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Roughly speaking, Vernor Vinge’s career
as a novelist can be divided into three parts: His earliest
novels, written pre-1983; the ACROSS REALTIME novels of the
mid-1980s; and the award-winning Zones novels of the 1990s.
This reaction covers the first of these. I
am planning additional reactions to cover his later novels.
TATJA GRIMM'S WORLD
The novel now known as TATJA GRIMM’S
WORLD has something of a fractured history. In it’s earliest
form, it was published as the short story “Grimm’s Story”
in 1968. Damon Knight then asked Vinge to expand “Grimm’s
Story” to novel-length, which he did by essentially writing
another short story as a sequel to the first and then putting
the two together as a patch-up.
The novel, published in 1969 as GRIMM’S
WORLD, apparently made very little splash and eventually went
out of print. In 1986, however, Jim Baen asked Vernor Vinge to
expand and revise the novel for a reprint edition. This time
Vinge wrote a prequel, which was published separately as “The
Barbarian Princess” in Analog and then published as part of
the new TATJA GRIMM’S WORLD in 1987.
Attempting to read TATJA GRIMM’S WORLD as
a novel is an unrewarding experience: It’s poorly paced and
completely disjointed. There are gaping holes in the individual
character arcs and point of view characters disappear
mysteriously between the chapter breaks.
Read correctly as a collection of three
connected short stories, however, it makes a much stronger
impression. I would also say that the addition of “The
Barbarian Princess” in 1987 makes a big difference, allowing
Vinge to more clearly establish his themes and primary character
arc.
That being said, there’s still some
awkwardness to be found here. You can tell that the core of this
collection/novel is still the work of a young author early in
his career.
But that’s not to say that the book
doesn’t have a lot of offer, as well:
TATJA GRIMM’S WORLD takes place on a
world at the cusp of the scientific revolution. But this world
lacks metals, has a unique geography, and is possessed of
distinctly different cultures. The result is a very different
sort of scientific revolution, which Vinge works out in
fascinating detail.
As his main character, Vinge chooses the
editor of a fantasy and contrivance fiction magazine. (For
“contrivance fiction” you can read “science fiction”.)
This gives him a rather unique view of the gradual scientific
revolution taking root on this alien world, but all of this
takes a backseat to the character at the center of this drama:
Tatja Grimm. It’s her mystery which forms the backbone of the
novel’s plot.
Where this novel succeeds is in its hard SF
extrapolation of an alien world in a parallel time of
technological change, mixed with a story in which those elements
are frequently expressed using the tropes of fantasy. (A mixture
which is nicely mirrored in the main character’s fantasy and
contrivance fiction magazine.)
Where the novel fails, however, is when it
can’t quite make me believe the extrapolation. For example,
Vinge posits a sea-based society more technologically and
socially advanced than the island-based societies they trade
with. This society also endures for at least a millennia with
not only seemingly little change, but with a continuity of
individual vessels (which are impactically huge). I can’t
quite make those pieces, or some of the subsidiary technologies
described, really fit together in my mind.
But if you can grab your bootstraps every
so often and haul your suspension of disbelief back up where it
belongs, I think you’ll find TATJA GRIMM’S WORLD to be a
pleasant little read… particularly in the context of Vinge’s
later writing.
THE WITLING
THE WITLING, published in 1976, is a deeply flawed novel.
The primary problem here is that the
characters come across as flat a lifeless – their actions
seemingly forced by authorial fiat. With a little imagination
you can see how these character arcs COULD have been very, very
compelling… but they aren’t. Emotions, for example, don’t
seem to emerge organically from the characters. Instead they
just seem to happen, with the only seeming cause being that the
author’s outline said that they should.
This core problem also cascades to certain
extent. At first glance, for example, theplots appears to have
been padded out from a more proper novella length. But, upon
reflection, it would appear that this is simply an aggravated
symptom of the character dramas falling with such resounding
thuds.
Where the novel succeeds, however, is in
its analysis of its central conceit: Teleportation which
observes the conservation of momentum. Vinge takes this idea and
extrapolates it to at least four levels of depth. To borrow John
Campbell’s saying again: Not just the car, but the traffic
jam, the interstate system, the oil crisis of the ‘70s, and
the search for alternative fuels.
I suspect THE WITLING’s biggest problem
is that it’s narrative structure and tapioca characters would
be primarily appealing to the hard SF aficionados who like
things like Niven’s RINGWORLD – where the central conceit
and speculation of the story takes center stage and holds your
attention and fascination. But the conceit in this case takes
the form of psychic teleportation – so those same hard SF
aficionados are probably turned off by how “improbable” it
is (as opposed to scrith, I suppose).
That being said, Vinge’s detailed
extrapolation of the teleportation is, in fact, interesting,
rigorous, and detailed enough that THE WITLING makes for a
worthwhile read.
TRUE NAMES
TRUE NAMES is a little difficult to
classify. It’s short enough to technically classify as a
novella. However, it’s long enough that it has been published
as a stand-alone novel in its own right.
At the moment, the story is only available
as part of the volume TRUE NAMES AND THE OPENING OF THE
CYBERSPACE FRONTIER – which collects the story itself along
with a dozen or so essays by other authors discussing the story
and its predictions. So, for the sake of argument, I’m going
to classify TRUE NAMES as a novel and discuss it here. (It
should be noted, however, that I don’t own the current
collection and have not read the essays. So this is a reaction
only to TRUE NAMES itself.)
TRUE NAMES is probably the specific point
at which Vinge went from being “a pretty decent SF author”
to “hot shit”. There were a few false steps still to be
taken, and it took awhile for the rest of the world to notice,
but with TRUE NAMES Vinge basically arrived. He pulled the lever
and he *delivered*.
It’s probably not coincidental that TRUE
NAMES is also basically the first time that Vinge puts the
Singularity firmly in his sights and pulls the trigger. He comes
at it from multiple directions, trying to hem it in and define
its outlines… and then he plunges into it, penetrating perhaps
as deeply as one can into the fundamentally incomprehensible.
Then he pulls back and lets the foundations of his story rest
firmly on a human drama.
But, in truth, that’s not the primary
focus of the story.
Nor is the primary focus of the story to be
found in Vinge’s casual introduction of a fully-realized
cyberspace, a trope which has been masticated endlessly in the
two and a half decades since.
No, the primary focus of this story lies in
the subtle, interwoven theme suggested by the title: The power
and meaning of true names. Vinge allows this theme to play
itself simultaneously on planes transcendental, digital, and
mortal.
TRUE NAMES is a complicated and subtly
worked narrative. Vinge isn’t afraid to keep adding one big
idea after another to his pot until it’s almost overflowing,
stirring in multi-layered character dramas, spicing the whole
thing lightly with thematic elegance, and then bringing the
whole thing to a slow boil over a plot of high-stakes thrills.
But what makes TRUE NAMES even more
impressive is that, in the act of reading, you’re scarcely
aware of the complexity of the material you’re reading.
Somehow Vinge manages to present it all with smooth prose and
fast-placed plotting, keeping you fully engaged in his story and
turning the pages as if you were reading nothing more
substantial than a piece of light adventure fiction. It’s only
when you’ve breathlessly flipped the last page and have a
moment to reflect that you realize the truth:
This is the reason you read science
fiction.
GRADES:
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TATJA GRIMM'S WORLD: B
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THE WITLING: C+
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TRUE NAMES: A+
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