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Across Realtime #1-2
Across Realtime
"The intricately plotted progress of characters from near to farfuture... on an Earth which, like an abandon playground, has long ago been left behind by an evolving humanity... human-scale action within a vast canvas."
-- The Excyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Encompassing time-travel, powerful mystery and the future history of humanity to its last handful of survivors, Across Realtime spans millions of years and is an utterly engrossing SF classic.
"You can hardly turn the pages fast enough. As sheer entertainment, it's a winner"
-- Locus
-- The Excyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Encompassing time-travel, powerful mystery and the future history of humanity to its last handful of survivors, Across Realtime spans millions of years and is an utterly engrossing SF classic.
"You can hardly turn the pages fast enough. As sheer entertainment, it's a winner"
-- Locus
532 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 1986
About the author
Vernor Vinge
113 books2,453 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
April 21, 2010
I remembered loving this, but I didn't remember the book well enough to review it without a reread. A lot did come back once into the stories though, and I fell right back in love with it. This has so much that made me love the genre. Especially Big Ideas, playing with very large scales of space and time and loads of imagination--but without the drawbacks I often find in Golden Age Science Fiction. I love the big three of Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke, goodness knows I do, but so often their women didn't read as real to me, and though this is going to sound nauseatingly politically correct, too often they imagined a future that was just too white for my tastes--when they weren't presenting racial stereotypes that were cringe-worthy (Clarke less so than the others, and the others got better over the decades--their hey day after all was the forties and fifties.) The point is, I don't have to make allowances for these 1980s books in either respect.
That doesn't mean the politically correct crowd would necessarily love this book. The book is a cult classic among libertarians for good reason, but it's not libertarian porn like say L. Neil Smith's novels. If any of the three connected stories read that way, it's the shortish novella bridge story, "The Ungoverned." It was a self-styled "anarcho-capitalist" who first pointed me to that story and to Vinge. But if you can look beyond that, what you find is a overall story that transcends that, with yes, some of the individualism and faith in freedom of Robert Heinlein, with some of the visionary apotheosis of Arthur C. Clarke. And I liked and cared about the characters. Della Lu and Wil Brierson may not be as complex or vivid as classic characters, but they work for me. And while the style won't be mistaken for literary, it does it's job. I liked the first short novel, The Peace War more than Marooned in Realtime, which I found a bit depressing, at least at first. But satisfying reads? Yup.
That doesn't mean the politically correct crowd would necessarily love this book. The book is a cult classic among libertarians for good reason, but it's not libertarian porn like say L. Neil Smith's novels. If any of the three connected stories read that way, it's the shortish novella bridge story, "The Ungoverned." It was a self-styled "anarcho-capitalist" who first pointed me to that story and to Vinge. But if you can look beyond that, what you find is a overall story that transcends that, with yes, some of the individualism and faith in freedom of Robert Heinlein, with some of the visionary apotheosis of Arthur C. Clarke. And I liked and cared about the characters. Della Lu and Wil Brierson may not be as complex or vivid as classic characters, but they work for me. And while the style won't be mistaken for literary, it does it's job. I liked the first short novel, The Peace War more than Marooned in Realtime, which I found a bit depressing, at least at first. But satisfying reads? Yup.
July 9, 2009
This is two related SciFi novels published together. The first, _The_Peace_War_ is a fairly standard Heinlenesque smart-boy-makes-good nerd fantasy. Nothing revelatory.
The second, _Marooned_In_Realtime_ is a fantastic look at what can happen in a world with one way (forward) time travel. This is why I picked up Vinge again, for creative, giant scale sci fi. People can travel to the stars in stasis, but they burn megayears of realtime doing so. Ecologists can jump ahead half a megayear at a time and watch evolution. But there's no way to get back. You end up hanging out with whoever is out of stasis in your eon. The mystery of an individual murder drives the plot along along with the greater mystery of why human civilization on earth disappeared abruptly. Good sci fi and good exploration of Vinge's theme of the results of exponential technological progress.
I picked this up because I enjoyed his other Novel _A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep_ and his historically important (to the genre) short story _True_Names_.
The second, _Marooned_In_Realtime_ is a fantastic look at what can happen in a world with one way (forward) time travel. This is why I picked up Vinge again, for creative, giant scale sci fi. People can travel to the stars in stasis, but they burn megayears of realtime doing so. Ecologists can jump ahead half a megayear at a time and watch evolution. But there's no way to get back. You end up hanging out with whoever is out of stasis in your eon. The mystery of an individual murder drives the plot along along with the greater mystery of why human civilization on earth disappeared abruptly. Good sci fi and good exploration of Vinge's theme of the results of exponential technological progress.
I picked this up because I enjoyed his other Novel _A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep_ and his historically important (to the genre) short story _True_Names_.
February 24, 2012
Ah, it’s Mr Singularity himself with tales of pre then post singularity worlds ‘bobbles’ can isolate and freeze in time their contents. It’s dated a bit now what with these two written in 1984 and 1986 and a world war in 1997 but enjoyable none-the-less. There’s also something very believable about the abilities of the future humans and, frankly, all the characters are engaging and you regret knowing no more about them when the story ends.
Note, don’t make the mistake of buying this if you already have either Peace War or Marooned in Realtime because those are the two tales here. I’d also recommend, if you haven’t read them yet A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
Note, don’t make the mistake of buying this if you already have either Peace War or Marooned in Realtime because those are the two tales here. I’d also recommend, if you haven’t read them yet A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
January 24, 2020
VERDICT: 3 stars.
REVIEW: Ambitious but ponderous SF/Fantasy. First half cured my insomnia. Second half jumped the time-shark, but was interesting.
