelligence, security software, ... In other words, lots of programming, to use one general term. Not every essay is as accessible as the other, of course. One must, in my opinion, have some knowledge on (or be interested in) the matter (or computers in general) to follow along. Yes, the explanations and visions may be dated, but you have to keep in mind that these essays were written in the early to mid 1990s. A lot has happened, a lot has changed since then. Especially with regards to the internet and how we utilise it. That said, it is interesting to read these guys experiences and insights of that period.
The novella itself then. It's a good 80 pages long and is about a hacking community, with mainly one guy (Mr Slippery aka Roger Pollack) having been tracked down. Gone privacy, indeed. The Feds want a huge favour from him: Considering his skills, he's the perfect man for the job, i.e. tracking down a certain Mailman, who seems to take control over the various networks. The Feds apparently don't have the means or people to catch him, hence appealing to "the dark side". Both Roger and the Feds (lead by one Virginia) are in a luxury position: Roger is the only one capable enough, but Virginia can keep his ass out of prison, since he's broken several laws so far as a hacker.
And so, they reach an agreement (under strict conditions) and Roger sets to work. His computer equipment is first quality, allows him to go farther than any regular computer user. He meets up with his friends, a sort of coven, in a virtual world. Based on the descriptions, it reminded me of Second Life, in a way. Each having his/her avatar, codes to access locations (with different rooms), and so on. If I'm not mistaken, hackers used some kind of electrodes to go into the world and "live" there.
As Mr Slippery (Roger) executes his task, which is for the sake of all humanity, else the world will go down, Mr Vinge describes what's going on. The story is fairly accessible, but of course you get your obligatory technical vocabulary. I have to admit that some elements went over my head, but not in a way that I couldn't follow the story. As you can imagine, all's well that ends well, but Roger still isn't a free man afterwards. And the Mailman?
As the end (of the story) came near, you start to realise (or you don't) how important computers have become in our lives, in society, everywhere. Airports, railway-stations, radio, traffic, hospitals, schools, power supply (throughout the country), communication, companies, space, ... And how you don't have any privacy any more.
Long story short: An interesting and entertaining story about computers, about networks, about encryption and trying to stay under the radar (privacy, not revealing your real name, ...). The essays were a nice bonus, offering background on the elements used in the novella.
The introduction of this edition is by Hari Kunzru, whom I've never heard of, to be honest. He gives a bit of background on the novella and the period in which is was written. Editor James Frenkel reminisces about his time as Vinge's editor at Tor Books and of course about the novella, obviously. Then comes Vinge's own introduction. He tells about how the novella came to be, what influenced him, what it's about, and so on. The afterword is by Marvin Minsky, another unknown name to me. Neatly put after the novella itself, he uses the events as basis for his view on the matter, on how the future might (have) look(ed).
The essays are by various experts in the field of information technology. The themes range from cryptography, encryption, big data (sort of), artificial intelligence, security software, ... In other words, lots of programming, to use one general term. Not every essay is as accessible as the other, of course. One must, in my opinion, have some knowledge on (or be interested in) the matter (or computers in general) to follow along. Yes, the explanations and visions may be dated, but you have to keep in mind that these essays were written in the early to mid 1990s. A lot has happened, a lot has changed since then. Especially with regards to the internet and how we utilise it. That said, it is interesting to read these guys experiences and insights of that period.
The novella itself then. It's a good 80 pages long and is about a hacking community, with mainly one guy (Mr Slippery aka Roger Pollack) having been tracked down. Gone privacy, indeed. The Feds want a huge favour from him: Considering his skills, he's the perfect man for the job, i.e. tracking down a certain Mailman, who seems to take control over the various networks. The Feds apparently don't have the means or people to catch him, hence appealing to "the dark side". Both Roger and the Feds (lead by one Virginia) are in a luxury position: Roger is the only one capable enough, but Virginia can keep his ass out of prison, since he's broken several laws so far as a hacker.
And so, they reach an agreement (under strict conditions) and Roger sets to work. His computer equipment is first quality, allows him to go farther than any regular computer user. He meets up with his friends, a sort of coven, in a virtual world. Based on the descriptions, it reminded me of Second Life, in a way. Each having his/her avatar, codes to access locations (with different rooms), and so on. If I'm not mistaken, hackers used some kind of electrodes to go into the world and "live" there.
As Mr Slippery (Roger) executes his task, which is for the sake of all humanity, else the world will go down, Mr Vinge describes what's going on. The story is fairly accessible, but of course you get your obligatory technical vocabulary. I have to admit that some elements went over my head, but not in a way that I couldn't follow the story. As you can imagine, all's well that ends well, but Roger still isn't a free man afterwards. And the Mailman?
As the end (of the story) came near, you start to realise (or you don't) how important computers have become in our lives, in society, everywhere. Airports, railway-stations, radio, traffic, hospitals, schools, power supply (throughout the country), communication, companies, space, ... And how you don't have any privacy any more.
Long story short: An interesting and entertaining story about computers, about networks, about encryption and trying to stay under the radar (privacy, not revealing your real name, ...). The essays were a nice bonus, offering background on the elements used in the novella.
August 31, 2019
The cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction was rooted in the work of New Wave SF authors such as Philip K Dick, Roger Zelazny and JG Ballard. Its themes began to emerge in the late 1970s in SF comics such as Judge Dredd, and crystallized around the 1982 Riddley Scott movie Blade Runner, the Japanese manga series Akira, and, in particular, William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer (1984).
Gibson consolidated four elements that came to define the subgenre: technology (especially the internet, cybernetics and artificial intelligence), society (a dystopic near-future extension of neo-liberalism), an unending desolate urban landscape, and a hard-bitten noir style, building on authors such as Raymond Chandler and William Burroughs and the gonzo journalism of Hunter S Thompson.
The most striking aspect of Neuromancer was its prediction of the internet, which didn’t exist when the novel was published. Gibson, who knew very little about computers, called it cyberspace. Placed in the novel’s dystopic social and urban milieu and described in Gibson’s attenuated language, the invention provides a disturbing and powerful fictional presence.
Neuromancer wasn’t the first novel, though, to predict the internet. Versions were also described in The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (1975), and in Vernon Vinge’s 1982 novella True Names.
Despite its billing, though, True Names isn’t genuinely a work of cyberpunk. Only one of the four core themes is addressed in detail: Vinge’s cyberspace, known as The Other Plane, is reached through EEG readings and a little bit of transcendental meditation. Full of magical tropes (castles, dungeons, warlocks and spells), its atmosphere is evoked in a detailed and reasonably convincing manner.
