> what if time travel, but only forwards? Just to expand on that a bit (also teasers for an almost 40 year old novel). They don't have time machines as such,

> what if time travel, but only forwards? Just to expand on that a bit (also teasers for an almost 40 year old novel). They don't have time machines as such, but instead indestructible stasis fields ('bobbles') in which time stands still. These are initially thought to persist infinitely, but early in the first novel ('The Peace War') it becomes apparent (in 2048) that the bobbles eventually pop releasing whatever is inside them back into real time. This causes problems for the baddies who control bobble technology and have long been using bobbles as way of imprisoning their enemies. In the follow-up novel, Marooned in Real Time, various characters who have been bobbled for various reasons travel to the far future of the Earth, long after an apparent singularity has left the planet almost devoid of human life, and witnessing changes to the planet on geological timescales. The bobbles are now a pervasive technology used in a whole range of applications (from solar mining to deep space combat), which Vinge has fun exploring.