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Marooned in Real Time

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/Marooned in Real Time/ is on my extremely short list of books that I call "modern classics". This edition is out of print, but the new edition is over here: Marooned in Realtime

There is a qualitative difference not only in the writing but in the imagination between science fiction authors who describe the future. Vinge is one of those "B+" writers, not quite the top. The PEACE WAR was a great book and introduced the concept of "Bobbles", the huge bubbles into which one could safely escape to the future undeterred by weather, weapons or even time. With everyone bobbling the very idea of time itself was called into question.

The characters are not your run of the mill novel players. We have, of course, the bobblers, then there are the high-techs (humans with extraordinary tech ability from right before the time of the Great Extinction when humanity vanished. Then there is the detective, the best around since he's the only one around. He searches for a murderer amid the attempts by the high-techs to gather humans from the bobble and recreate a new human civilization. The writing is not technical, and the book is very brief.