A quick read, this novel reveals the setting slowly, and I won't spoil that here. Suffice to say it is set in the area of California in an authoritarian near future. The tale is told from the perspectives of multiple characters, each also developed slowly. Very much a case of a rebellion against the authority.It also has other aspects of Campbell's hero quest - the kid, the mentor, mundane vs special worlds, etc. One of the main characters is a young minority, the other a strong female pilot. Wr...

Where to begin. I love Vernor Vinge. Fire Upon The Deep, Deepness In The Sky, I'm not going to say they are masterpieces, but they deliver such great ideas that whatever problems the stories had mechanically (2 dimensional characters, wonky plots, horrible dialogue), just got buried under the scope and wonder. Not so much with The Peace War.First, it's pretty laughable that his set up is that a bunch of administrators from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, what he calls the Lawrence Enclav...

It's surprising how many shreds of DNA this shares with Armageddon 2419 AD: A Balkanized North America with surprisingly advanced "gangs" operating in secret with technologies born of resource constraints; an enemy that is prolific and powerful but far more frail than it lets on; racial or gender depictions or social assumptions that would get people talking.It was a mindblower for me back in the day, though less so now. Still, it's interesting to consider the little pieces that were considered...

This is the second novel I've read from Vernor Vinge (after the much superior Fire Upon the Deep), and like in that previous book, the story really takes a while to get going. While in Fire Upon the Deep the story finally becomes engaging after about a 100 pages, here it never really gelled for me, even when all the pieces were in place. The main conceit is interesting - Vinge strength is obviously in his concepts and ideas - but I remained mostly cold towards the characters and their plight. Th...

Easy, linear, plotted formula, this milSF thriller type tale of generic style actually kept my attention better than most easy, linear, formula SF novels. I must have been in the right mood for it.

This is the first Vinge book I've read. He is reputed as being a talented writer and am looking forward to exploring his work. I first heard of him when I saw this novel in the hands of a co-worker many years ago. I had just gotten bitten by the SF book bug at the time and though I had immersed myself deeply in the Astounding Golden Age greats such as Heinlein, van Vogt, Asimov and such, and felt not quite ready for the more current writers of the genre. All I recalled of his comments on the nov...

The premise of "The Peace War" seemed to have a lot of potential -- the Peace Authority government entity, the bobble weapon, the Tinkers -- but Venor Vinge's delivery failed to live up to that potential.Vinge effectively bobbled any character development. Paul should have been the most interesting, rounded, studied character in the story (considering he was integral to the bobble technology), but the reader is left with scant few details of his life, which surely must have been pretty amazing.W...

Solid science fiction novel with both post-apocalyptic and dystopia themes. Vinge crafts a compelling, tyrannical "post-war" society based in California where self-appointed peace keepers use absolute power to repress development and use of weapons technology. Written during the cold war, the novel explores the logical conclusion of US imperial designs - a benign empire that uses power only for the good of humanity (e.g., spread of democracy, development of pre-capitlist economies, etc.). The U....

I almost pushed this one down to a three star rating on my reread, but by the end I got over the mildly racist overtones against hispanics and blacks and got into the actual war effort. Honestly, even though this is definitely SF with all its discussion of high-tech versus slightly lower-tech population, it actually reads like an OLD STYLE fantasy, complete with old wizard and an underprivileged apprentice siding with the underdog portion of society, the "Tinkers", against the Peace Authority, w...

Bobbles? Bobbles?! Bobbles, bobbles, bobbles!

Good book. Am interesting idea, well explored. I found the last section a little hard to follow, and it spent too much of the last pages teeing up for a sequel, but those are minor complaints in the context of a very engaging read. I found it more accessible than some of vinges other work.

I liked this even better than the Zones of Thought series. Strange, mind blowing post-apocalyptic world, great characters and a fascinating exploration of what it means to control time and technology.

There are some very interesting ideas extrapolating a Cold War mentality to a distant future using time, withholding technology and enforceable isolation as a weapon. But the result is shockingly boring and tedious. I lost track of the number of times a female character was described as intelligent despite being a woman. And the racial politics, hoo boy. I’m pretty sure this was poorly aged when it was written. I’ll keep the faith with Vinge but this was a struggle.

Storyline: 3/5Characters: 3/5Writing Style: 3/5World: 5/5This was an entertaining read on multiple levels. The highlight of the book is definitely in the area of creativity. This was an imaginative and original future that was a delight to explore. This was done through an engaging worldbuilding reveal, and Vinge was adept with this technique. I personally like tales like this, where events and circumstances are alien and unfamiliar, with clues indicating that the world is different from the one...

While not Vinge's most impressive novel (I'll give ‘A Fire Upon the Deep' that designation), The Peace War is a very competent, effective post-apocalyptic/science fiction novel.Some years ago, at the outbreak of international war, someone invented the ‘bobble' – spherical containment fields which could eliminate threats by creating an unbreakable barrier around a weapon, or battalion...The war was terribly destructive anyway, and now a level of reduced technology is enforced by mob-style governm...

Maybe 2 stars is too harsh for a Hugo Nominated Classic of Science-Fiction, but I'm getting sick of books of good ideas by authors that can't write a character to save their Hugo Nominated lives. I'm coming off a string of "good books" including 'Ready Player One', Justin Cronin's 'Passage" and Hugh Howley's 'Wool' that each fall into the category of great idea, mediocre execution (in the case of 'Ready Player One' absolutely dreadful execution). None of these authors knows how to make one chara...

Cool underlying plot vehicle. Neat story. Liked the book

Very Vernor, enjoyed this one.

I used to read a lot of science fiction, then I got tired of reading bad science fiction and it soured me on the genre for a while. About five years ago, I picked up John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and that got me interested in the genre again. A friend recommended Alastair Reynolds' "Revelation Space" books, and I tore through those. That led me to Vernor Vinge's "Zones of Thought" books: A Fire Upon the Deep and its sequel A Deepness in the Sky, and I loved them.Perhaps because Reynolds' writing

I recently read the fantastic A Deepness in the Sky and the very good A Fire upon the Deep, both science fiction novels of breathtaking vision and imagination, and maybe that's to blame for The Peace War leaving me so underwhelmed. I was most definitely not sufficiently whelmed.That isn't to say that The Peace War is a bad story or uninteresting in its ideas. Most people tend to focus on the central "bobble" force-field technology, which a conspiracy of bureaucrats used to usurp all world govern...