Amazon.com: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge: Vernor Vinge: Books

Amazon.com
A career-spanning collection of science fiction from one of the field's most highly regarded writers, The Collected Stories contains all of Vinge's published short fiction with the exception of two stories--almost 40 years of work including his first professional sale and his most recent novella (published here for the first time). It's a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable review of his career, made richer by the addition of forewords and afterwords to the individual stories in which he discusses everything from the ideas that drove the story to insights on his own writing process.

Vinge's writing is characterized by a clear love of science and an empathy for human needs and feelings. He's intensely curious about what happens when people and science collide. His stories explore the legacies of racism and xenophobia, the pros and cons of anarchy, alien contact, and the sometimes even more difficult contact between humans. He's a master of big ideas, epic settings, and stories well told. --Roz Genessee

From Publishers Weekly
Though probably best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels (A Fire Upon the Deep; A Deepness in the Sky), Vinge, a mathematician and computer scientist, began his writing career with short stories, most of which are gathered in this not quite definitive collection (where are cyberpunk precursor "True Names" and "Grimm's Story"?), along with one new entry, the pop culture-weighted "Fast Times at Fairmont High." Vinge's stories are prime hard SF and also rich with ideas, if often weak on character. Some are also quite dated now, such as the Cold War setting of "Bookworm, Run!" where the future rests on an escaped experimental subject, the first "person" enhanced by direct computer link. "The Accomplice" predicts computer animation the hard way, while "The Whirligig of Time" anticipates space-based missile defenses like SDI. Vinge frames many stories, such as "The Ungoverned" and "Conquest by Defeat," which consider future anarchies, with the idea of a technological singularity the belief that we can't accurately predict what life will be like after the creation of "intelligences greater than our own." Too short to be a story, "Win a Nobel Prize" is a humorous deal with the devil with a biotech twist. "The Barbarian Princess," with its sly pokes at some of the oldest tropes of speculative fiction writing (and editing!), maintains all the color and charm of its original publication. Vinge's comments surrounding each story provide entertaining counterpoint. This collection is a bonanza for hard SF fans, particularly those who prize challenging extrapolation.

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The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (Hardcover)

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