Vinge touches on two more of cyberpunk’s core themes. State security is pitted against subversive hackers, who, in a clever extension of the use of magical tropes, must keep their True Names secret for fear of being identified and penalised in the real world. The natty teenage security agents who appear late in the book, slightly reminiscent of the John Travolta character in Pulp Fiction, are also a nice touch. There’s little, though, to transmit the feeling of menace that comes across in Neuromancer and, indeed, in earlier works such as Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the inspiration for Blade Runner).
In addition, a short descriptive passage about the urban landscape in Providence is slightly suggestive of scenes in Blade Runner. It’s said that Vinge was unable to sit through the movie because it reminded him so clearly of the landscape he had been attempting to realise in the novella. If so, it’s a pity that he didn’t make more effort to bring it to life.
The element that is completely lacking, however, is style. In Neuromancer, Gibson captures the reader immediately with an iconic first sentence:
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
(It’s ironic that the image he intended to convey, the black-and-white static of an untuned cathode ray tube, would not have existed in the post-modern world intended to evoke, but the power of the language is still undeniable).
Gibson then continues in a noir style with short sentences that disdain nouns and even pronouns as subjects. The effect, if this was a first person narrative, would be something like a hastily scribbled diary; but, in the context of a third person account, the attenuated writing works to draw the reader into the perceptual framework of the protagonist, Case, so as to appreciate his experiences as if they were first hand.
(In some of Gibson’s later work – such as The Peripheral, published in 2014 - the technique becomes so attenuated as to become little more than an irritating and confusing mannerism).
In True Names, Vinge achieves nothing like this. The narrative style, detached third person, is flat. The tricks considered an essential part of modern creative fiction are largely absent; the narrative point of view sometimes wanders from the protagonist, Mr Slippery, to other characters (in particular, Erythrina), and there are large blocks of expostulatory dialogue unbroken by stage direction, so the reader finds it difficult to picture the speaker during these bouts of mansplaining. The objective, authorial account of Mr Slippery’s experiences is a hindrance to empathy. His motivations and responses lack complexity, and we never really get to know him as an individual person.
The same goes for the other characters: despite their obvious physical differences, whether they’re human or mechanical or, on The Other Plane, representations of people, robots, or fax machines, they’re all pretty much indistinguishable. The individual described in the most detail, Erythrina, lacks depth; the revelation of the contrast between her virtual and real physical habitus seems banal rather than shocking, and the associated explanation for her brief uncharacteristic hiatus during an action scene, apparently a key moment in the plot, turns out to be an anticlimax. The only character who strikes the reader as interesting is the tough-tender cop Virginia. A few nice touches hint at more depth to her character that we would like to hear more about, but, frustratingly, this isn’t explored.
True Names certainly deserves credit as a predictor of the internet. It isn’t, however, either a fully rounded work of fiction or a genuine example of the cyberpunk subgenre.
Gibson consolidated four elements that came to define the subgenre: technology (especially the internet, cybernetics and artificial intelligence), society (a dystopic near-future extension of neo-liberalism), an unending desolate urban landscape, and a hard-bitten noir style, building on authors such as Raymond Chandler and William Burroughs and the gonzo journalism of Hunter S Thompson.
The most striking aspect of Neuromancer was its prediction of the internet, which didn’t exist when the novel was published. Gibson, who knew very little about computers, called it cyberspace. Placed in the novel’s dystopic social and urban milieu and described in Gibson’s attenuated language, the invention provides a disturbing and powerful fictional presence.
Neuromancer wasn’t the first novel, though, to predict the internet. Versions were also described in The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (1975), and in Vernon Vinge’s 1982 novella True Names.
Despite its billing, though, True Names isn’t genuinely a work of cyberpunk. Only one of the four core themes is addressed in detail: Vinge’s cyberspace, known as The Other Plane, is reached through EEG readings and a little bit of transcendental meditation. Full of magical tropes (castles, dungeons, warlocks and spells), its atmosphere is evoked in a detailed and reasonably convincing manner.
Vinge touches on two more of cyberpunk’s core themes. State security is pitted against subversive hackers, who, in a clever extension of the use of magical tropes, must keep their True Names secret for fear of being identified and penalised in the real world. The natty teenage security agents who appear late in the book, slightly reminiscent of the John Travolta character in Pulp Fiction, are also a nice touch. There’s little, though, to transmit the feeling of menace that comes across in Neuromancer and, indeed, in earlier works such as Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the inspiration for Blade Runner).
In addition, a short descriptive passage about the urban landscape in Providence is slightly suggestive of scenes in Blade Runner. It’s said that Vinge was unable to sit through the movie because it reminded him so clearly of the landscape he had been attempting to realise in the novella. If so, it’s a pity that he didn’t make more effort to bring it to life.
The element that is completely lacking, however, is style. In Neuromancer, Gibson captures the reader immediately with an iconic first sentence:
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
(It’s ironic that the image he intended to convey, the black-and-white static of an untuned cathode ray tube, would not have existed in the post-modern world intended to evoke, but the power of the language is still undeniable).
Gibson then continues in a noir style with short sentences that disdain nouns and even pronouns as subjects. The effect, if this was a first person narrative, would be something like a hastily scribbled diary; but, in the context of a third person account, the attenuated writing works to draw the reader into the perceptual framework of the protagonist, Case, so as to appreciate his experiences as if they were first hand.
(In some of Gibson’s later work – such as The Peripheral, published in 2014 - the technique becomes so attenuated as to become little more than an irritating and confusing mannerism).
In True Names, Vinge achieves nothing like this. The narrative style, detached third person, is flat. The tricks considered an essential part of modern creative fiction are largely absent; the narrative point of view sometimes wanders from the protagonist, Mr Slippery, to other characters (in particular, Erythrina), and there are large blocks of expostulatory dialogue unbroken by stage direction, so the reader finds it difficult to picture the speaker during these bouts of mansplaining. The objective, authorial account of Mr Slippery’s experiences is a hindrance to empathy. His motivations and responses lack complexity, and we never really get to know him as an individual person.