REVIEW: Ambitious but ponderous SF/Fantasy. First half cured my insomnia. Second half jumped the time-shark, but was interesting.
September 6, 2022
On book #3 of my #VingeBinge, "The Peace War" (book #1 of 2 of the series) is definitely more my speed. We've got a post apocalyptic earth (my literary bread and butter), plus a more accessible version of the unique sci-fi tech Vinge brings to the table. The pacing of The Peace War went along at a solid clip, I was never bored or overly confused by the world, and it all came to a satisfying close. "The Ungoverned" short story that serves as the interlude between books is about the Republic of New Mexico trying to annex the lawless survivalist parts of Kansas is as entertaining as that sounds.
"Marooned Across Realtime" (#2 of 2) was even better. In addition to the interesting technology from the first book, you have a murder mystery that takes place across 50,000 years with a strong dose of Agatha Christie style twists. And then there's the substory about how the murder actually took place that makes for an excellent survival tale blended with alien species that have evolved on earth over time. It's all my favorite genres in one. Fun as hell.
"Marooned Across Realtime" (#2 of 2) was even better. In addition to the interesting technology from the first book, you have a murder mystery that takes place across 50,000 years with a strong dose of Agatha Christie style twists. And then there's the substory about how the murder actually took place that makes for an excellent survival tale blended with alien species that have evolved on earth over time. It's all my favorite genres in one. Fun as hell.
December 6, 2007
This appears to be two books in one. The first book was fantastic, and is why I like this author. I love the idea of bobbling, its consequences and the stark history of the Authority. This first book gets 5 stars.
The second book should not have been included - it gets 2 stars. I was disappointed almost all the way through. And come on. The first time the Singularity was described I though "surely the rest of humanity would have been left a sign/path." It's too unbelievable. Ironically the author apologizes for this in the afterword, but even that doesn't save it.
My advice: read the first half.
The second book should not have been included - it gets 2 stars. I was disappointed almost all the way through. And come on. The first time the Singularity was described I though "surely the rest of humanity would have been left a sign/path." It's too unbelievable. Ironically the author apologizes for this in the afterword, but even that doesn't save it.
My advice: read the first half.
February 22, 2022
In 1984, I read Vernor Vinge's Peace War when it was serialised in Analog Magazine. Years later elements of that story still stayed with me and - since this was the age of e-books - I decided to read it again. For obscure reasons, the novel and its follow up Marooned in Realtime were not available on any platform I cared to search, including Gollancz's own SF Gateway site (although his Zones of Thought series was readily available).
I would have given up, but it niggled at me, so I finally bit the bullet and bought a dead tree copy - the compendium Across Realtime. I'm glad I did.
Like the best science fiction, Across Realtime riffs off a simple idea: the bobbles. These are shiny spheres that are created by a bobble generator. They can be any size (depending on the power available) and they can last for any period of time, from milliseconds to millenia. Inside the bobble, time stops. Complete and perfect stasis. The exterior of the bobble is indestructible. Drop it into the sun and the contents remain intact (until or unless the bobble bursts, of course).
The fact that even the bobble creators are unaware of some of the bobbles' more amazing properties leads to some excellent turnarounds in the first book The Peace War, but in both books, the existence of bobble technology is only a starting point. The books extrapolate on many different practical applications for the bobbles, which drive the narrative and action in unexpected directions.
The Peace War focuses on the period 5o years after bobble technology emerged and those who owned it - the Peacers - bobbled every government and military installation on the planet and declared themselves rules 'for the good of all others'. In effect it's a not-so-benevolent dictatorship against which the general population begins to strain, particularly the Tinkers who dabble on the fringes of what is now forbidden technology (because the Peacers are jealous of their monopoly on the creation and control of bobbles). Marooned in Realtime jumps millions of years past the end of the first book to the last remnants of humanity attempting to rebuild civilisation at the far end of time - and the practical applications of bobbles multiply with the benefits of advanced tech to create a dizzying story of survival and conflict.
Vinge's other great strength is worldbuilding, and both novels are greatly enhanced by the fully-formed and complex worlds he has created. Written almost 40 years ago, the books stand up well as thought-provoking pieces of entertainment
I would have given up, but it niggled at me, so I finally bit the bullet and bought a dead tree copy - the compendium Across Realtime. I'm glad I did.
Like the best science fiction, Across Realtime riffs off a simple idea: the bobbles. These are shiny spheres that are created by a bobble generator. They can be any size (depending on the power available) and they can last for any period of time, from milliseconds to millenia. Inside the bobble, time stops. Complete and perfect stasis. The exterior of the bobble is indestructible. Drop it into the sun and the contents remain intact (until or unless the bobble bursts, of course).
The fact that even the bobble creators are unaware of some of the bobbles' more amazing properties leads to some excellent turnarounds in the first book The Peace War, but in both books, the existence of bobble technology is only a starting point. The books extrapolate on many different practical applications for the bobbles, which drive the narrative and action in unexpected directions.
The Peace War focuses on the period 5o years after bobble technology emerged and those who owned it - the Peacers - bobbled every government and military installation on the planet and declared themselves rules 'for the good of all others'. In effect it's a not-so-benevolent dictatorship against which the general population begins to strain, particularly the Tinkers who dabble on the fringes of what is now forbidden technology (because the Peacers are jealous of their monopoly on the creation and control of bobbles). Marooned in Realtime jumps millions of years past the end of the first book to the last remnants of humanity attempting to rebuild civilisation at the far end of time - and the practical applications of bobbles multiply with the benefits of advanced tech to create a dizzying story of survival and conflict.
