RIP, Vernor Vinge
Posted on March 21, 2024 Posted by John Scalzi 37 Comments
Author and friend of Vernor David Brin made the announcement in a Facebook post, and I’ve seen it confirmed elsewhere as well that Vernor Vinge, who three times won the Hugo for best novel, has died. This is a tremendous loss to the world of science fiction, as Vernor’s best books, including A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky (Hugo winners both) were the sort of mindblowing worldbuilding and character creation that no one ever did better. Not for nothing, he was among the first to write and talk about the idea of a technological singularity, a concept so common in science fiction and tech industry circles (and of course the overlap there is an almost perfect circle) that it doesn’t feel like it has a progenitor, and that it just existed ambiently. That’s a hell of a thing to have contributed to the world.
I was not personally a close friend of Vernor’s but we met on several occasions — I absconded with him for lunch at the Penguicon convention one year early on in my career, and I think he was amused at my cheekiness for doing so, and I of course paid the check — and every time we met I found him to be lovely, and thoughtful, and kind. Many others will write more about him in the coming days, but I personally thank him for being kind to me in the early days of my career, and continuing to be kind as we all went along. I will miss him as a fan, and a fellow writer. Fortunately his books are still with us. If you’ve never read them, prepare to be wowed.
— JS
LOVED The Peace War as a teen.
I remember reading “Marooned in Realtime” when I was in the army in the mid-80’s. Definitely wowed me then.
RIP, Vernon Vinge :(
As I can recall I only read ‘The Cookie Monster’ from him, and after 20 years it’s still one of my favorites.
Wow, yes, that’s a loss. The immensely detailed universes he created, the ethical dilemmas, those dog-like beings with distributed intelligence–very cool stuff.
I still think of Fire Upon the Deep. There was a sense of scale in that book that I’ve never seen done as well anywhere else. The reader could really feel the size the galaxy and our smallness within it.
I think that’s the exact right feeling to be feeling right now.
I loved the core concepts he introduced, almost as an afterthought: whole star systems communicating via a BBS bulletin board, reflecting the early days of the World Wide Web; zones of computing; living via distributed time via the bubbles, and even plans to digitize all books, effectively shredding the physical copies. Truly one of my favorites.
I remember Tinker, one of the first stories I ever read about time travel as a one way trip to the future and being wowed by it. And I never thought of this before now, but possibly a precursor to the Peace War and Marooned in Real Time?
Vernor Vinge. What a tremendous science fiction author and how sad that he is gone. I always looked forward to a new novel written by him. He will be deeply missed.
Sad to read of his passing. I’ve read some of these books mentioned, and they were amazing, I’ll need to check out his backlog.
‘Grimm’s World’ was one of the first SF books I read, in the early 70s. He just got better and better.
Vale.
Rest in peace. Such interesting aliens he brought to live!
I first ran into his work when I was 9-10 and working through my county library’s sf magazine collection; The Peace War was serialized. I was hooked.
My wife and I had a chance to take him and a co-panelist out for drinks for an hour between panels at a NorWesCon many, many years ago (not too long after A Deepness in the Sky came out) and it was a wonderful, thoughtful conversation.
May his memory continue to be a light to all of us.
Not only that, but I also don’t think he’s given enough credit for being one of the OG progenitors of modern cyberpunk. His novella “True Names” was one of the first stories to fully flesh out the idea cyberspace, virtual reality, and computer hacking a full three years before Neuromancer was published.
Truly one of the real geniuses of speculative literature. He will be missed.
Sad news. I met him about 15 years ago, at an ALA conference. Lovely man, great writer. A Fire Upon The Deep and Rainbows End are two of my favorites. RIP.
“True Names” was so important to the Cypherpunks movement and cyberspace in general that there was a 2001 book with the story and a host of articles computer science and privacy people from Marvin Minsky to Tim May.
There’s also been a pdf floating around the net that looks suspiciously like a scan of a paperback copy I gave to a friend of mine when it was out of print, judging from the illustrations and cover art in that 1984 edition.
