Vernor Vinge: a quick biography

We were part of the committee running the 1996 British National SF Convention, Evolution, where we were extremely pleased to have Prof. Vernor Vinge as our US Guest of Honor (we even spelt it his way!). Vernor's SF is an exploration of a possible future, where man and machine have become something new and strange, on the other side of the coming Singularity. This short essay was in the Evolution programme book.

Vernor Vinge is the Hugo winning author of A Fire Upon The Deep, a fantastic journey across a dangerous galaxy, which re-defined space-opera for the `90s (and amused the many folk who recognised its "the Net of A Million Lies"). Among his many other works are True Names, often seen as one of the first cyberpunk stories, and the Across Realtime diptych, where he began to explore the idea of an upcoming "Singularity" in human evolution. Despite this indescribable future just around the corner, Vernor writes Sf that is both intelligent and entertaining. He lectures in computer science at a Californian university, and Evolution will be his first appearance at a UK convention. The relationship between the human boy Jefri and the pack intelligences is a central theme in A Fire Upon The Deep.

-Simon Bisson

"A friend, a rescuer, an enemy? It wasn't till years later that Jefri Olsndot realized how deep and real the question had been. So many times he had sat amongst the Flenser, thinking himself safe and never seeing the pack as an older human might, as a clawed hand that delicately held him."

From A Fire Upon The Deep
Illustration reproduced with permission of Vernor Vinge.
©1993 Vernor Vinge