Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/467.SF018104.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-23 | 18KB | 411 lines

SF-LOVERS Digest            Monday, 15 Feb 1993       Volume 18 : Issue 104

Today's Topics:

                   Books - Vinge (9 msgs) & Doc Savage &
                           Wild Cards Novel

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Date: 4 Feb 93 19:48:16 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Matthew P Wiener)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's imitation internet

marshall@seas (Christopher Marshall) writes:
>I liked it.  I don't think he was being unsophisticated in portraying a
>galaxy wide internet as having the familiar text interface that we all
>know and love.  [...]

Those of us who didn't like it weren't saying Vinge was being unrealistic.
Just that the strong similarity to USENET killed the futuristic effect.

Matthew P Wiener
[e-mail]

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Date: 4 Feb 93 19:52:59 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Matthew P Wiener)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge (Fire upon the deep setting)

marshall@seas (Christopher Marshall) writes:
>>For those who are looking over the background to Fire Upon the Deep, you
>>should hunt up a copy of Vernor Vinge's story "The Blabber" [...]

Some of us had been waiting for AFUTD ever since Vinge wrote in the
comments after the story that he was going to continue to explore the
setting.

>I found his True Names in a university library once.  I have never seen
>any of his other stuff.

"True Names" was published as a separate illustrated book, and as the lead
story in the collection TRUE NAMES ... AND OTHER DANGERS.

Matthew P Wiener
[e-mail]

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Date: 4 Feb 93 20:03:24 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Matthew P Wiener)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge (Fire upon the deep setting)

SPOILER alert

matt@physics2 (Matt Austern) writes:
>> "The Blabber" takes place about one thousand years after AFutD.
>
>A thousand, eh?  It's clear from "The Blabber" that it has to take place
>at least 500 years after A Fire Upon the Deep, but I didn't see any
>obvious way to date it more precisely than that.

This brings up the question, what really happened at the end of AFUTD?
Vinge did a marvelous job of not telling us beyond Tineworld.  I assume the
megasurge destroyed most of the Beyond's civilizations, as presumed from
the apocalyptic hints dropped along the way and at the end, without
actually too much direct killing, as presumed from the future memories of
the human who led the anti-Blight attack.

That is, I envision the only way to destroy the Blight was to make it
unable to function, which required a galactic wide slow zone.  I presume
that it would take a long long long time to retreat, and in the meantime,
the megasurge becomes mere legend.

Matthew P Wiener
[e-mail]

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Date: 5 Feb 93 18:48:27 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Tarl Neustaedter)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge (Fire upon the deep setting)

[e-mail] (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
> This brings up the question, what really happened at the end of AFUTD?
> Vinge did a marvelous job of not telling us beyond Tineworld.  I assume
> the megasurge destroyed most of the Beyond's civilizations, as presumed
> from the apocalyptic hints dropped along the way and at the end, [...]

My assumption is that only a small wedge of the galaxy was included in the
slowness expansion. There were hints to that with the civilization
attempting to "ping" into the expanded slowness, indicating that in the
other direction the beyond was alive and well.

Tarl Neustaedter
Marlboro, Mass.
Stratus Computer
[e-mail]

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Date: 5 Feb 93 16:40:38 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Matt Austern)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge (Fire upon the deep setting)

[e-mail] (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
> This brings up the question, what really happened at the end of AFUTD?
> Vinge did a marvelous job of not telling us beyond Tineworld.  I assume
> the megasurge destroyed most of the Beyond's civilizations, as presumed
> from the apocalyptic hints dropped along the way and at the end, without
> actually too much direct killing, as presumed from the future memories of
> the human who led the anti-Blight attack.
>
> That is, I envision the only way to destroy the Blight was to make it
> unable to function, which required a galactic wide slow zone.  I presume
> that it would take a long long long time to retreat, and in the meantime,
> the megasurge becomes mere legend.

I had a very different impression of what happened at the end: I assumed
that (1) the slow zone did not encompass all of the Beyond, but only a
conical slice; that (2) many civilizations were destroyed, but far more
survived; and that (3) the change in the Zones was permanent or effectively
so.

(One can wonder, of course: if the Blight had been destroyed once before by
the same technique, might that have been the origin of the Zones in the
first place?)

Matthew Austern
[e-mail]

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Date: 5 Feb 93 22:16:12 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Brad Templeton)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's "The Peace War"

Vinge didn't go far enough with the bobbles.  Cheap ones would change many
aspects of everyday life.

One very important area that would be changed forever would be agriculture.
All food could be kept perfectly harvest fresh, forever, and agriculture
would become tremendously more efficient, capable of giving the world fresh
food (stored in the bobble "refrigerator") year round.  Of course the
bobble refrigerator could store restaurant cooked meals, hot, ready to eat.
Tremendous time saver on food preparation.  (Larry Niven used this in a
World out of Time.)

