The Peace War

What Hacker News says

1. shagieApr 2025
   There's a sequence of stories by different authors that allude to one another that I find to be an interesting read in that order.

   First, there's the BLIT stories by David Langford. Several of these are online.

   https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm

   https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 (did you know that Nature did science fiction short stories? https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures )

   https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o...

   Then, you go to Accelerando

   https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...

   > Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache.

   This is followed by its sequel-ish Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse

   It's not technically a sequel, but one can see the universe of Glasshouse following from the ending of Accelerando.

   A quick diversion to Vernor Vinge with Peace War and Marooned in Realtime https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime (there's a short story in there titled The Ungoverned)

   Implied spaces Walter Jon Williams https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2059573.Implied_Spaces which takes another approach to the unexplored events leading into Glasshouse and a possible path of escalation. The reference passage in this book is:

   > “I and my confederates,” Aristide said, “did our best to prevent that degree of autonomy among artificial intelligences. We made the decision to turn away from the Vingean Singularity before most people even knew what it was. But—” He made a gesture with his hands as if dropping a ball. “—I claim no more than the average share of wisdom. We could have made mistakes.”

   This then ends with... {spoilers}.

   Show morethread
2. KineticLensmanNov 2024
   Also the scatterable surveillance cameras used in his other great novel, 'The Peace War' [0]. Although IIRC they were the size of seeds or similar.

   [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peace_War

   thread
3. shagieMar 2024
   The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worthing_Saga https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40304.The_Worthing_Saga )

   > It was a miracle of science that permitted human beings to live, if not forever, then for a long, long time. Some people, anyway. The rich, the powerful--they lived their lives at the rate of one year every ten. Some created two societies: that of people who lived out their normal span and died, and those who slept away the decades, skipping over the intervening years and events. It allowed great plans to be put in motion. It allowed interstellar Empires to be built.

   > It came near to destroying humanity.

   > After a long, long time of decadence and stagnation, a few seed ships were sent out to save our species. They carried human embryos and supplies, and teaching robots, and one man. The Worthing Saga is the story of one of these men, Jason Worthing, and the world he found for the seed he carried.

   ---

   Freeze Frame Revolution ( https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36510759 )

   > How do you stage a mutiny when you’re only awake one day in a million? How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each job shift? How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears, and relentlessly, honestly, only wants what’s best for you? Trapped aboard the starship Eriophora, Sunday Ahzmundin is about to discover the components of any successful revolution: conspiracy, code—and unavoidable casualties.

   ---

   Also going to recommend the various Vernor Vinge books:

      The Peace War
      Marooned in Realtime
      A Deepness in the Sky
   

   and the short story "The Peddler's Apprentice" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Collected_Stories_of_Verno... )
   Show morethread
4. ompogUeMar 2024
   Oh No! So Saddened! Found The Peace War at an airport book rack in the late '80's. Then, found True Names at a library sale in the early '90's and fell in love.

   "Zones of Thought" was a really smart idea once you got it. I put him as 2nd generation genius like "Hendrix -> Van Halen": "Asimov -> Vinge". Also (only real nitpick ever), like Asimov, was a little weak in dialogue and the poetry of words (comparing to Tolkein and Heinlein), but they were literally both STEM "Dr.s/PhD's".

   Rainbow's End seemed to be the FAANG playbook for many years: drones, AR (google glass on), haptics, autonomous automobiles, and on and on. Was thinking literally yesterday about how the biotech and architecture/earthquake ideas hadn't made it to today (which is around when the story takes place), but the latency issues seem to have been licked well before now.

   Requiescat in Pace

   Show morethread
5. angiospermMar 2024
   The Peace War is closer to home than Fire. Read both.
   thread
6. nlMar 2024
   One of the true greats.

   True Names is a better cyberpunk story than anything Gibson or Neal Stephenson wrote.

   Everyone mentions A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky which are some of the best sci fi ever written, but I think The Peace War is way underrate too (although it was nominated for a Hugo award which it lost to Neuromancer).

   RIP

   thread