The same goes for the other characters: despite their obvious physical differences, whether they’re human or mechanical or, on The Other Plane, representations of people, robots, or fax machines, they’re all pretty much indistinguishable. The individual described in the most detail, Erythrina, lacks depth; the revelation of the contrast between her virtual and real physical habitus seems banal rather than shocking, and the associated explanation for her brief uncharacteristic hiatus during an action scene, apparently a key moment in the plot, turns out to be an anticlimax. The only character who strikes the reader as interesting is the tough-tender cop Virginia. A few nice touches hint at more depth to her character that we would like to hear more about, but, frustratingly, this isn’t explored.
True Names certainly deserves credit as a predictor of the internet. It isn’t, however, either a fully rounded work of fiction or a genuine example of the cyberpunk subgenre.
March 1, 2015
Before Neuromancer and Snow Crash, there was Vinge's "True Names", written in 1981. Hackers meet in cyberspace, a virtual representation of "data space" they call the "Other Plane". Metaphors and symbols of magic are applied to this world - they are warlocks and wizards, they cast spells - modern-day sorcery in a completely networked world. There are battles in cyberspace, amassing computation power that goes to your head and makes you Gods, encryption schemes to trick those who control you because they know your true name, there's the NSA, conflicts over good and bad and governing authorities, a dormant yet evolving AI, even upload of consciousness. There's a lot in there (and it's a rather slim book) - ideas that Vinge doesn't nearly get enough credit for. I am glad I got here, finally.
May 7, 2023
A good EARLY (1980) novella about hacking, virtual spaces and artificial intelligence. With a notable afterword by Marvin Minsky, which is a good introduction to his ideas about AI, thinking and Society of Mind.
August 1, 2019
I was inspired to read this after reading Finn Brunton's Digital Cash and how it inspired the early Crypto-anarchists, eventually leading to the creation of bitcoin and the vision for anonymous identities. Some of the names seem archaic now but given that this was written in 1981, about 38 years from when I'm reading, I think it holds up pretty well.
The story follows a group of early adopters of a new full-immersion virtual reality technology called the "Other Plane" -- they call themselves "warlocks" in the story. They resemble the curious hacker stereotypes that penetrate computer systems around the world for personal profit or curiosity. They call their cabal, a "coven", and must keep their true identities -- their "True Names" -- secret even to each other and especially the "Great Adversary", the US Government. Those who know a warlock's true name can force him or her to work on their behalf or cause a "True Death" by killing the warlock in real life.
The protagonist is a warlock known as "Mr. Slippery" in the Other Plane. The government learns Mr. Slippery's True Name and forces him to investigate the Mailman, a mysterious new warlock which it suspects of conducting a large-scale subversion of databases and networks. The Mailman has been recruiting others, such as the warlock DON.MAC, by promising great power in the real world, and claims to be responsible for a recent revolution in Venezuela. Because he never appears in the Other Plane, preferring non real-time communication, Mr. Slippery and fellow warlock Erythrina begin to suspect that the Mailman may be an extraterrestrial invader, subverting global databases to gradually conquer the Earth while causing True Deaths of the warlocks he recruits.
Turns out that Mailman was a NSA AI that was left running and grew in power over time. It hid its inability to emulate true human interaction by responding slowly to communications, i.e., non-realtime. Over time Erythrina and Mr. Slippery manage to contain Mailman and certain attributes of Erythrina are imbued to Mailman to stabilize it. The author hints at some beginning of global order because of this and that some part of Erythrina will live even after she's dead.
This is an interesting book not just in its foresight in a lot of things that have happened with technology, Virtual reality, but also the value of privacy and anonymity and how losing that in certain lines of work can mean true death.
The story follows a group of early adopters of a new full-immersion virtual reality technology called the "Other Plane" -- they call themselves "warlocks" in the story. They resemble the curious hacker stereotypes that penetrate computer systems around the world for personal profit or curiosity. They call their cabal, a "coven", and must keep their true identities -- their "True Names" -- secret even to each other and especially the "Great Adversary", the US Government. Those who know a warlock's true name can force him or her to work on their behalf or cause a "True Death" by killing the warlock in real life.
The protagonist is a warlock known as "Mr. Slippery" in the Other Plane. The government learns Mr. Slippery's True Name and forces him to investigate the Mailman, a mysterious new warlock which it suspects of conducting a large-scale subversion of databases and networks. The Mailman has been recruiting others, such as the warlock DON.MAC, by promising great power in the real world, and claims to be responsible for a recent revolution in Venezuela. Because he never appears in the Other Plane, preferring non real-time communication, Mr. Slippery and fellow warlock Erythrina begin to suspect that the Mailman may be an extraterrestrial invader, subverting global databases to gradually conquer the Earth while causing True Deaths of the warlocks he recruits.
Turns out that Mailman was a NSA AI that was left running and grew in power over time. It hid its inability to emulate true human interaction by responding slowly to communications, i.e., non-realtime. Over time Erythrina and Mr. Slippery manage to contain Mailman and certain attributes of Erythrina are imbued to Mailman to stabilize it. The author hints at some beginning of global order because of this and that some part of Erythrina will live even after she's dead.
This is an interesting book not just in its foresight in a lot of things that have happened with technology, Virtual reality, but also the value of privacy and anonymity and how losing that in certain lines of work can mean true death.
December 13, 2017
I wasn't expecting to start reading the novel at page 190. Until then there are a series of articles to introduce the theme a set up the mood. I honestly can't tell if I enjoyed the articles more than the novel. The article on remailers was amazing!
Having been in contact the works such as The Matrix, Strange Days, eXistenZ, Tron, etc, the universe presented by True Names doesn't have the wow effect it must have had in 1981. Overall the novel is enjoyable.
I might read another novel by Vernor Vinge. But right now my next cyberspace book is Neuromancer.
Having been in contact the works such as The Matrix, Strange Days, eXistenZ, Tron, etc, the universe presented by True Names doesn't have the wow effect it must have had in 1981. Overall the novel is enjoyable.
I might read another novel by Vernor Vinge. But right now my next cyberspace book is Neuromancer.
June 3, 2012
A quick read, and a little dated--but hey, the book is as old as I am--but very interesting to see Vinge's ideas of the potential future of tech back in the 80's. A lot of the concepts here have been used by other authors since this was written and have been well-updated. That being said, I enjoyed this novella (short story?) and its discussion of AI and augmented human capabilities.
Rating: PG
Rating: PG
February 26, 2015
True Names (1981) by Vernor Vinge is a very early work that depicts cyberspace. It's an excellent novella that was visionary. Before Neuromancer and all the other cyberpunk fiction this was first. The story is also impressively good as well. The characters are good enough for their purpose and the writing is decent. I'd been meaning to read it for years and it lived up to high expectations.
