A review by kundor
Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge
4.0
Brilliant, like all of Vinge's stuff. Written in the mid-80s, these stories include some of the earliest examination of the Singularity (a term Vinge coined in 1983, I think). It's not actually dealt with directly, but it's posed as an apparently inevitable result of advanced civilization. The parallel with the Rapture is made explicit here in its first exposition!
The first story, The Peace War, reads almost like a response to James Blish's They Shall Have Stars: in both, scientists working at government contractors secretly develop new technology capable of overthrowing the current nation-state-based world order and, in response to the dangers of the Cold War, deploy it on their own, resulting in a post-nation-state world. Also, some scientists invent immortality drugs. Whereas Blish depicts this as a good thing, in Vinge it's more complicated: it's posed as definitely bad, with most of the world's population wiped out and the unilateral scientists' organization (The Peace Authority) a tyrannical entity oppressing the remaining population into semi-serfdom.
Yet is it so bad? For the Tinkers and others in the essentially anarchistic North America, where the only government is the distant Peace Authority (which acts only to forbid energy generation, moving machines, governments, etc.) life seems to work pretty well. They are able to invent things and band together to resist the Authority more effectively than they could in a government-based society. As the stories progress, it's clear that the lot of the "ungoverned" is better than that of their governed peers. So ultimately, though the scientists of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories were evil for unleashing the War which destroyed the nation-states, that result was actually a good thing.
Does Vinge think such destruction is a necessary evil for us to "mature" past nationalism? Or does he believe some other, peaceful way can be found to gradually dismantle the state? I'm afraid that abolishing governments would only lead to the bleak corporate-ruled world we find in Snow Crash, Jennifer Government, etc. Abolishing both governments and corporations peacefully is a tall order.
The first story, The Peace War, reads almost like a response to James Blish's They Shall Have Stars: in both, scientists working at government contractors secretly develop new technology capable of overthrowing the current nation-state-based world order and, in response to the dangers of the Cold War, deploy it on their own, resulting in a post-nation-state world. Also, some scientists invent immortality drugs. Whereas Blish depicts this as a good thing, in Vinge it's more complicated: it's posed as definitely bad, with most of the world's population wiped out and the unilateral scientists' organization (The Peace Authority) a tyrannical entity oppressing the remaining population into semi-serfdom.
Yet is it so bad? For the Tinkers and others in the essentially anarchistic North America, where the only government is the distant Peace Authority (which acts only to forbid energy generation, moving machines, governments, etc.) life seems to work pretty well. They are able to invent things and band together to resist the Authority more effectively than they could in a government-based society. As the stories progress, it's clear that the lot of the "ungoverned" is better than that of their governed peers. So ultimately, though the scientists of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories were evil for unleashing the War which destroyed the nation-states, that result was actually a good thing.
Does Vinge think such destruction is a necessary evil for us to "mature" past nationalism? Or does he believe some other, peaceful way can be found to gradually dismantle the state? I'm afraid that abolishing governments would only lead to the bleak corporate-ruled world we find in Snow Crash, Jennifer Government, etc. Abolishing both governments and corporations peacefully is a tall order.