Vernor Vinge (1944-2024)
News item dated 22 March 2024
Yet another major sf author has left us: Vernor Vinge, master of grand Space Opera and prophet of the Singularity, died on 20 March aged 79. Two novels in his formidable Zones of Thought sequence, A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and its prequel A Deepness in the Sky (1999), won Hugos for best novel, as did the lighter-hearted near-future comedy Rainbows End (2006). His novellas "Fast Times at Fairmont High" (2001) and "The Cookie Monster" (2003) won further Hugos, and he also accumulated other awards including the John W Campbell Memorial Award and Prometheus Award for A Deepness in the Sky. Some of his work was remarkably prophetic, in particular True Names (1981) with its early vision of Cyberspace.
Vernor Vinge is warmly remembered, and not only for his impressive body of work: meeting him was always a pleasure.