July 21, 2011
While noticeably dated, this story is still excellent.
October 31, 2013
One of my favorite books, early exploration of cyberspace before the whole cyberpunk movement really took hold
April 10, 2015
Published in 1981, Vinge's vision of the future of technology is again amazingly accurate. the story is short and interesting.
December 9, 2022
A visionary proto-Cyberpunk work that fleshed out the concept of cyberspace and influenced crypto anarchism.
Warning: spoiler alert!!
Published more than a decade before the internet started to have an impact on people’s lives, True Names is a truly visionary work that paved the way for the at the time nascent Cyberpunk movement, drawing up the battle lines between technocratic surveillance and individual freedom. Vinge’s work has had a lasting influence on Silicon Valley, not least among the more anarchic advocates of cryptography, cryptocurrency, and dark webs.
True Names traces the action of a group of hackers called warlocks, who busy themselves breaking into government and private computers around the world. All this take place in a virtual reality space called the Other Plane, where revealing one’s identity – one’s ��true name’ – can lead to arrest or worse. When warlock Mr Slippery has his true name revealed, the government forces him to help track down a notorious warlock who goes by the name of Mailman, responsible for large-scale data breaches and subsuming large chunks of data processing power. A series of battles ensue in both the virtual and real world, bringing down the economy in the process, and from first suspecting that Mailman is of extraterrestrial origin – given its immense power and ability to replicate itself – it is only at the end of the story that Mr Slippery learns that the Mailman is a National Security Agency research project gone rogue.
In True Names Vinge envisions an Orwellian scenario where technology is used by the elites to control the masses, a dystopian trope adopted by the Cyberpunk movement. At the same time, Vinge’s warlocks – hacking into government departments, euphorically sifting through data at amazing speed – became a template for Cyberpunk’s console cowboy. It is this euphoric empowerment of the individual that came to influence the more anarchic elements of Silicon Valley. That Vinge’s Other Plane is clearly inspired by Dungeons and Dragons – fleshing out the idea that only the imagination stands in the way of how how data is visualised in a virtual world – has only added to his popular appeal. So it is perhaps no surprise that about a decade later activist Timothy C. May paid homage to Vinge in his influential Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988):
“A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy. Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other.”
In other words, cryptography empowers people and undermines state and corporate control. May’s manifesto introduced the basic principles of crypto-anarchism: encrypted exchanges ensuring anonymity, freedom of speech, and freedom of trade. In today’s world crypto anarchism is very much alive in crypto currency circles, the idea being that a currency generated and anonymously secured by peer-to-peer networked devices outside of the banking system unshackles the individual.
In 1993 Vinge delivered a speech at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego State University, titled The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human. His opening words were:
“Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”
With the Mailman’s powers spiraling out of control, a theme Vinge further developed in Marooned in Realtime (1986), Vinge is generally credited with being the first to develop the concept of the AI-driven singularity. While the dangers of a technological singularity were to become major themes in much Cyberpunk literature as well as in Postmodern space opera, it is also integral to today’s public discourse on AI, as evidenced by Oxford University scholar Nick Bostrom’s hugely influential non-fiction book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014).
Warning: spoiler alert!!
Published more than a decade before the internet started to have an impact on people’s lives, True Names is a truly visionary work that paved the way for the at the time nascent Cyberpunk movement, drawing up the battle lines between technocratic surveillance and individual freedom. Vinge’s work has had a lasting influence on Silicon Valley, not least among the more anarchic advocates of cryptography, cryptocurrency, and dark webs.
True Names traces the action of a group of hackers called warlocks, who busy themselves breaking into government and private computers around the world. All this take place in a virtual reality space called the Other Plane, where revealing one’s identity – one’s ��true name’ – can lead to arrest or worse. When warlock Mr Slippery has his true name revealed, the government forces him to help track down a notorious warlock who goes by the name of Mailman, responsible for large-scale data breaches and subsuming large chunks of data processing power. A series of battles ensue in both the virtual and real world, bringing down the economy in the process, and from first suspecting that Mailman is of extraterrestrial origin – given its immense power and ability to replicate itself – it is only at the end of the story that Mr Slippery learns that the Mailman is a National Security Agency research project gone rogue.
In True Names Vinge envisions an Orwellian scenario where technology is used by the elites to control the masses, a dystopian trope adopted by the Cyberpunk movement. At the same time, Vinge’s warlocks – hacking into government departments, euphorically sifting through data at amazing speed – became a template for Cyberpunk’s console cowboy. It is this euphoric empowerment of the individual that came to influence the more anarchic elements of Silicon Valley. That Vinge’s Other Plane is clearly inspired by Dungeons and Dragons – fleshing out the idea that only the imagination stands in the way of how how data is visualised in a virtual world – has only added to his popular appeal. So it is perhaps no surprise that about a decade later activist Timothy C. May paid homage to Vinge in his influential Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988):
“A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy. Computer technology is on the verge of providing the ability for individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Two persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the True Name, or legal identity, of the other.”
In other words, cryptography empowers people and undermines state and corporate control. May’s manifesto introduced the basic principles of crypto-anarchism: encrypted exchanges ensuring anonymity, freedom of speech, and freedom of trade. In today’s world crypto anarchism is very much alive in crypto currency circles, the idea being that a currency generated and anonymously secured by peer-to-peer networked devices outside of the banking system unshackles the individual.
In 1993 Vinge delivered a speech at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, San Diego State University, titled The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human. His opening words were:
“Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”
With the Mailman’s powers spiraling out of control, a theme Vinge further developed in Marooned in Realtime (1986), Vinge is generally credited with being the first to develop the concept of the AI-driven singularity. While the dangers of a technological singularity were to become major themes in much Cyberpunk literature as well as in Postmodern space opera, it is also integral to today’s public discourse on AI, as evidenced by Oxford University scholar Nick Bostrom’s hugely influential non-fiction book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014).
October 26, 2023
The Title story by Vernor Vinge is very good.
An interesting part is the 'ascension' bit at the end where two plugged in humans find ways to recruit more and more processing power and to expand their minds into something more like cybernetic gods.