Vinge's other great strength is worldbuilding, and both novels are greatly enhanced by the fully-formed and complex worlds he has created. Written almost 40 years ago, the books stand up well as thought-provoking pieces of entertainment
March 21, 2014
It looks like I read this in record time, but really I had some technical problems trying to enter it--first, I entered the wrong book, because I made a stab at remembering the title when I didn't have the book in front of me, then it wouldn't let me delete the other and add this one. So here I am, on the night I finished reading it, finally managing to get the system to accept that I started.
This is another "second time through" book. It actually might be third time through, I'm not quite sure, but my son had commented on reading something by Asimov and on having thoroughly enjoyed Bradbury's Illustrated Man, and I went digging for my copy of Fahrenheit 451 (I, too, enjoyed Illustrated Man, along with Martian Chronicles and S is for Space, when I was a bit younger than he is now, but I think Fahrenheit 451 is the necessary Bradbury book; I even referenced it in a recent article http://www.examiner.com/article/freed... on free speech), and I didn't find it but handed him several books I thought he might enjoy, and then took this one back because I thought I would enjoy it again.
It is a strange book, because it is in one sense all one story, set in the same world, and in another sense three different stories. All three were previously published separately. It begins with a novel, "The Peace War", and then there is a longish short story set in the world left behind by that war years later, "The Ungoverned", and then another novel, "Marooned in Realtime", in which one of the heroes of the first novel joins the hero of the short story thousands of years in the future. Despite the temporal discontinuity and the significant differences between the stories, it feels like it's all part of one work.
The first presupposes that the best theoretical mathematician of the end of the twentieth century had figured out how to create what appeared to be a force sphere, what became known as a "bobble", and his bosses built a machine to do it and proceeded to conquer the world by containing all national military forces in such bobbles, and thereafter severely restricting all technology outside its own use. An uprising of "tinkers", led by said mathematician, ultimately defeated them, as the bobble is discovered to be something different from what even he thought and he determines how to make better ones with portable equipment to use against them. Even so, it is because of a decision made by a double agent that the world survives, and the psychological drama of it is at least as compelling as the fighting and gadgetry.
That gadgetry includes early mind/machine interface devices, mostly used for pinball-like games. The mathematician, who is obviously getting old, finds a young boy, Wili Wachendon, bright enough to be his apprentice, who takes to these devices like an extension of his own mind. With the downfall of the organization that called itself "The Peace", they begin trying to build a new world.
The short story happens within that new world, when the Republic of New Mexico decides to annex territory in the free lands to the north, and already famous detective Wil W. Brierson, named for that young mathematician, is sent in response to a distress call from a private security firm. Thanks to the way the free people defend their own property, the New Mexico army is repelled, and Brierson becomes even more of a hero than he was.
He also gets bobbled, in a later investigation not covered in the stories, and finds himself fifty thousand years in the future, where the ragtag remains of humanity are being gathered in the hope that they can rebuild a viable society. One of the heroes of the first story also arrives, apparently having traveled through deep space in search of answers as to what happened to humanity while she was away, although at least one person believes she is not human--and at nine thousand years old (she looks much younger, thanks to the advanced medical technology of our near future) she is one of the few people who must be trusted when it becomes apparent that someone is trying to destroy the colony. One of its key leaders is murdered, and Brierson's expertise comes into play to solve the mystery. In the end, the stories are connected in surprising ways, and humanity has a real chance to survive, but it is touch and go for a while.
Vinge believes in the "singularity", a concept which I think he created, and somewhere between the second and third stories it apparently has occurred. As a result, all of humanity left earth, perhaps left this dimension entirely, although where they went and how is one of the mysteries Vinge (wisely) does not answer. On the other hand, I found his dismissal of religion annoying. One of the characters was expecting the Second Coming of Christ, bobbled himself and his followers forward to the time he thought it would happen, and then discovering the earth completely depopulated concluded that he had miscalculated, that it had already come--but that God would be merciful and come back for him and any of the stragglers who repented and turned to Him. I have mixed feelings about that conceptually, but the character is portrayed as an annoying nutcase, which I find offensive. He is, however, a minor player in the story, and there are other nutcases each with his own obsession--so consistently among the later departing people that Brierson suspects some kind of monomania is necessary for anyone to push forward through centuries of life into the future. On the concept itself, there certainly is good evidence for the convergence of technologies in a way that will make humanity very different at the end of this century (more so than the previous century), but the notion that we will cease to be corporeal creatures with a preference for planetary habitats is not so credible. I don't know where Vinge expects people to go, but I think he's mistaken on that.
On the other hand, it makes for a fun story overall, and I'll admit that although I remembered much of the book, I did not remember whodunit, or why, for the most part. It's worth reading.
This is another "second time through" book. It actually might be third time through, I'm not quite sure, but my son had commented on reading something by Asimov and on having thoroughly enjoyed Bradbury's Illustrated Man, and I went digging for my copy of Fahrenheit 451 (I, too, enjoyed Illustrated Man, along with Martian Chronicles and S is for Space, when I was a bit younger than he is now, but I think Fahrenheit 451 is the necessary Bradbury book; I even referenced it in a recent article http://www.examiner.com/article/freed... on free speech), and I didn't find it but handed him several books I thought he might enjoy, and then took this one back because I thought I would enjoy it again.
It is a strange book, because it is in one sense all one story, set in the same world, and in another sense three different stories. All three were previously published separately. It begins with a novel, "The Peace War", and then there is a longish short story set in the world left behind by that war years later, "The Ungoverned", and then another novel, "Marooned in Realtime", in which one of the heroes of the first novel joins the hero of the short story thousands of years in the future. Despite the temporal discontinuity and the significant differences between the stories, it feels like it's all part of one work.
