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True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier
Since its first publication in 1981, the short novel True Names by Vernor Vinge has been considered one of the most seminal science fiction works to present a fully fleshed-out concept of cyberspace. A finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novella and winner of the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, True Names was an inspiration to many innovators who have helped shape the world wide web as we know it today.The paperback edition of True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier, published in 2001, also contained a feast of articles by computer scientists on the cutting edge of digital science, including Danny Hillis, the founder of Thinking Machines and the first Disney Fellow; Timothy C. May, former chief scientist at Intel; Marvin Minsky, co-founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, considered by many to be the "father" of AI; Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, co-developers of habitat, the first real computer interactive environment; Mark Pesce, co-creator of VRML and the author of the Playful How Technology Transforms Our Imagination; and others.This first e-book edition includes all this, a preface written especially for this edition by editor James Frenkel. an article on the difficulty of keeping information secure by Internet security expert Bruce Schneier. a passionate plea regarding the right to privacy by Richard Stallman, founder of the project to develop the free/libre GNU operating system and one of the most important advocates of free/libre software. True Names itself is the heart of this important an exciting, suspenseful science fiction tale still as fresh and intriguing as when it was first published nearly thirty-five years ago.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
354 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2001
127 people are currently reading
1641 people want to read
About the author
Vernor Vinge
122 books2,593 followersVernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels
A Fire Upon The Deep
(1992),
A Deepness in the Sky
(1999) and
Rainbows End
(2006), his Hugo Award-winning novellas
Fast Times at Fairmont High
(2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/vernor...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/vernor...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
December 15, 2024
This award winning novella proved more techno-thriller than cyberpunk. The best definition of cyberpunk I've come across describes it as a combination of low-life and high-tech, frequently in a dystopian setting. Other than the high-tech, I think those other elements are largely missing here. Still, this was certainly enjoyable and notable. Not so much prescient, yet intriguing in its early depiction of cyberspace where users jack directly in and visualize data and logical constructs as physical constructs, in a virtual world rich with fantasy and magic.
June 28, 2018
I skipped over the essays but the title story and the afterword by Minsky are worth the worth the price of admission by themselves.
Like many groundbreaking ideas, the cyberspace envisioned by Vinge seems fairly standard today since films like The Matrix have made the basic concepts common knowledge. The impressive part is that he did it in 1981 when the first home computers were 8 bit affairs and a hard drive was an expensive luxury.
Considering the way Vinge has data shuttling across satellites and rented corporate hardware it might be fair to say to say he even envisioned cloud computing.
Like many groundbreaking ideas, the cyberspace envisioned by Vinge seems fairly standard today since films like The Matrix have made the basic concepts common knowledge. The impressive part is that he did it in 1981 when the first home computers were 8 bit affairs and a hard drive was an expensive luxury.
Considering the way Vinge has data shuttling across satellites and rented corporate hardware it might be fair to say to say he even envisioned cloud computing.
November 2, 2022
The True Names novella is fantastic. Orig. read about 1996, and again July 2010. Vinge is incredible.
Did an amazing job of explaining the some powerful possibilities of the internet, at least 10-15 years before it became a fact.
I found out about this book from two sources:
David Friedman - per a speech he gave to a lunch discussion group: The Jefferson Club.
Bob P. a colleague at VeriSign, where we worked, who lent me his copy of the book.
Did an amazing job of explaining the some powerful possibilities of the internet, at least 10-15 years before it became a fact.
I found out about this book from two sources:
David Friedman - per a speech he gave to a lunch discussion group: The Jefferson Club.
Bob P. a colleague at VeriSign, where we worked, who lent me his copy of the book.
August 4, 2011
The actual Vernor Vinge story is worth 5 stars. The volume as a whole is really brought down though but the 240 pages of prelude in the form of dated mid 90s era essays on cyberspace. Find the story on its own and read that. If this is the only version you can find, make sure you find it deeply discounted.
Read
January 1, 2021skipped the essays, as many did, enjoyed the prefaces/intros and afterwords
March 22, 2015
True Names is a prophetic story of what the internet could (and kinda did) become. id picked it be cause the topic of being forced to use your "real name" as opposed to the name people know you by comes up at work. and because it is the inspiration for a lot of cyberpunk.
Turns out that it is more than just a story about being on online and living in a synthetic world. oh and being tracked by the NSA. what happens when AI gets away from us? it was a great read, and I highly recommends the story to ask fans of cyberpunk.
it came with 10 essays that were inspired by True Names. the set was published at the then of the century, so some things we have passed by, and others are still relevant today. I skipped a few; they were just to dry. unless you are really into the debates of crypto, real names, and surveillance, is skip them.