This is a pretty standard trope of Sci Fi (though partly due to this very story), what I found interesting is that Vinge is usually very good at considering the likely applicability of technology and how it might actually scale and function. When discussing 'Cyberspace' he invents a much more subtle, elegant and perhaps ultimately more workable form than that seen in other fictions. While other cybernauts have their vision and touch interrupted by gear and displays, Vinges interfaces directly with the brain. Not special on its own but the _manner_ of the interface is uniquely described.
Instead of simulating an entire virtual world in full and then porting that info into the brain - think of that as dropping the human sensorium into a sphere of complete but illusory information, Vinges simulation uses the minds own of methods of constructing reality, tickling the architecture which by its very nature acts to construct our world around us, producing something much more like a lucid dream than the harsh actinic glare of a computer screen or the heavy disassociation of 3D goggles.
Since Vinge usually thinks through the possibilities of his technology, I wonder how much thought he has given to this 'expanded mind' of his cyber-protagonists in which their ability to recruit more and more different kinds of very fast high-power processing only seems to expand their own minds, leaving their core personalities essentially intact, or holographically replicated on a massive scale.
To what extent might a hypermind actually be like that? Surely the original meat brain would be running much, much slower than the periphery and perhaps the cognitive load of engaging so totally with a different sensorium might start affecting even base functions like heart rate? Would an expanded person experience a kind of cognitive or moral lag between the core personality base and the high-speed periphery? I think the most likely result is that high-speed elements, once they are sure of having enough of themselves securely uploaded, would naturally 'bud off' from the core meat brain, creating essentially a new form of life with a shared history with the original.
...........
Anyway, the rest of the book is made up of essays and articles collected from a variety of thinkers on 'cyberspace'. This is a curious artefact. This version of True Names was published 20 years ago in 2001 but planning for it began long before then, so most of these essays are from the bleeding edge of the mid-90's.
So the book is really as a whole more of an historical document and much of its interest comes from the multiple perspectives of history. Vinge writing in 1980, those influenced by Vinge writing 10 to 20 years later in the 90s and me reading this in 2023.
There are 40 years between Vinges vision and myself, about as many as between the original and WW2.
These people are a little maddening. I feel like the chronicler of a dark future reading rags of predictions written by clever fools in a more optimistic age. All of them were writing before 911, before the Great War on Terror, before Social Media of any kind, before Liftgate, 4Chan and the Great Awokening. Most of the radical libertarians sound bananas. Yes of course they say, unregulated cryptography will be a massive boost to Terrorism and Paedophilia, but do you want the government reading your mail?
Yes. Speaking from 2023 I am much more worried about the Government not reading the right peoples mail closely enough than I am about them reading mine.
John M. Ford blathers. F. Randall Farmer gives an absolutely fascinating report from the very early online community experiments at Lucasarts. Mark Pesce gives a very good essay which is still probably wrong.
An interesting part is the 'ascension' bit at the end where two plugged in humans find ways to recruit more and more processing power and to expand their minds into something more like cybernetic gods.
This is a pretty standard trope of Sci Fi (though partly due to this very story), what I found interesting is that Vinge is usually very good at considering the likely applicability of technology and how it might actually scale and function. When discussing 'Cyberspace' he invents a much more subtle, elegant and perhaps ultimately more workable form than that seen in other fictions. While other cybernauts have their vision and touch interrupted by gear and displays, Vinges interfaces directly with the brain. Not special on its own but the _manner_ of the interface is uniquely described.
Instead of simulating an entire virtual world in full and then porting that info into the brain - think of that as dropping the human sensorium into a sphere of complete but illusory information, Vinges simulation uses the minds own of methods of constructing reality, tickling the architecture which by its very nature acts to construct our world around us, producing something much more like a lucid dream than the harsh actinic glare of a computer screen or the heavy disassociation of 3D goggles.
Since Vinge usually thinks through the possibilities of his technology, I wonder how much thought he has given to this 'expanded mind' of his cyber-protagonists in which their ability to recruit more and more different kinds of very fast high-power processing only seems to expand their own minds, leaving their core personalities essentially intact, or holographically replicated on a massive scale.
To what extent might a hypermind actually be like that? Surely the original meat brain would be running much, much slower than the periphery and perhaps the cognitive load of engaging so totally with a different sensorium might start affecting even base functions like heart rate? Would an expanded person experience a kind of cognitive or moral lag between the core personality base and the high-speed periphery? I think the most likely result is that high-speed elements, once they are sure of having enough of themselves securely uploaded, would naturally 'bud off' from the core meat brain, creating essentially a new form of life with a shared history with the original.
...........
Anyway, the rest of the book is made up of essays and articles collected from a variety of thinkers on 'cyberspace'. This is a curious artefact. This version of True Names was published 20 years ago in 2001 but planning for it began long before then, so most of these essays are from the bleeding edge of the mid-90's.
So the book is really as a whole more of an historical document and much of its interest comes from the multiple perspectives of history. Vinge writing in 1980, those influenced by Vinge writing 10 to 20 years later in the 90s and me reading this in 2023.
There are 40 years between Vinges vision and myself, about as many as between the original and WW2.
These people are a little maddening. I feel like the chronicler of a dark future reading rags of predictions written by clever fools in a more optimistic age. All of them were writing before 911, before the Great War on Terror, before Social Media of any kind, before Liftgate, 4Chan and the Great Awokening. Most of the radical libertarians sound bananas. Yes of course they say, unregulated cryptography will be a massive boost to Terrorism and Paedophilia, but do you want the government reading your mail?
Yes. Speaking from 2023 I am much more worried about the Government not reading the right peoples mail closely enough than I am about them reading mine.
John M. Ford blathers. F. Randall Farmer gives an absolutely fascinating report from the very early online community experiments at Lucasarts. Mark Pesce gives a very good essay which is still probably wrong.
Shelved as 'fic-guided'
August 29, 2020Vinge established himself as a genre leader with this novella. It was, he geekily recalls, ‘the first story I ever wrote with a word processor – a Heathkit LSI 11/03’. Grand claims have been made for True Names. ‘It inspired a generation of computer scientists’, says Mark Pearce (himself a ‘virtual reality pioneer’), ‘to think about life online in new ways.’ It can also be claimed to have created a new map of cyberspace and was one of the stepping stones to ‘social networking’, ‘hacktivism’, and MMORPG gaming (i.e. ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game’). Vinge’s novel was instrumental in laying down the ‘idea’ substratum of the shape of things technological to come. He had a vision. And a Heathkit (self-assembled) computer to write that vision up.