The first presupposes that the best theoretical mathematician of the end of the twentieth century had figured out how to create what appeared to be a force sphere, what became known as a "bobble", and his bosses built a machine to do it and proceeded to conquer the world by containing all national military forces in such bobbles, and thereafter severely restricting all technology outside its own use. An uprising of "tinkers", led by said mathematician, ultimately defeated them, as the bobble is discovered to be something different from what even he thought and he determines how to make better ones with portable equipment to use against them. Even so, it is because of a decision made by a double agent that the world survives, and the psychological drama of it is at least as compelling as the fighting and gadgetry.
That gadgetry includes early mind/machine interface devices, mostly used for pinball-like games. The mathematician, who is obviously getting old, finds a young boy, Wili Wachendon, bright enough to be his apprentice, who takes to these devices like an extension of his own mind. With the downfall of the organization that called itself "The Peace", they begin trying to build a new world.
The short story happens within that new world, when the Republic of New Mexico decides to annex territory in the free lands to the north, and already famous detective Wil W. Brierson, named for that young mathematician, is sent in response to a distress call from a private security firm. Thanks to the way the free people defend their own property, the New Mexico army is repelled, and Brierson becomes even more of a hero than he was.
He also gets bobbled, in a later investigation not covered in the stories, and finds himself fifty thousand years in the future, where the ragtag remains of humanity are being gathered in the hope that they can rebuild a viable society. One of the heroes of the first story also arrives, apparently having traveled through deep space in search of answers as to what happened to humanity while she was away, although at least one person believes she is not human--and at nine thousand years old (she looks much younger, thanks to the advanced medical technology of our near future) she is one of the few people who must be trusted when it becomes apparent that someone is trying to destroy the colony. One of its key leaders is murdered, and Brierson's expertise comes into play to solve the mystery. In the end, the stories are connected in surprising ways, and humanity has a real chance to survive, but it is touch and go for a while.
Vinge believes in the "singularity", a concept which I think he created, and somewhere between the second and third stories it apparently has occurred. As a result, all of humanity left earth, perhaps left this dimension entirely, although where they went and how is one of the mysteries Vinge (wisely) does not answer. On the other hand, I found his dismissal of religion annoying. One of the characters was expecting the Second Coming of Christ, bobbled himself and his followers forward to the time he thought it would happen, and then discovering the earth completely depopulated concluded that he had miscalculated, that it had already come--but that God would be merciful and come back for him and any of the stragglers who repented and turned to Him. I have mixed feelings about that conceptually, but the character is portrayed as an annoying nutcase, which I find offensive. He is, however, a minor player in the story, and there are other nutcases each with his own obsession--so consistently among the later departing people that Brierson suspects some kind of monomania is necessary for anyone to push forward through centuries of life into the future. On the concept itself, there certainly is good evidence for the convergence of technologies in a way that will make humanity very different at the end of this century (more so than the previous century), but the notion that we will cease to be corporeal creatures with a preference for planetary habitats is not so credible. I don't know where Vinge expects people to go, but I think he's mistaken on that.
On the other hand, it makes for a fun story overall, and I'll admit that although I remembered much of the book, I did not remember whodunit, or why, for the most part. It's worth reading.
October 7, 2021
This is an interesting concept and, (as it's two separate books) has two distinct parts. The first part is set in a not too distant future where a new 'weapon' is created and what it does. Mankind is linked to computers via various different types of devices and this is ostensibly the story of one young 'nerdy' man, who makes friends and helps fight back against the oppressive 'government'.
The second book is far more complex and is set in a time period far forward of the events in the first book. Humanity has become fragmented and rare and only those with lots of money and technology can survive as they time-hop (forwards) to rescue the remnants of mankind who have been marooned in time. Once a (barely) viable community has been established, the decision is taken to find a 'time' to settle down in and try to re-populate earth - but it all changes when there is a deliberate murder of one of the high-techs.........
The second book is far more complex and is set in a time period far forward of the events in the first book. Humanity has become fragmented and rare and only those with lots of money and technology can survive as they time-hop (forwards) to rescue the remnants of mankind who have been marooned in time. Once a (barely) viable community has been established, the decision is taken to find a 'time' to settle down in and try to re-populate earth - but it all changes when there is a deliberate murder of one of the high-techs.........
December 12, 2023
Not to disparage the actual book(s), which were perfectly fine, but I might have enjoyed a list "101 Things to do with a Bobbler" just as much - there's just so much potential there for cool ideas!
September 4, 2020
The first part of the omnibus, Peace War, was genuinely enjoyable despite a lot of clumsy pacing and abrupt transitions between times/places/narrators.
The novella portion, The Ungoverned, was fine but pointless.
I'm now a few chapters into the final part, Marooned In Realtime, and bored/confused out of my skull. Probably gonna DNF.
Two major questions, ok maybe 3:
-if the bobble full of Peacers that they're waiting for is the one that had Della Lu in it, the how is Della Lu also out and about as a spacer??
-if Wil Brierson is Wili from the first book, how does he not remember Della Lu's name? If he's basically forgotten his entire adolescence, shouldn't that be, I dunno, explained at some point?
-why are all these people with advanced tech worried about genetic diversity at all costs? They can make 90-year-olds look like teens, but they can't figure out how to make a viable population out of 200 people-- they MUST have 300? I just don't buy it as a premise, and honestly, the whole argument between the people who wanna stay and settle down and the people who wanna skip through the millennia seems fake and unnecessary. If people wanna go time-touring, why don't the ones who wanna stay just say, "ok, may we have some of yer sperm n eggs plz, ok thx, bye, have fun!"? I just don't understand how any of this makes for a plausible basis for the story.
The novella portion, The Ungoverned, was fine but pointless.
