Vinge published his first short story, "Apartness", in the June 1965 issue of the British magazine New Worlds. His second, "
Bookworm, Run!", was in the March 1966 issue of Analog Science Fiction, then edited by
John W. Campbell.[4] The story explores the theme of artificially augmented intelligence by connecting the brain directly to computerised data sources. He became a moderately prolific contributor to SF magazines in the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1969, he expanded the story "Grimm's Story" (Orbit 4, 1968) into his first novel, Grimm's World. In 1971, Vinge received his
Ph.D. in mathematics from the
University of California, San Diego, under the supervision of
Stefan E. Warschawski.[5] His second novel, The Witling, was published in 1976.[6]
Vinge came to prominence in 1981 with his novella True Names, perhaps the first story to present a fully fleshed-out concept of
cyberspace,[3] which would later be central to
cyberpunk stories by
William Gibson,
Neal Stephenson and others. His next two novels, The Peace War (1984) and Marooned in Realtime (1986), explore the spread of a future
libertarian society, and deal with the impact of a technology which can create impenetrable
force fields called '
bobbles'. These books built Vinge's reputation as an author who would explore ideas to their logical conclusions in particularly inventive ways. Both books were nominated for the
Hugo Award, but lost to novels by
William Gibson and
Orson Scott Card.[7][8]
Vinge won the Hugo Award (tying for Best Novel with Doomsday Book by
Connie Willis) with his 1992 novel, A Fire Upon the Deep.[9]A Deepness in the Sky (1999) was a
prequel to Fire, following competing groups of humans in The Slow Zone as they struggle over who has the rights to exploit a technologically emerging alien culture. Deepness won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2000.[10]
Vinge's 2006 novel Rainbows End, set in the same universe and featuring some of the same characters as Fast Times at Fairmont High, won the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Novel.[12] In 2011, he released The Children of the Sky, a sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep set approximately 10 years following the end of A Fire Upon the Deep.[13][14]
A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) — Hugo Award winner, 1993;[9] Nebula Award nominee, 1992;[19] Campbell and Locus SF Awards nominee, 1993[9]
A Deepness in the Sky (1999) — Hugo,[10] Campbell,[10] and Prometheus Awards winner, 2000; Nebula Award nominee, 1999;[20] Clarke and Locus SF Awards nominee, 2000[10]
^Vinge, Vernor (1976).
The witling. Daw Books = sf. DAW Books Inc, Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress). New York: DAW Books.
Archived from the original on October 30, 2023. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
^Vinge, Vernor (1993). "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era". Whole Earth Review (Winter 1993): 11.
Bibcode:
1993vise.nasa...11V.