Vernor Vinge, a man as unusual as his name (which looks as if it came from the science-fiction props cupboard), was, by day, a distinguished mathematician. Science fiction was, for him, a mental lab in which mind games could be played. True Names is set in 2014 and takes as its premise Arthur C. Clarke’s paradox that, at its extremes (its cutting edge), technology is indistinguishable from magic. The computer screen and the crystal ball meet in superhuman unison. It opens:
In the once-upon-a-time days of the First Age of Magic, the prudent sorcerer regarded his own true name as his most valued possession but also the greatest threat to his continued good health, for – the stories go – once an enemy, even a weak unskilled enemy, learned the sorcerer’s true name, then routine and widely known spells could destroy or enslave even the most powerful. As times passed, and we graduated to the Age of Reason and thence to the first and second industrial revolutions, such notions were discredited. Now it seems that the Wheel has turned full circle (even if there never really was a First Age) and we are back to worrying about true names again.
As the narrative continues a ‘coven’ of ‘warlocks’ – effectively anarchist hackers – go to war against the ‘Great Adversary’, the American Government. Their protection (their magic cloak, in Hogwartian terms) lies in their pseudonyms. Revelation of their ‘true names’ would be suicidal. They hide behind such noms de guerre cyber as ‘Mr Slippery’. Warlocks are forever finding ways of slipping the nooses of the all-seeing state.
Enter a third player in the cybergame, ‘The Mailman’, a doughtier foe. He, it emerges, is an AI construct. The warlocks now have two adversaries. One is the government; the other the out-of-control machine they themselves operate against the government. Once the Mailman has, vampire-like, sucked in every computer avatar on the web, he – the machine – will rule. Exit humanity – destroyed by humanity’s greatest invention.
True Names, as Vinge recalls, was inspired by a real-life experience in which he and an unknown person were logged into the same computer anonymously and struck up a conversation via its TALK program:
The TALKer claimed some implausible name, and I responded in kind. We chatted for a bit, each trying to figure out the other’s true name. Finally I gave up, and told the other person I had to go – that I was actually a personality simulator, and if I kept talking my artificial nature would become obvious. Afterward, I realised that I had just lived a science-fiction story.
The basic idea in True Names is simplified, and popularised, in the Terminator series of movies. It’s a good place to start and work back to the remarkably prophetic novel. The world we now live in may not be that different from what Vernor foresaw three decades earlier.
Vernor Vinge, a man as unusual as his name (which looks as if it came from the science-fiction props cupboard), was, by day, a distinguished mathematician. Science fiction was, for him, a mental lab in which mind games could be played. True Names is set in 2014 and takes as its premise Arthur C. Clarke’s paradox that, at its extremes (its cutting edge), technology is indistinguishable from magic. The computer screen and the crystal ball meet in superhuman unison. It opens:
In the once-upon-a-time days of the First Age of Magic, the prudent sorcerer regarded his own true name as his most valued possession but also the greatest threat to his continued good health, for – the stories go – once an enemy, even a weak unskilled enemy, learned the sorcerer’s true name, then routine and widely known spells could destroy or enslave even the most powerful. As times passed, and we graduated to the Age of Reason and thence to the first and second industrial revolutions, such notions were discredited. Now it seems that the Wheel has turned full circle (even if there never really was a First Age) and we are back to worrying about true names again.
As the narrative continues a ‘coven’ of ‘warlocks’ – effectively anarchist hackers – go to war against the ‘Great Adversary’, the American Government. Their protection (their magic cloak, in Hogwartian terms) lies in their pseudonyms. Revelation of their ‘true names’ would be suicidal. They hide behind such noms de guerre cyber as ‘Mr Slippery’. Warlocks are forever finding ways of slipping the nooses of the all-seeing state.
Enter a third player in the cybergame, ‘The Mailman’, a doughtier foe. He, it emerges, is an AI construct. The warlocks now have two adversaries. One is the government; the other the out-of-control machine they themselves operate against the government. Once the Mailman has, vampire-like, sucked in every computer avatar on the web, he – the machine – will rule. Exit humanity – destroyed by humanity’s greatest invention.
True Names, as Vinge recalls, was inspired by a real-life experience in which he and an unknown person were logged into the same computer anonymously and struck up a conversation via its TALK program:
The TALKer claimed some implausible name, and I responded in kind. We chatted for a bit, each trying to figure out the other’s true name. Finally I gave up, and told the other person I had to go – that I was actually a personality simulator, and if I kept talking my artificial nature would become obvious. Afterward, I realised that I had just lived a science-fiction story.
The basic idea in True Names is simplified, and popularised, in the Terminator series of movies. It’s a good place to start and work back to the remarkably prophetic novel. The world we now live in may not be that different from what Vernor foresaw three decades earlier.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2020
This story makes me nostalgic for the days when readers and writers tended to assume that making a copy of oneself as a machine simulation was more like cloning than life extension, and that references to it being "immortality" needed some kind of meaningful justifying mechanism or it would be regarded as a metaphorical "immortality" -- leaving one's mark on the world, rather than continuing to live in it.
It's a truly excellent story, pretty much flawless in execution. It's also one of those rare books that helps define standards for really good, meaningful genre treatments and, at the same time, doesn't feel especially dated after a few years. It's up there with stuff like Neuromancer in that regard; pretty timeless so far, more prescient than most about the scale of computing advancement. Of course, that should be no surprise given Vernor Vinge recognizing the significance of the concept of the technological singularity pretty early in the history of singularity fiction. In fact, he was so early to that party that he can claim credit for popularizing the term and the concept; previously, it was an extremely niche notion. Yes, this story does deal in that kind of subject matter.
I have so far tended to find this author's prose more enjoyable in his shorter works (novellas), but he's good overall. This being a novella, it follows that pattern thus far; it's some of the best prose I've seen from him, in terms of continuous reader engagement. In fact, I pretty much read this in one sitting, in part because (with no chapter divisions) I just never felt like there was a good place to stop, and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next. Only the beginning of the book offered much in the way of resistance, and given the setting conceits the author needed to convey to the reader I'm not sure how one could have avoided that initially less engaging start without undermining much of the value of the story. For one thing, the details of the cyberspace (before the invention of the term "cyberspace"; the author called it the Other Plane) aspects of the setting being as abstruse as they are in some respects are sort of important to the approach it took to avoiding feeling dated in a few years. Those aspects also provide a compelling explanation for the divide in technical superiority between governmental and criminal activity related to the setting's internet.