I'm now a few chapters into the final part, Marooned In Realtime, and bored/confused out of my skull. Probably gonna DNF.
Two major questions, ok maybe 3:
-if the bobble full of Peacers that they're waiting for is the one that had Della Lu in it, the how is Della Lu also out and about as a spacer??
-if Wil Brierson is Wili from the first book, how does he not remember Della Lu's name? If he's basically forgotten his entire adolescence, shouldn't that be, I dunno, explained at some point?
-why are all these people with advanced tech worried about genetic diversity at all costs? They can make 90-year-olds look like teens, but they can't figure out how to make a viable population out of 200 people-- they MUST have 300? I just don't buy it as a premise, and honestly, the whole argument between the people who wanna stay and settle down and the people who wanna skip through the millennia seems fake and unnecessary. If people wanna go time-touring, why don't the ones who wanna stay just say, "ok, may we have some of yer sperm n eggs plz, ok thx, bye, have fun!"? I just don't understand how any of this makes for a plausible basis for the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 23, 2017
These two books, collected in one, are, if you ask me, the best Vinge has written. They're much better than his later, over-hyped (but still not bad) Fire Upon the Deep.
...
Well, that settles it. I set out to write a positive review to prove that I can do it, but I can't. All I can do is nitpick these books to death and explain how I would have written an even better story. So... never mind me and just go read the book.
...
Well, that settles it. I set out to write a positive review to prove that I can do it, but I can't. All I can do is nitpick these books to death and explain how I would have written an even better story. So... never mind me and just go read the book.
May 10, 2017
OMG Libertarians love to talk about libertarianism.
November 10, 2017
This short SF novella is probably the best description (sort of a caricature, but still accurate) of a Hoppean libertarian social order/ancapistan.
March 19, 2012
have read all vv books i am aware of. so i guess that makes me a vinge-e.
September 15, 2021
A lot of reading in one package. Two novels and a novella that create and investigate quite the engaging world of interesting concepts. Foremost is the concept of a bobble, an unbreakable forcefield bubble that can be generated due to some kind of quantum mathematics.
In The Peace War the bobbles are initially only in the employ of the Peace Authority, a group of scientists and bureaucrats who effectively run the world because they bobbled concentrations of military weapons and personnel, and overpowered whoever remained—around the time of a major war in which plagues wipe out much of humanity. A genius apprentice named Wili Wachendon and his patron figure out how to use the science of bobbles without the capital costs, and scheme to overthrow the tyranny of Peace.
I thought it was pretty good. The hi-tech shenanigans the protagonists can get up to even with no labour power was an interesting concept. Supercomputers riding around in horse-drawn wagons, that kind of stuff. Once again there was a kind of lurk going on, prefiguring that of A Deepness in the Sky and fairly similar. The author’s agenda doesn’t need much analysis. Needless to say: tyranny is bad and needs to be resisted by free thinking folk (and there’s no way, absolutely none, that that line of free thought and personal freedom could ever be manipulated or distorted).
The Ungoverned takes place after the first novel. In it, the nation of New Mexico tries to invade free association of libertarian Kansas (gotta love future Balkanization) and the story follows that invasion and the results it yields. It’s a short novella, almost a short story even, and a good enough read. It’s a bit jarring coming out of The Peace War, as the protagonist has the same name, though he works as an insurance guy who’s on the side of the invaded.
Finally there’s Marooned in Realtime the most “sci-fi” novel in the bunch in which people use bobbles to transit thousands of years, and Wili (not that Wili, this is the Wili from Kansas) comes out of a 10,000 year unwarranted imprisonment in a bobble (the story doesn't go too deeply into this aspect which is a lost opportunity, but there's Action and Science Fiction to be had I guess) to find out that everyone he knew, and in fact the world he knew, is long gone.
So there’s hi-tech people from near the end of human civilization when companies started pumping solar hydrogen and turning it into antimatter (only to abandon it months later when some better scheme made it irrelevant), when 1 year made the difference between really futuristic stuff and even more futuristic stuff so cutting edge that it gives futurists life-threatening priapism—including highly advanced automation, immortality, spaceflight, nuclear arsenals, mind/machine interfaces, bobbles filled with equipment floating around the L5 point or on an asteroid, and plenty more… just your every day 23rd century camping gear, if you’re wealthy, I guess. There’s also low-tech people who don’t have much of a say, but they can at least be used by the wealthy, well-equipped few who want to rebuild humanity.
In this final novel, earth is abandoned except for some hi-tech people who bobbled too long and some low-tech people who got rescued or located by them. A prominent hi-tech gets stranded outside of the bobbles in realtime without recourse to their wealth or technology which were all bobbled, while the rest of the gang sits for a thousand years in their bobbles. That’s a drawn-out murder, and Wili has to solve it. In the meantime, Peace Authority people and New Mexico people come back out of bobbles that the hi-tech people have unearthed from the continental crust. Wili goes around and solves the mystery, but will he be able to cope with the strange future he’s marooned in?
I liked it. Each section held enough appeal to keep me engrossed or at least turning pages. I read a lot of it in the splendid isolation of a remote lake, which helped me get into it. Sometimes it was rollicking good fun, and there were some fairly slack chapters and parts as well, but the concepts are interesting and the telling is done with craft, and even if it is not outrageously well-told, it gives one quite the epic sense.
Then there’s the inherent value of two novels and a novella, all from the same setting, in the same volume. I don’t know if it reached the same heights as A Deepness in the Sky, but Across Realtime was good either way, and gave that feeling of reading interesting/good sci-fi that doesn't always come with the territory.
