Wolfgang Wopperer reviewed Marooned in Real Time by Vernor Vinge
What if you missed the Singularity?
4 stars
This is basically the starting question of the book (which thus forms one of Vinge's quite different explorations of the concept he coined in 1982), but that only becomes clear as the larger story comes together in the last third of the book. (Sorry if this a spoiler…)
On the way there, we follow a post-civilisational whodunnit through several centuries, compressed into short bursts of subjective time, slowly understand that the difference between the "low techs" and "high techs" that make up the small community of surviving humans populating the book is smaller than we thought, and get thrown a few plot-twist curveballs. Vintage Vinge, so to speak.
Which is also the book's drawback: The political agenda a little too clear, the dismissal of alternative world-views (e.g. an ecological one) a little too quick, the psychology a little too shallow.
But as always: a fun, inspired and at times inspiring …
This is basically the starting question of the book (which thus forms one of Vinge's quite different explorations of the concept he coined in 1982), but that only becomes clear as the larger story comes together in the last third of the book. (Sorry if this a spoiler…)
On the way there, we follow a post-civilisational whodunnit through several centuries, compressed into short bursts of subjective time, slowly understand that the difference between the "low techs" and "high techs" that make up the small community of surviving humans populating the book is smaller than we thought, and get thrown a few plot-twist curveballs. Vintage Vinge, so to speak.
Which is also the book's drawback: The political agenda a little too clear, the dismissal of alternative world-views (e.g. an ecological one) a little too quick, the psychology a little too shallow.
But as always: a fun, inspired and at times inspiring read.