Overall, it's just a really great read, and a quick read as well. Not a single excuse comes to mind for putting off reading it.
It's a truly excellent story, pretty much flawless in execution. It's also one of those rare books that helps define standards for really good, meaningful genre treatments and, at the same time, doesn't feel especially dated after a few years. It's up there with stuff like Neuromancer in that regard; pretty timeless so far, more prescient than most about the scale of computing advancement. Of course, that should be no surprise given Vernor Vinge recognizing the significance of the concept of the technological singularity pretty early in the history of singularity fiction. In fact, he was so early to that party that he can claim credit for popularizing the term and the concept; previously, it was an extremely niche notion. Yes, this story does deal in that kind of subject matter.
I have so far tended to find this author's prose more enjoyable in his shorter works (novellas), but he's good overall. This being a novella, it follows that pattern thus far; it's some of the best prose I've seen from him, in terms of continuous reader engagement. In fact, I pretty much read this in one sitting, in part because (with no chapter divisions) I just never felt like there was a good place to stop, and I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next. Only the beginning of the book offered much in the way of resistance, and given the setting conceits the author needed to convey to the reader I'm not sure how one could have avoided that initially less engaging start without undermining much of the value of the story. For one thing, the details of the cyberspace (before the invention of the term "cyberspace"; the author called it the Other Plane) aspects of the setting being as abstruse as they are in some respects are sort of important to the approach it took to avoiding feeling dated in a few years. Those aspects also provide a compelling explanation for the divide in technical superiority between governmental and criminal activity related to the setting's internet.
Overall, it's just a really great read, and a quick read as well. Not a single excuse comes to mind for putting off reading it.
June 22, 2022
2.5 stars - Interesting in its historical/literary significance as the first story to describe cyberspace; the length is graciously not over-long; and the story itself is interesting enough to keep you reading.
That said, the writing itself is just not very...good. Characters are not particularly engaging and while there are not a ton of pages for that, I feel a stronger writer could have evoked the characters and conflict much better.
Finally, and this is personal preference - YMMV - if you want a window into the Neoliberal Fintech/Peter Thiel/Elon Musk Mindset, this is a great place to start. Maybe I should give Vinge the benefit of the doubt and not assume he is describing things as he thinks can or should happen, but I don't think that's the case. People like Vinge believe in a technological Ascendance of mankind where the inexorable march of progress leads us to the promised land. Or, at least if the world is going to shit, we'll be able to be Fully Autonomous Individuals in the Metaverse! Vinge's libertarian/anarcho-capitalist leanings peak through a bit with laughable bits like referring to the federal government as the "Great Enemy". Seems you really can see the beginnings of the current bone-headed "cryptocurrency/blockchain will save us" mindset that's so prevalent (and obviously fraudulent) today.
That said, the writing itself is just not very...good. Characters are not particularly engaging and while there are not a ton of pages for that, I feel a stronger writer could have evoked the characters and conflict much better.
Finally, and this is personal preference - YMMV - if you want a window into the Neoliberal Fintech/Peter Thiel/Elon Musk Mindset, this is a great place to start. Maybe I should give Vinge the benefit of the doubt and not assume he is describing things as he thinks can or should happen, but I don't think that's the case. People like Vinge believe in a technological Ascendance of mankind where the inexorable march of progress leads us to the promised land. Or, at least if the world is going to shit, we'll be able to be Fully Autonomous Individuals in the Metaverse! Vinge's libertarian/anarcho-capitalist leanings peak through a bit with laughable bits like referring to the federal government as the "Great Enemy". Seems you really can see the beginnings of the current bone-headed "cryptocurrency/blockchain will save us" mindset that's so prevalent (and obviously fraudulent) today.
November 13, 2022
Talk about an overblown edition: of the 300 pages that make up "True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier", just about 80 of them are occupied by the title story itself. It is preceded by no less than [i]nine[/i] introductory essays, each one of them with varying lenghts and dealing with the most disparate themes - from two-page short notices taken from some obscure issue of PC Guide from the 90's, up to a monstruous paranoical manifesto about keeping cryptography control out of governments' hands (written by someone who presents itself as one of the masterminds behind the Cypherpunks - some sort of Anonymous percursor).
Regarding "True Names" itself, the story barely justifies all the fanfare around it - despite the claims of being the true percursor of the cyberpunk genre, some years behind Gibson's "Neuromancer", it can't avoid being read as something much more than a first-draft short novel based on some Hollywood action blockbuster.
Among all the filler, the best is kept for the very last: Marvin Minsky's Afterword is a much more compelling read than anything that came before it - and all in under 20 pages.
Regarding "True Names" itself, the story barely justifies all the fanfare around it - despite the claims of being the true percursor of the cyberpunk genre, some years behind Gibson's "Neuromancer", it can't avoid being read as something much more than a first-draft short novel based on some Hollywood action blockbuster.
Among all the filler, the best is kept for the very last: Marvin Minsky's Afterword is a much more compelling read than anything that came before it - and all in under 20 pages.
April 3, 2023
Four (five if you count the initial draft in 79) years before Necromancer, Vernor Vinge defined modern cyberspace and the internet at a time when only ARPANET existed.
Except not really. The internet Vinge describes is incredibly distant from the internet that came about in the 1990s, or the internet of today. His depictions of cyberspace are more akin to a Second Life server with a Lord of the Rings skin on it, than to anything the average person would be familiar with. The middle of the book describes how everything is connected to the net, and that's the extent of his prophecy being true
That being said, the book itself is an immensely fun and pulpy read that delivers several thrilling action scenes and philosophical discussions in its short run time. I enjoyed it immensely and would easily recommend it, just don't think Vinge was Moses coming down from the mountain.
The penguin edition included 9 additional essays speaking generally on internet privacy and security, and really aren't essential to the book itself. I skipped them. The introductions, however, are worth the read.
Except not really. The internet Vinge describes is incredibly distant from the internet that came about in the 1990s, or the internet of today. His depictions of cyberspace are more akin to a Second Life server with a Lord of the Rings skin on it, than to anything the average person would be familiar with. The middle of the book describes how everything is connected to the net, and that's the extent of his prophecy being true
That being said, the book itself is an immensely fun and pulpy read that delivers several thrilling action scenes and philosophical discussions in its short run time. I enjoyed it immensely and would easily recommend it, just don't think Vinge was Moses coming down from the mountain.
