Rating: 
Summary: A book which stretches the imagination
Review: If you only read one science fiction book in your life, this is the one. His visionary concepts of how networks and processors can give one person the ability to change the world were established before the explosion of todays technology. This book would be visionary today - and it was written int he 80's!!This is a good read which I highly recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Vinge
Review: If you've read some of the other reviews here, you've realized by now that "Across Realtime" is actually two separate books - a novel and its far-future sequel - combined into one volume. (Some editions apparently include an additional related short story, but NOT this one - i.e., ISBN 1857981472. That story, called "The Ungoverned" is available in Vernor Vinge's new collection, but it's not terribly good.)The first novel, "The Peace War," I consider not very special. Little distinguishes it from other post-nuclear war stories, and the characters are not especially compelling. Vinge's clever invention (called a "bobble," the details of which I won't give away here) is modestly intriguing but takes a back seat to the archetypally heroic rebels who want to overthrow their archetypally tyrannical rulers. "Marooned in Realtime," on the other hand, is extraordinary. It showcases Vinge's extraodinary imagination just as "A Fire Upon the Deep" does. Vinge really explores what can be done with his bobbles, and he uses them to touch upon some much deeper issues, such as "Where will our ever-advancing technology lead us?" and "What happens at the end of the universe?" The characters, too, are cut from a much more varied cloth than in the first book. (My only knock is against Vinge's decision to sprinkle his protagonist's utopian anarchist beliefs throughout this novel. Like Heinlein's ultra-libertarianism, it sounds foolish & can get a bit grating.) I'd give "Marooned" five stars, but "Peace War" only merits three, so I've split the difference and given "Across Realtime" four stars. Definitely read the books in order, though - Vinge will reward your careful attention to the first book in the sequel. In short, if you read "A Deepness in the Sky" and a "Fire Upon the Deep" and you're looking for more Vinge to whet your appetite, you've come to the right place.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the most underrated talent of our generation
Review: Issac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Terry Goodkind, J.R.R. Tolkien... the name of Vernor Vinge belongs with these. If you can usually figure out what's going to happen in a story and you hunger for that rare author who can keep you in a continual state of amazement, read Vernor Vinge. I have a library of nearly 2,000 books and Across Realtime is definitely one of my top ten favorites. My only criticism of the man is that he hasn't written more for you and me to read.
Rating:
Summary: Forget Asimov, read this!
Review: It has been said that 90% of everything is crap. This is not strictly true; for example, 95% of science-fiction is crap. When I was younger I read science-fiction indiscriminately. Now that I am older I'm starting to pay a great deal more attention to questions of literary quality and I often find myself frustrated by the incredibly bad writing in most science-fiction. However, I found that Across Realtime very definitely falls in the remaining 5% that makes sci-fi worth reading: in fact, Vinge has written some of the best genre fiction I have ever read. Across Realtime is actually two closely related novels and a short story. The first novel, The Peace War, introduces Vinge's star concept, the "bobble", and also chronicles the demise of the Peace Authority. Following The Peace War is Vinge's short story The Ungoverned, which introduces contract police officer Wil Brierson, further develops the bobble concept and serves as a nice little tract for the author's libertarian-anarchist political views. Finally, and in my opinion the crown jewel of the book, comes Marooned in Realtime, a masterfully plotted mystery story spanning 50 million years into the future. Marooned in Realtime is centered around Wil Brierson and a small band of friends trying to restart the human race in a post-post-apocalyptic world of decaying high-technology. Marooned is so excellent that it alone is worth the price of admission. I think that there are primarily two reasons for Across Realtime's success. First, the book deals with strong, unique and thoroughly expounded ideas. Almost by definition science-fiction is supposed to deal with ideas, but more often than not the ideas that authors choose to examine are old-hat and stale by the time they deal with them. Vinge's ideas definitely aren't though: the bobbles are a fascinating concept and he handles his post-apocalyptic society with real style. He not only comes up with original ideas but he carries them all the way through to their logical conclusions. He realizes that "ideas have consequences" and that you can't change a society's technology and organization without fundamentally changing the people