In The Peace War the bobbles are initially only in the employ of the Peace Authority, a group of scientists and bureaucrats who effectively run the world because they bobbled concentrations of military weapons and personnel, and overpowered whoever remained—around the time of a major war in which plagues wipe out much of humanity. A genius apprentice named Wili Wachendon and his patron figure out how to use the science of bobbles without the capital costs, and scheme to overthrow the tyranny of Peace.
I thought it was pretty good. The hi-tech shenanigans the protagonists can get up to even with no labour power was an interesting concept. Supercomputers riding around in horse-drawn wagons, that kind of stuff. Once again there was a kind of lurk going on, prefiguring that of A Deepness in the Sky and fairly similar. The author’s agenda doesn’t need much analysis. Needless to say: tyranny is bad and needs to be resisted by free thinking folk (and there’s no way, absolutely none, that that line of free thought and personal freedom could ever be manipulated or distorted).
The Ungoverned takes place after the first novel. In it, the nation of New Mexico tries to invade free association of libertarian Kansas (gotta love future Balkanization) and the story follows that invasion and the results it yields. It’s a short novella, almost a short story even, and a good enough read. It’s a bit jarring coming out of The Peace War, as the protagonist has the same name, though he works as an insurance guy who’s on the side of the invaded.
Finally there’s Marooned in Realtime the most “sci-fi” novel in the bunch in which people use bobbles to transit thousands of years, and Wili (not that Wili, this is the Wili from Kansas) comes out of a 10,000 year unwarranted imprisonment in a bobble (the story doesn't go too deeply into this aspect which is a lost opportunity, but there's Action and Science Fiction to be had I guess) to find out that everyone he knew, and in fact the world he knew, is long gone.
So there’s hi-tech people from near the end of human civilization when companies started pumping solar hydrogen and turning it into antimatter (only to abandon it months later when some better scheme made it irrelevant), when 1 year made the difference between really futuristic stuff and even more futuristic stuff so cutting edge that it gives futurists life-threatening priapism—including highly advanced automation, immortality, spaceflight, nuclear arsenals, mind/machine interfaces, bobbles filled with equipment floating around the L5 point or on an asteroid, and plenty more… just your every day 23rd century camping gear, if you’re wealthy, I guess. There’s also low-tech people who don’t have much of a say, but they can at least be used by the wealthy, well-equipped few who want to rebuild humanity.
In this final novel, earth is abandoned except for some hi-tech people who bobbled too long and some low-tech people who got rescued or located by them. A prominent hi-tech gets stranded outside of the bobbles in realtime without recourse to their wealth or technology which were all bobbled, while the rest of the gang sits for a thousand years in their bobbles. That’s a drawn-out murder, and Wili has to solve it. In the meantime, Peace Authority people and New Mexico people come back out of bobbles that the hi-tech people have unearthed from the continental crust. Wili goes around and solves the mystery, but will he be able to cope with the strange future he’s marooned in?
I liked it. Each section held enough appeal to keep me engrossed or at least turning pages. I read a lot of it in the splendid isolation of a remote lake, which helped me get into it. Sometimes it was rollicking good fun, and there were some fairly slack chapters and parts as well, but the concepts are interesting and the telling is done with craft, and even if it is not outrageously well-told, it gives one quite the epic sense.
Then there’s the inherent value of two novels and a novella, all from the same setting, in the same volume. I don’t know if it reached the same heights as A Deepness in the Sky, but Across Realtime was good either way, and gave that feeling of reading interesting/good sci-fi that doesn't always come with the territory.
March 4, 2020
Reading this series is like peeking through a window into the expectations of the middle 80's, when the world could go only up. Reading it, you feel just a step from Fuckuyama's End of History. And, in a sense, Vernor Virge with his libertarian technological singularity theory - as outdated as the initial Heinlenesque text from the first book hoped to popularise just that.
But the world does not become a science-fiction reality. As an old prophet used to say: the future is never like we expected it to be. So, if that part is a failure, what actually makes his books good?
Firstly, the musings about philosophical time: what if we can live through all of it? what if we live too much and miss the most important event of human history? Or what if we are the only ones left?
Secondly, the actual text. It seems that Vinge is, paradoxically, better at writing than at storytelling. And for this, I was unable to stop reading it all.
Would I read it again? No. I enjoyed it? Definitely yes.
But the world does not become a science-fiction reality. As an old prophet used to say: the future is never like we expected it to be. So, if that part is a failure, what actually makes his books good?
Firstly, the musings about philosophical time: what if we can live through all of it? what if we live too much and miss the most important event of human history? Or what if we are the only ones left?
Secondly, the actual text. It seems that Vinge is, paradoxically, better at writing than at storytelling. And for this, I was unable to stop reading it all.
Would I read it again? No. I enjoyed it? Definitely yes.
April 1, 2022
Overall good, with many interesting ideas and technologies, but like "A Fire Upon the Deep" this book bogs down in its own unnecessary levels of details and side-plots that make it just a slog to finish. It's three stories strung together as one narrative, but all would be much better and digestible as separate books. Vinge needs a more forceful editor to tell him "Uh, we should cut about 100 pages of things that don't need to be said."
I liked the story, the technological ideas are great, it's just TOO MUCH which really ruins it.
I liked the story, the technological ideas are great, it's just TOO MUCH which really ruins it.
Shelved as 'tbr-fysieke-boeken'
February 5, 2022***what sucked me in***
A recommendation to read this by someone who seems to have read a lot of hard sci-fi but also recommended a lot of them written by women. While also acknowledging that a good sci-fi doesn't only have to get the technical side of things right but that the social side also have to be right or at least believable.
But this author "...was a computer science professor and his thinking about AI is profound.", I'm a sucker for good AI stories.