The penguin edition included 9 additional essays speaking generally on internet privacy and security, and really aren't essential to the book itself. I skipped them. The introductions, however, are worth the read.
March 7, 2018
Why have I not heard of True Names before? It’s a Ready Player One cocktail with a zest of Tron, or vise versa, and to me, the gem of the cyberpunk genre. Why does everyone always refer to Neuromancer or Snow Crash as the earliest/best in the genre? True Names predates both. It has a vintage cachet that kids from the 1980s will love while being up-to-date and even prescient about the importance of data on the society of the Future. The digital world described as a fantasy world (with magics, castles and beasts), the concept of true name, the dynamics between the different characters, the Mailman (replacing the Lawnmower Man), the AI, the potential of nuclear war, the control of masses, aliens (why not), etc, etc, it’s simply perfect and the origin of it all. And yes, all condensed in a novella.
I now read that True Names was an inspiration to early real-life hackers, that it won several prizes and is a seminal work of the cyberpunk genre. Yet, strangely, I had never heard of it before.
I now read that True Names was an inspiration to early real-life hackers, that it won several prizes and is a seminal work of the cyberpunk genre. Yet, strangely, I had never heard of it before.
January 26, 2023
4.5/5. This trailblazer of the cyberpunk subgenre is a very interesting and enjoyable read. Some modern tropes such as cyberspace have their roots in this story, and I also enjoyed seeing elements that would recur in Vinge's later (and great) Zones of Thought series. I also liked how Vinge takes the fantasy trope of the power of "true names" and reinterprets it in a non-magical context. The big confrontation between the heros and the antagonist is very well done, making a vivid and exciting sequence of an idea that could be very hard to describe, and maybe impossible to show in a visual medium. Vinge is a master at describing the thoughts and perspectives of super-human or non-human entities, and it shows here. I also liked the bittersweet ending. It might have had more impact, though, in a full-length novel that developed the characters and their relationship more fully. Nonetheless, a great read and highly recommended.
Read
May 5, 2023I hadn't come across this author before, and I was (probably) too young for True Names to show up on my radar when it was first published as a novella in 1981. This reissue is accompanied by several essays that were written 10 or more years later, still well before the current date.
The plotline of True Names is straightforward on the surface: a hacker is pressured into attempting to uncover the real-life identity of a more dangerous hacker, which (of course) isn't as straightforward as initially hoped. There are interesting themes of symbolism and trust, and perhaps a sense of assessing people by what they do rather than what they say. I'd say the story has aged rather well.
I dipped into the accompanying essays, and I'm sure I will again. The concepts were a bit "technical" for me to fully appreciate from my non-IT-specialised background, but even so, they were thought-provoking.
Worth a read, and then a re-read.
The plotline of True Names is straightforward on the surface: a hacker is pressured into attempting to uncover the real-life identity of a more dangerous hacker, which (of course) isn't as straightforward as initially hoped. There are interesting themes of symbolism and trust, and perhaps a sense of assessing people by what they do rather than what they say. I'd say the story has aged rather well.
I dipped into the accompanying essays, and I'm sure I will again. The concepts were a bit "technical" for me to fully appreciate from my non-IT-specialised background, but even so, they were thought-provoking.
Worth a read, and then a re-read.
August 7, 2023
4.5/5. This trailblazer of the cyberpunk subgenre is a very interesting and enjoyable read. Some modern tropes such as cyberspace have their roots in this story, and I also enjoyed seeing elements that would recur in Vinge's later (and great) Zones of Thought series. I also liked how Vinge takes the fantasy trope of the power of "true names" and reinterprets it in a non-magical context. The big confrontation between the heros and the antagonist is very well done, making a vivid and exciting sequence of an idea that could be very hard to describe, and maybe impossible to show in a visual medium. Vinge is a master at describing the thoughts and perspectives of super-human or non-human entities, and it shows here. I also liked the bittersweet ending. It might have had more impact, though, in a full-length novel that developed the characters and their relationship more fully. Nonetheless, a great read and highly recommended.
September 14, 2023
I've been getting into cyber punk books lately and this was one that came recommended.
Right off the bat, I was annoyed with the myriad of essays and forewords before the actual book itself. I felt like I paid extra for this "special edition" with all of its extra material when all I wanted was to read True Names. So if you buy this particular version of the book, be wary of that detail.
The actual story itself is more like novella length and its quite decent! I get why it's held in such high regard in the cyber punk circles. The book definitely seems prescient in terms of predicting the emerging tech trends, such as the prevalence of work-from-home jobs and the dangers inherent in having everything be online and vulnerable to malevolent hackers, while the government, who is woefully behind, flounders to stop them. I also enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out who the Mailman was.
Right off the bat, I was annoyed with the myriad of essays and forewords before the actual book itself. I felt like I paid extra for this "special edition" with all of its extra material when all I wanted was to read True Names. So if you buy this particular version of the book, be wary of that detail.
The actual story itself is more like novella length and its quite decent! I get why it's held in such high regard in the cyber punk circles. The book definitely seems prescient in terms of predicting the emerging tech trends, such as the prevalence of work-from-home jobs and the dangers inherent in having everything be online and vulnerable to malevolent hackers, while the government, who is woefully behind, flounders to stop them. I also enjoyed the mystery of trying to figure out who the Mailman was.
May 5, 2022
Cyberpunk / virtual reality sf is my least favorite kind of sf so this one sat on the shelf for quite a while. A bit ignored at the time (early 80s) it is now seen as remarkably prescient in anticipating the always plugged-in metaverse to come. Turns out I was more entertained by the battles of the wizards and the hints of an unrequited love story that crosses the boundaries of (meta)-space and (meta)-time and the possibilities of aliens and the paranoia. Oh, and the governments that want to use the info super highway to limit democratic freedoms and expand power ("It was to be the first demonstration that controlling data and information could be used to take permanent political control of a state"), there's that too ...
October 30, 2022
Yet another book I had to read for the sci-fi lit class I'm taking. Compared to a lot of the other books and short stories I've had to read, it was actually pretty decent. Outdated, certainly, but still and interesting exploration of cyberspace. While I thought it was clunkily done, the combination of futuristic sci-fi technology and ideas stemming from fantasy tropes was actually pretty interesting. Of course, the worldbuilding was the only part of the story that actually seemed to be developed, but it was still an interesting concept and tale. Not an encapsulating or fascinating one, but a decent story with some interesting trappings that was for the most part fairly enjoyable and worthwhile.
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