book 1 of Across Realtime

by Vernor Vinge

isbn: 0671559656
subject: Fiction and Literature, SF
finished: 11/30/1997

I read this several years ago, and picked it up again because Hans Moravec's new book Robot got me thinking about singularities. The Peace War is well written science fiction, although conventional in many ways. The premise is that it's possible to generate "bobbles," spherical regions of stopped time; the story takes place fifty years after the Peace Authority, based at Livermore National Labs, takes over the world by bobbling the existing governments. Ironically, technological development stagnates under this hegemony of scientists, and rogue inventors called tinkers end up with all the cool toys. The book centers around the conflict between the peacers and the tinkers. The Peace War has many elements of cyberpunk, but I don't think it makes the cut. Still, it is thoughtful and a good read -- Vinge is one of the only SF writers who meaningfully takes computers into account when extrapolating.