A recommendation to read this by someone who seems to have read a lot of hard sci-fi but also recommended a lot of them written by women. While also acknowledging that a good sci-fi doesn't only have to get the technical side of things right but that the social side also have to be right or at least believable.
But this author "...was a computer science professor and his thinking about AI is profound.", I'm a sucker for good AI stories.
September 4, 2019
Two somewhat related shorter novels published as one book. First half is a bit boring look at a totalitarian near future. Interesting ideas but it failed to grab me in any way.
The second half is a bit more interesting. It's is basically a detective novel set in an extremely distant future.
I've enjoyed '90s Vinge novels much more than these earlier ones. I think I will stick to the newer ones.
The second half is a bit more interesting. It's is basically a detective novel set in an extremely distant future.
I've enjoyed '90s Vinge novels much more than these earlier ones. I think I will stick to the newer ones.
September 21, 2017
This compilation includes The Peace War, and Marooned in Realtime, as well as a short story set in the same "world." All were quite interesting, though Marooned in Realtime bogged down a bit in the middle. A well thought out "what if" novel.
December 26, 2019
This is two books combined in a single edition. And that's a good thing. The first is a necessary prequel to the second, which is the more interesting of the two. This is not peak Vinge, but it's pretty good all the same.
May 6, 2020
Unique, if somewhat dated, take on time travel and the singularity. Vinge always has big ideas that make you think outside of the box and while this may not be his strongest effort, I suspect I'll be thinking about it's implications for a while.
January 15, 2018
Vernor Vinge is an author I often overlook, but I am always thrilled with when I finish reading. This was no exception. Compares favorably to Lucifer's Hammer.
April 18, 2019
Classic 1990's sci-fi time travel novel. A little mind-bending at times due to the sheer length of time encompassed with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. Was a little drawn out though.
July 29, 2020
Nice, with some original ideas about one-way time travel and its social implications, technological singularity, and destiny of the humanity. Also a lively action/mystery plot.
December 10, 2021
Great story, captivating until the very last end
November 1, 2022
Pretty good sci Fi. Some of it didn't age well.
January 4, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in October 2001.
Although presented in this edition as a single entity, Across Realtime is really two novels, as it was originally published: The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.
Te concept which fuels the plot of the two novels is is an impenetrable sphere of force, perfectly reflective and frictionless, which encloses whatever is within it in a fixed instant of time until the bobble bursts. Not much is said about the physics of these objects, which are basically unexplained plot devices in a traditional science fiction manner. My feeling is that they are impossible, since quantum tunnelling would allow particles to pass through the skin, and this would force a thermodynamic connection between the inside and outside, making time pass.
In the first novel, which has the excellent title The Peace War, the bobbles have been used by the Peace Authority to set up a world wide dictatorship (just bobble any opposition). The plot is about the fight to overturn them, led by the man who invented the bobble and a young boy, his genius apprentice.
The second novel, Marooned in Realtime, is set millions of years later. It is a more successful story than The Peace War, which takes quite a long time to get going. It is a murder investigation, and it has three mysteries at its heart. Wil Brierson is a policeman from the late twenty first century, who was effectively murdered - separated from his family and friends by being bobbled for thousands of years by a fugitive suspect. This crime was punished by the courts by bobbling the perpetrator for the same length of time, and placing this bobble and an account of the crime next to that of the victim so that he could prepare his own vengeance after his release.
This wouldn't be much of a mystery except for the central fact of the novel. The long term bobbled have found themselves in a world with no humans, and a variety of untestable theories are put forward for the disappearance - alien invasion, the second coming, a universal transcendence to some higher level of being. Marta and Yelen, among the last survivors to leave civilisation (and therefore among the most technologically advanced), decide that the only hope for human survival is for all the remaining people to band together, and as part of this they rescue Wil's assailant and give him a new identity.
The third investigation, which is the principal one in terms of the crime plot, is into murder committed with an opposite method to the attack on Wil. To gather as many recruits as possible, Marta's growing community bobbles itself through thousands of years until other bobbles break; but now an enemy hacks her computer system so that she is left outside the bobble, alone on the planet until the end of her natural lifespan away from medical technology.
Wil's investigation into this makes the novel a fascinating mystery, with an interesting background among the animals evolved since the disappearance. Marooned in Realtime is easily the better of the two stories, and The Peace War is really more like an explanation of its background than something similar to it in stature. Both, however, are of interest; Marooned in Realtime is one of the best pieces of eighties science fiction.
Although presented in this edition as a single entity, Across Realtime is really two novels, as it was originally published: The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.
Te concept which fuels the plot of the two novels is is an impenetrable sphere of force, perfectly reflective and frictionless, which encloses whatever is within it in a fixed instant of time until the bobble bursts. Not much is said about the physics of these objects, which are basically unexplained plot devices in a traditional science fiction manner. My feeling is that they are impossible, since quantum tunnelling would allow particles to pass through the skin, and this would force a thermodynamic connection between the inside and outside, making time pass.
In the first novel, which has the excellent title The Peace War, the bobbles have been used by the Peace Authority to set up a world wide dictatorship (just bobble any opposition). The plot is about the fight to overturn them, led by the man who invented the bobble and a young boy, his genius apprentice.
The second novel, Marooned in Realtime, is set millions of years later. It is a more successful story than The Peace War, which takes quite a long time to get going. It is a murder investigation, and it has three mysteries at its heart. Wil Brierson is a policeman from the late twenty first century, who was effectively murdered - separated from his family and friends by being bobbled for thousands of years by a fugitive suspect. This crime was punished by the courts by bobbling the perpetrator for the same length of time, and placing this bobble and an account of the crime next to that of the victim so that he could prepare his own vengeance after his release.