Turns out that it is more than just a story about being on online and living in a synthetic world. oh and being tracked by the NSA. what happens when AI gets away from us? it was a great read, and I highly recommends the story to ask fans of cyberpunk.
it came with 10 essays that were inspired by True Names. the set was published at the then of the century, so some things we have passed by, and others are still relevant today. I skipped a few; they were just to dry. unless you are really into the debates of crypto, real names, and surveillance, is skip them.
January 5, 2025
Los ensayos previos pecan un poco de ser una fantasía tecno optimista, aunque alguno resulta interesante.
La historia de Vinge está muy bien, con un inicio hiper interesante y un final que sorprende.
Que mola, vamos
La historia de Vinge está muy bien, con un inicio hiper interesante y un final que sorprende.
Que mola, vamos
May 21, 2016
TODO:
~ Difficult to judge a book that includes a brilliant novelette, a good introduction and afterword, and a series of mediocre to bad essays. But, as I do not judge a book by its covers, I decided to judge True Names by its core novelette, which is visionary and smart. Spare yourself of the rest, which includes an anarchist who trades in number of deaths change will take, a mysoginist who talks about something else, and a misplaced engineering chapter softened for the layperson to the point there's only bombast and claim left.
+++ True Names has it all, presciently: the essence of privacy, virtual environments, hacking, distributed and cloud computing, digital economies, cryptocurrencies, etc. Read alongside Neuromancer and Snow Crash, to get to thw core of cyberpunk scifi or, as we call it today, today.
++ Mr. Slippery is a geat character: conscious of his own flaws, scared of what might be, pushed around by superior forces, fighting his internal demons and ethics.
++ I find it amazing to see how the writing of this essentially tech-driven book has not aged. Vernor Vinge does a masterful job of mixing euphemism with expected advances in computer science (in the 1980s), which sounds still quite advanced for today's (2010s) standards. Not new anymore, but advanced.
~ Difficult to judge a book that includes a brilliant novelette, a good introduction and afterword, and a series of mediocre to bad essays. But, as I do not judge a book by its covers, I decided to judge True Names by its core novelette, which is visionary and smart. Spare yourself of the rest, which includes an anarchist who trades in number of deaths change will take, a mysoginist who talks about something else, and a misplaced engineering chapter softened for the layperson to the point there's only bombast and claim left.
+++ True Names has it all, presciently: the essence of privacy, virtual environments, hacking, distributed and cloud computing, digital economies, cryptocurrencies, etc. Read alongside Neuromancer and Snow Crash, to get to thw core of cyberpunk scifi or, as we call it today, today.
++ Mr. Slippery is a geat character: conscious of his own flaws, scared of what might be, pushed around by superior forces, fighting his internal demons and ethics.
++ I find it amazing to see how the writing of this essentially tech-driven book has not aged. Vernor Vinge does a masterful job of mixing euphemism with expected advances in computer science (in the 1980s), which sounds still quite advanced for today's (2010s) standards. Not new anymore, but advanced.
March 29, 2025
True Names is a remarkable short story. Needless to say, but Venor Vinge has been just so incredible prescient in his writing.
June 6, 2017
This proto-cyberpunk novella makes for interesting reading after all these years. Some parts (pertaining to the internet) are hopelessly dated, others (related to AI) have remained surprisingly relevant.
April 21, 2017
5 stars...only for the vinge short story and its historical significance! Rest of the book is sporadic essays that seemed to be cobbled together so some publisher can sell a novel-length book.
August 17, 2018
Las cinco estrellas van para el relato de Vernor Vinge. El libro contiene también ensayos sobre el futuro de la computación y el ciberespacio. Muy interesante el de Marvin Minsky.
April 3, 2024
The passing of Vernor Vinge, author of the great A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep, led me to go back to one of his earliest ground-breaking works, the novella True Names, first published in 1981. It’s regarded as the inspiration and first detailed working out of what William Gibson would soon popularize in Neuromancer as cyberspace. I have this story in a sort of festschrift, titled True Names by Vernor Vinge and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier, edited by James Frenkel. It offers nine essays about various aspects of the story that explain the significance of what those authors found in this novella for the future of the computer age. That’s fine, but I just wanted to get right to the text of the story to let it speak for itself as a work of science fiction in today’s world. I think it’s a great story that is at once a fine adventure, a dazzling presentation of SF ideas and a moving human drama.
Vinge takes his title and a key part of the drama of his story from a great trope of fantasy and magic, the concept of the true name. “In the once-upon-a-time days of the First Age of Magic,” he begins, if the secret name of a magician were known, it could be used by other magicians to put them in their power and even kill them. Though the ages of reason, industry and computers seemed to do away with such ideas, the era of what Vinge calls the Other Plane brings back the meaning of true names with even greater force.