who live in that society. Secondly, Across Realtime is written with outstanding characterization, especially for a science-fiction novel. The only other sci-fi I've read with better characterization is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (which, incidentally, I also highly recommend). All too often the left-brain writers who dominate this genre play fast and loose with their characters, destroying their character believability and thus savaging the value and truth of the entire story. Good characterization requires right-brain and emotional thinking. Even though Vinge is a mathematician and computer-scientist with the University of California in San Diego (really left-brain), he proves that he is more than capable of the kind of thinking that makes for strong characters. The young genius hoodlum Wili, the tinker-scientist Paul Naismith and police officer Wil Brierson are all memorable people and they carry the events of the story very well. The copy of Across Realtime I read seems to be difficult to obtain; I read a copy that my Dad bought through ABE Books for $25. We may have overpaid a little, considering that the book that was originally a $6 paperback, but even so the going rate is easily $18+ from what I've seen on the 'net. If you want to read Across Realtime you can either buy it from Amazon.com for $19 and accept the four to six week wait or you can try to find it used. Highly Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Marooned in Realtime -- Among the Best Ever
Review: Of the two books included in this reprinting I'll confine my remarks to the second -- Marooned in Realtime which I read recently. Written in 1986, this is probably one of the best science fiction works of the past 20 years. I can't believe it didn't win a Hugo the first time out. This book didn't receive the attention it deserved, and it is very fortunate that Vinge's later success has led to this reissue. My only explanation for the relative anonymity of the first work is that the ideas presented there were simply too audacious. The concept of the Singularity was introduced here and then continued in a 1992 article by Vinge published in the Whole Earth Review. It then seemed to disappear, until rediscovered by Kurzweil and Moravec around 2000. Without giving away the novel, Vinge makes a good case for why SETI will fail. Beyond some breathtaking ideas (of which the least is the total abolition of privacy -- novel in 1986, prosaic now) there's also a great murder mystery, and a poignant romance. Read it, but don't expect to get anything done until the book is done. ...
Rating:
Summary: Incredible. One of the best.
Review: One of the best, most mind bending sf books I've read in 20 years of sf reading. It's a space opera that takes place over billions of years, yet has unusual continuity. The way that time dilates from realtime to deep time really pleased my brain. It's a new way of thinking, and that is rare to get from a paperback book! Note that this is 3 short stories published as one book. It's great. You will love it, I am sure.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible. One of the best.
Review: One of the best, most mind bending sf books I've read in 20 years of sf reading. It's a space opera that takes place over billions of years, yet has unusual continuity. The way that time dilates from realtime to deep time really pleased my brain. It's a new way of thinking, and that is rare to get from a paperback book! Note that this is 3 short stories published as one book. It's great. You will love it, I am sure.
Rating:
Summary: Good far-future story telling
Review: One of the most intrigueing new ideas this book presents is the concept of a bobble, an impenetrable sphere that can be erected around any person or place. By using this Vinge is able to take us as far into the future as is necessary to show the struggle of a few indidividuals trying to save humanity after the majority of the human race vanishes into a mysterious event called the "singularity". Vinge creates a real sense of urgency in these individuals by putting the fate of humanity into the hands of one policeman, Wil Brierson. The only complaint I have is that the transisition between the different parts of the book seem choppy. Otherwise, this novel is a great combination of human survival and murder/mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: It Ain't Dune!!!
Review: The book (and stories within) is an average - maybe slightly above average- SF novel. To suggest it's in a class with Dune (or Vinge's two newer novels - which ARE in a class with Dune), is shocking to me. Buy it if you're looking for a pleasant, but not breathtaking read. And if you haven't read A Fire Upon The Deep and then A Darkness In The Sky - what are you waiting for!!!
Rating:
Summary: A world without death or taxes
Review: The heroes struggle for the liberty that makes scientific progress possible, and eventually achieve a world where old age is easily curable, and government and violent death is uncommon.
The classic formula for a heroic quest. Ordinary people caught up in struggles of vast importance.
| 