This wouldn't be much of a mystery except for the central fact of the novel. The long term bobbled have found themselves in a world with no humans, and a variety of untestable theories are put forward for the disappearance - alien invasion, the second coming, a universal transcendence to some higher level of being. Marta and Yelen, among the last survivors to leave civilisation (and therefore among the most technologically advanced), decide that the only hope for human survival is for all the remaining people to band together, and as part of this they rescue Wil's assailant and give him a new identity.
The third investigation, which is the principal one in terms of the crime plot, is into murder committed with an opposite method to the attack on Wil. To gather as many recruits as possible, Marta's growing community bobbles itself through thousands of years until other bobbles break; but now an enemy hacks her computer system so that she is left outside the bobble, alone on the planet until the end of her natural lifespan away from medical technology.
Wil's investigation into this makes the novel a fascinating mystery, with an interesting background among the animals evolved since the disappearance. Marooned in Realtime is easily the better of the two stories, and The Peace War is really more like an explanation of its background than something similar to it in stature. Both, however, are of interest; Marooned in Realtime is one of the best pieces of eighties science fiction.
February 2, 2020
5 MIND-BENDING STARS - I would like to start this review with a comment on the edition I purchased which, at the time, was out-of-print.
Across Realtime is a collection of all the Vinge stories set in this same world/reality. It is supposed to reprint two novels (The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime) as well as one novella ("The Ungoverned"). Unfortunately my edition only had The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.
Of those stories the ladder, Marooned in Realtime, is the more compelling. Set 50 million years after the first, a murder investigation is at the heart of this multi-mystery tale that will decide the fate of humanity.
In the former story though, which has the excellent title 'The Peace War', we follow an intrepid group of clever post-apocalyptic mathematicians, and their friends, as they fight to overturn the world wide dictatorship of The Peace Authority in 2047.
The Authority had come to power 50 years earlier using an
invention called a "bobble" on the armies and governments of the world.
Bobbles are impenetrable spheres of force, perfectly reflective and frictionless, which encloses whatever is within it in a fixed instant of time until the bobble bursts.
As always the with Vinge's words I was carried feet first into this vibrantly populated America of interesting and clever characters as they are motivated by love, hate and the occasional lump of guilt into organizing a rebellion in a world where peace is in enforced by a onetime think-tank who's discovery of "bobbling" allowed them to win global domination.
A world where the outlawing and control of "big" technology has left "little" tech to be refined by groups of Tinkerers and forward thinking minds.
Now jumping 50 megayears ahead we see what the last enclaves of humanity are like. Marooned in Realtime follows users of the "bobble" who have dropped out again and again (bobbled themselves to travel into the future) until one day they awake to an empty world. Humanity just gone, without a trace.
Together the survivors have once again decided to live in Realtime in hopes of revitalize the human race. But even here human's are just that... human.
And one detective, the last detective, kidnapped from his own time while on a case and thrust into a future where his whole family's offspring had long ago turned to dust must now try to save this new world order by discovering the identity of a murderer before this band of time refugees tenuous alliance splinters into nothing.
But can he discover who marooned one of the group leaders in Realtime, while the rest 'bobbled-up for the winter', before this last chance for humanity is lost?
Marooned in Realtime won the Prometheus Award in 1987 and was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel that same year. And while The Peace War was not as gripping it was a great way to get your feet wet in this word of Vinge's.
So while I did like the 2nd story more the read of the whole book was great and I would recommend this book to anyone who was interested in time travel stories, mysteries and adventure.
Across Realtime is a collection of all the Vinge stories set in this same world/reality. It is supposed to reprint two novels (The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime) as well as one novella ("The Ungoverned"). Unfortunately my edition only had The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime.
Of those stories the ladder, Marooned in Realtime, is the more compelling. Set 50 million years after the first, a murder investigation is at the heart of this multi-mystery tale that will decide the fate of humanity.
In the former story though, which has the excellent title 'The Peace War', we follow an intrepid group of clever post-apocalyptic mathematicians, and their friends, as they fight to overturn the world wide dictatorship of The Peace Authority in 2047.
The Authority had come to power 50 years earlier using an
invention called a "bobble" on the armies and governments of the world.
Bobbles are impenetrable spheres of force, perfectly reflective and frictionless, which encloses whatever is within it in a fixed instant of time until the bobble bursts.
As always the with Vinge's words I was carried feet first into this vibrantly populated America of interesting and clever characters as they are motivated by love, hate and the occasional lump of guilt into organizing a rebellion in a world where peace is in enforced by a onetime think-tank who's discovery of "bobbling" allowed them to win global domination.
A world where the outlawing and control of "big" technology has left "little" tech to be refined by groups of Tinkerers and forward thinking minds.
Now jumping 50 megayears ahead we see what the last enclaves of humanity are like. Marooned in Realtime follows users of the "bobble" who have dropped out again and again (bobbled themselves to travel into the future) until one day they awake to an empty world. Humanity just gone, without a trace.
Together the survivors have once again decided to live in Realtime in hopes of revitalize the human race. But even here human's are just that... human.
And one detective, the last detective, kidnapped from his own time while on a case and thrust into a future where his whole family's offspring had long ago turned to dust must now try to save this new world order by discovering the identity of a murderer before this band of time refugees tenuous alliance splinters into nothing.
But can he discover who marooned one of the group leaders in Realtime, while the rest 'bobbled-up for the winter', before this last chance for humanity is lost?
Marooned in Realtime won the Prometheus Award in 1987 and was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel that same year. And while The Peace War was not as gripping it was a great way to get your feet wet in this word of Vinge's.
So while I did like the 2nd story more the read of the whole book was great and I would recommend this book to anyone who was interested in time travel stories, mysteries and adventure.
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