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Link to the Prologue of Fire Upon the Deep: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/-0812515285/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep.htm https://www.baen.com/Chapters/-0812515285/A_Fire_
by varenc 7mo ago
Link to the Prologue of Fire Upon the Deep: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/-0812515285/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep.htm https://www.baen.com/Chapters/-0812515285/A_Fire_Upon_the_De...
It's very short and from one of my favorite books. Increasingly relevant.
- iugtmkbdfil834 7mo agoI swear, I respect Vinge more and more based on how well he seems to understand human tendencies to plot some plausible trajectories for our civilization.
- Nition 7mo agoThere's a little throwaway thing in the book (or maybe it was in the prequel) that I always liked, re understanding human tendencies. They're still using Unix time, starting in Jan 1st 1970, but given that their culture is so space-travel-focused they assume the early humans set it to coincide with man's first trip to the moon.
- duskwuff 7mo agoThat's from the prequel, A Deepness in the Sky. (Which is also excellent.)
- hinkley 7mo agoDeepness in the Sky is probably the first Sci Fi alien I read who didn't feel like a human wearing an alien suit. Fantasy sometimes does this better but usually with specific tropes.
- aerique 7mo agoIf you liked that and you haven't read it yet, give "Dragon's Egg" by Robert L. Forward a read.
- HoldOnAMinute 7mo agoI wish he could have seen the current state of GenAI. Several times in the book he talks about how the ship understands context clues and sarcasm, and that effective natural language translation requires near-sentience.