Nothing would spoil, not just food.  Fuel, chemicals, etc.

They would also become a construction material.  Densely packed
mini-bobbles would form an incompressible structural element limited only
by the frame you put around them.

Consider ballistic travel.  They shoot you out a cannon, you land at your
destination, they right you and out you pop.  Certainly nobody would sit on
a plane wasting time.

Jim Gardner wrote in his award winning "The Children of Creche" about the

SPOILER for Children of Creche

odd consequences of the bobble (or equivalent) as baby sitter - baby
crying and you don't have time?  Want a night alone together, or out on the
town?  Bobble 'em up.  (In CoC, the kids end up never growing up.)

END SPOILER

Consider bobble-clothes - 3 mm vacuum spheres packed in a weave, not just
lightweight - bouyant, and mostly bulletproof.  Plus you can't be bobbled
while wearing them.  And don't forget perfect energy storage, timed release
heat and timed release drugs.

Brad Templeton
ClariNet Communications Corp.
Sunnyvale, CA
408/296-0366

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Date: 7 Feb 93 10:38:35 GMT
From: [e-mail] (James Lynn)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's "The Peace War"

Mind you, I am not a very technologically adept person. But I am a lover of
Vernor Vinge's work, especially his bobble stories, so I thought I'd take a
shot at responding to some of these statements. If I'm wrong on some or all
of my points, I'm sure someone will be glad to correct me. :)

Brad Templeton wrote:

> Vinge didn't go far enough with the bobbles.  Cheap ones would change
> many aspects of everyday life.

I'm sure they did, in his stories. Of course, he couldn't spend years and
years extrapolating every possible way that bobbles would change his world.
Aside from having a full time career outside of writing, he undoubtedly
wanted to see the book in print before he died of old age. I am a writer
myself, and I can tell you from experience there has to be a tradeoff.
Maybe he missed a few details, but he got the book out in a reasonable
amount of time and was free to go work on the next one.

> One very important area that would be changed forever would be
> agriculture.  All food could be kept perfectly harvest fresh, forever,
> and agriculture would become tremendously more efficient, capable of
> giving the world fresh food (stored in the bobble "refrigerator") year
> round.

In 'The Ungoverned' Vinge clearly mentioned a farm bobble for storing
produce. I'm afraid he beat you to the punch on that one.

> Nothing would spoil, not just food.  Fuel, chemicals, etc.

Okay. Vinge said nothing (that I recall) about this in his bobble stories,
but I saw nothing that would seem to indicate this wasn't being done in the
stories, either. I don't seem to recall it having any major bearing on the
stories themselves, so it might just be a detail he thought didn't need
mentioning. You can't put *everything* in a book without boring your
audience.

> They would also become a construction material.  Densely packed
> mini-bobbles would form an incompressible structural element limited only
> by the frame you put around them.

Not being an engineer I don't see how this would help construction, since
bobbles are frictionless and would have to be held in by the frame you put
around them, like water would. Granted, their mass would be the same as an
equivalent volume of air, but would this help strengthen the structure of a
building more than internal bracing? Try making a pile of marbles covered
in oil. They'd still have more friction that bobbles would. I'll leave this
question to someone more knowledgable on the subject.

They'd make one hell of an insulator, though, being reflective to
everything, including heat. That'd do a lot for your heating/air
conditioning bill. :)

> Consider ballistic travel.  They shoot you out a cannon, you land at your
> destination, they right you and out you pop.  Certainly nobody would sit
> on a plane wasting time.

Most the planes I saw in the bobble stories were either fighters or agrav
craft, neither of which could perform their function while bobbled. As I
said above, maybe it was just irrelevant to the story. Besides, wouldn't
ballistic travel be a little inaccurate in an atmosphere, like with
crosswinds and such? Landing offtarget could waste a lot of objective time,
if not subjective time. And what if you landed somewhere without launching
facilities and wanted to take off again? Might be a bit of a long walk out
of the Himalayas. :)

Still, this is roughly similar to the way Vinge described space exploration
in Marooned in Realtime, and it was probably how interstellar travel was
performed, except using nukes for thrust instead of a cannon. They probably
used agrav for planetary landings and takeoffs, but I'm not sure what
they'd use before agrav was invented. Using nukes in the Earth's atmosphere
for takeoff is kind of harsh and probably illegal. Rockets? Rail launchers?
Really big cannons? :)

>SPOILER for Children of Creche
>
> Bobble 'em up.  (In CoC, the kids end up never growing up.)