Oh Boy, I have no words. Truly one of the greats. I discovered him a little late but I am so glad I did. I have most of his stuff on my kindle…time to revisit
A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky are two that I look forward to rereading, or rather, re-rereading. Such richness! Of the books of his that I’ve read, those two are the standouts. Sorry to see him go.
He taught me PDP assembler language programming at San Diego State back in the early eighties, his teaching was as creative as his writing. H will be missed.
He taught me PDP assembler language programming at San Diego State back in the early eighties, his teaching was as creative as his writing. He will be missed.
RIP, Mr. Vinge. Your unique voice will be missed by many.
Ouch – this is sad, loved all his books – but especially “The Peace War” and “Marooned in Realtime”.
RIP. He will be missed
I still revisit Rainbow’s end along with the three Zones of Thought novels fairly regularly. I had even held out hope for a fourth book in the Zones of Thought series. I’ll need to pick up Marooned in Realtime and the Peace War again.
Sad news, but he will be remembered.
R I P Vernon Vinge
the world is a little colder, a bit smaller, because one of the brightest lights in our sky has faded out
he did not write a zillion books but those he did, larger than life
“The Children of the Sky” was sequel to “Deepness in the Sky” which I kept trying to read during pandemic quarantine right when covid brain fog rolled in and gnawed at me… forgot to finish it… now’s a moment to do so…
Sadness. Your sparkling creativity will be sorely missed, Dr. Vinge. Thanks for the mind-stretching along the way.
Dang, very sorry to hear about Vernor’s passing. Condolences to all his family and friends.
Vinge was also a proto-cyberpunk with his novella True Names. He really had his finger on the pulse of technology.
Deeply sad. Deepness truly took my breath away. Audaciously brilliant work.
That is sad news indeed. We have lost a Great.
As I remarked elsewhere, he had his threescore and ten, and then some extra. A pretty good run.
Seeing the news prompted me to go back and look at some of his old stuff. I found a cache of old Analog magazine scans from the 60s-70s, and re-read Original Sin. And there I realized, Vinge was one of the original proponents of the idea that people of his age might see practical immortality, realized by surviving long enough to catch each successive advance in life-extension before it’s too late. The narrator of that story is about Vinge’s age (he has memories of Chicago in the 1940s) but is active and vigorous sometime in the 23rd or 24th century. Basically by surviving until “the turn of the millenium” he eventually became a being who could only die by violence or accidental trauma.
My dad was a huge scifi fan, and actually went to grad school at UCSD with Vernor. I don’t think they stayed in touch, but my dad read all his books.
Rest in peace
“A Fire Upon the Deep” is the only one of his books that I’ve read, but I loved it. It was a dense, challenging book but, in the end, was worth the work it took to get through it. (You mileage may vary, of course.) Even after reading just the one book, his passing made me incredibly sad. I think it’s time to go read another one of his books now.
Vernor Vince was my computer science professor. He was a wonderful and kind professor. It is so sad to hear of his passing
I actually first met Vernor at an ACM SIG CHI conference, where I”d wrangled the volunteer position at the green room specifically on the day when he and Bruce Sterling were doing a panel on the Future of Human Computer Interaction. It was a delight to meet both of them, though of course Vernor was much more reserved.
He was a great writer, and will be missed.
Another giant passes into history. His legacy will be his work and the people who knew him.
Condolences to his family and those who knew him in person.
“A Deepness in the Sky” is still one of my favourite novels on reread. “Focus” may be one of the more horrifying direct adjustments to humans that I have seen in science fiction.
He will be missed. So Say We All.
Alas, Vernor has come to the end of his rainbow, as do we all, and the sky is now just a little bit duller.
Damn, his Zones of Thought books were great, but the ones that really got to me were Marooned in Realtime and Rainbows End.
It’s amazing how prescient Rainbows End was in 2006 about stuff that’s been hitting the mainstream over the past couple years.