Oh, they'd grow up, though the parents might be dead of old age before that
happened. Which might or might not be a good thing. To the child it'd be as
if everyone else around him/her was growing old much faster. I would think
there'd be legislation against something like this being done on a regular
basis, as somebody would probably decide this constitutes child abuse and
the evidence would be almost impossible to hide. Of course, in Vinge's
world no central government exists anymore, and the law is enforced by
security companies. I shudder to think what some people might be doing to
their kids or to others, with no legal authority around that could
intervene. But that's a subject for another thread entirely.

I should add that I have not read "The Children of Creche," and my
arguments are only relevant to Vinge's settings and continuity. I can't
judge a story that I haven't read.

> Consider bobble-clothes - 3 mm vacuum spheres packed in a weave, not just
> lightweight - bouyant, and mostly bulletproof.  Plus you can't be bobbled
> while wearing them.  And don't forget perfect energy storage, timed
> release heat and timed release drugs.

Vinge stated that carrying a bobble to avoid being bobbled was a risky
defense. If someone wanted to do you in, they could just project a lot of
tiny bobbles in the volume occupied by your body. This is plausible if
bobbles are as cheap as you say. The bobbles wouldn't form in your clothes,
but they'd form everywhere else, and you could wind up in a far worse state
than just being bobbled.

Besides, it'd make defensive bobbling impossible. So if somebody lobbed a
gas bomb or high explosive your way, you'd be screwed unless you could
strip in record time. :)

Still, as mentioned before, they'd make great insulation. Probably too
great, reflecting virtually 100% of your body heat, with only a bit
escaping between the bobbles. Heat stroke in mid-winter.

As I said, I am not very good at extrapolating technology and its effects
on society. I *do* really enjoy Vinge's writing, and feel that he deserves
more recognition (and sales) than he seems to get. Maybe his newest book
will change all that. I hope so.

James Charles Lynn
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 10 Feb 93 01:29:45 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's new book...

I thought he did an excellent job portraying the Tines and the group mind
aspect.  The Beyond Civilization and the "postings" were a detriment to the
whole story.  I must agree that it was very simple-sounding and his
repetition of "the Net of a Million Lies" did nothing for the story.  If
you can't trust anything said on the network why even read it :-).  His
best book is still "Marrooned in Realtime".  I found "Fire in the Deep" to
be disappointing.

Blair Nowakowsky
[e-mail]

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Date: 11 Feb 93 02:27:22 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Zink)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's "The Peace War"

[e-mail] (Mech Eng Student) writes:
>   You have to take into account the fact that Wili is no ordinary genius,
>to steal an idea from ST:TNG, he's the scientific equivalent of Mozart.
>The guy was doing things when he was 12 that most folk couldn't even do at
>their prime.

Amazing but not unrealistic things, too.  Look what Norbert Wiener was
doing at twelve (Was he at Harvard or MIT?), and of course, he was slow
compared to that son of the friend of his father's whose name I just never
can remember.

I always thought the Peace Authority was a lot like the soviet scientific
machine.  The tendency towards dogma inhibits scientific advances.  And
they really felt no competition.

As for Science Fiction -vs- Fantasy, I don't think the need for something
to be extensible from current theory is a valid one.  After all, current
theory has some well known flaws.  Rather, I think the important part is
the rigid extrapolation, and the illusion that the author generally knows
what he's talking about.  While everything that is true now in science was
just as true in Aristotle's time (And could have been demonstrated, had
anyone chose to do the appropriate experiments), SF authors would still
have been repudiated for using 20th C. science without proving it first.
Yet it would be equally foolish to postulate that all science is now known.
People have been doing that for centuries.  So Vernor can foolishly pretend
that nothing new will be discovered, or he can foolishly imagine bobbles.
Either way, people with no lives will get to feel superior to him.

David Zink

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Date: 13 Feb 93 00:54:22 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Doc Savage

Gor may be trash, and it may be fun, but dos it compare to Doc Savage?

Having read the wonderful discussion on the not-very-wonderful-at-all
series Gor, I got to thinking about other trash.

Doc Savage was originally a sort of action series, but as it reached the
late 40's, it also reached what might be called, the Little Green Men Trap.
Now, Gor is S&M, and not terribly sophisticated, but for sheer awfulness,
you got to go back to the classics!

Anyone read the New Doc Savages that have been relaesed by Bantam?  True
trash, but with a modern twist.

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Date: 12 Feb 93 00:12:42 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Richard Greco)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Captain Trips solo Wild cards Novel

In the last few weeks I have seen some spotty traffic about a solo Wild
Card novel with Captain Trips as the central character.

I have looked at most of my local bookstores and none of them have even
heard of it.  Has it been published yet?  If yes could someone mail me the
Title, Author, and ISBN info so I can order a copy.

Thanks in advance.

Richard Greco
[e-mail]

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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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