Roger Pollack, living quietly in northern California, is known as Mr. Slippery to his friends in the Other Plane, where avatars can assume any appearance they want as they seek to hack into computer systems great and small. At the outset of True Names, agents of the despised government Department of Welfare arrive at his home to coerce him into cooperating with them. This is the worst possible thing that could happen. The federal agents have learned his true name and tracked him down. They could arrest him for his transgressions or even have him killed if he has learned too many government secrets. But these agents want his help in finding the true name of a much greater threat to the computer systems of the country and the world. Known only as the Mailman, they seem to have accumulated more power through infiltrating sensitive datasets than anyone imagined possible, and they must be found at all costs.
This might sound like a conventional story line, but Vinge was writing long before the world had become as dependent on the internet as it is now. He had to work out for himself exactly how interconnected data systems would operate and what its vulnerabilities might be. He did this brilliantly, explaining in detail and with great clarity, but always in dramatic context, just what the experience of being in this Other Plane, or cyberspace, would resemble.
.............
True Names is both a pioneering work and an exciting story to read. Vinge was much more sensitive to the changing views of women and diverse physical traits, so I never had that wincing feeling I often get when reading the earlier generation of Heinlein, Asimov and company. The story is a fine introduction to the work of a great science fiction writer who, unfortunately, seems to get a little less attention than he deserves.
Read the full review at SciFi Mind.
Vinge takes his title and a key part of the drama of his story from a great trope of fantasy and magic, the concept of the true name. “In the once-upon-a-time days of the First Age of Magic,” he begins, if the secret name of a magician were known, it could be used by other magicians to put them in their power and even kill them. Though the ages of reason, industry and computers seemed to do away with such ideas, the era of what Vinge calls the Other Plane brings back the meaning of true names with even greater force.
Roger Pollack, living quietly in northern California, is known as Mr. Slippery to his friends in the Other Plane, where avatars can assume any appearance they want as they seek to hack into computer systems great and small. At the outset of True Names, agents of the despised government Department of Welfare arrive at his home to coerce him into cooperating with them. This is the worst possible thing that could happen. The federal agents have learned his true name and tracked him down. They could arrest him for his transgressions or even have him killed if he has learned too many government secrets. But these agents want his help in finding the true name of a much greater threat to the computer systems of the country and the world. Known only as the Mailman, they seem to have accumulated more power through infiltrating sensitive datasets than anyone imagined possible, and they must be found at all costs.
This might sound like a conventional story line, but Vinge was writing long before the world had become as dependent on the internet as it is now. He had to work out for himself exactly how interconnected data systems would operate and what its vulnerabilities might be. He did this brilliantly, explaining in detail and with great clarity, but always in dramatic context, just what the experience of being in this Other Plane, or cyberspace, would resemble.
.............
True Names is both a pioneering work and an exciting story to read. Vinge was much more sensitive to the changing views of women and diverse physical traits, so I never had that wincing feeling I often get when reading the earlier generation of Heinlein, Asimov and company. The story is a fine introduction to the work of a great science fiction writer who, unfortunately, seems to get a little less attention than he deserves.
Read the full review at SciFi Mind.
January 11, 2020
I imagine the ideas presented were pretty cool at the time. They've aged a little since, seeing that I read this on a smartphone now. But they make for interesting contemplation.
My gripe is with the fact that reading linearly, one has to endure TEN essays praising and hyping Vinge's story before you even get to it, by tech writers who think they're really Cool and CyberPhunky yes
I was disappointed when i finally got to Vinge's story. All the excitement about how innovative True Names was because it discussed tech in the idiom of magic left me really disappointed when I actually read the story.
The magical/fantastical tropes Vinge uses are stale and poorly fleshed, falling back on cliches like "busty magical enchantress" and "medieval castle". Really? In an interconnected, globalized world so alive with possibilities and diverse magical cultures, you had to talk about magic in the blandest D&D way possible? A gov agent pretending to be a magical frog? A digitalised eagle? Gods with powers??? That's your idea of imaginative online avatars??
Tldr I can't complain about the ideas. They are very bright, insightful even in 2020. It's the stale metaphors and self-congratulatory tone of the essays I'm disappointed by.
My gripe is with the fact that reading linearly, one has to endure TEN essays praising and hyping Vinge's story before you even get to it, by tech writers who think they're really Cool and CyberPhunky yes
I was disappointed when i finally got to Vinge's story. All the excitement about how innovative True Names was because it discussed tech in the idiom of magic left me really disappointed when I actually read the story.
The magical/fantastical tropes Vinge uses are stale and poorly fleshed, falling back on cliches like "busty magical enchantress" and "medieval castle". Really? In an interconnected, globalized world so alive with possibilities and diverse magical cultures, you had to talk about magic in the blandest D&D way possible? A gov agent pretending to be a magical frog? A digitalised eagle? Gods with powers??? That's your idea of imaginative online avatars??
Tldr I can't complain about the ideas. They are very bright, insightful even in 2020. It's the stale metaphors and self-congratulatory tone of the essays I'm disappointed by.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2025
seminal work of cyberpunk science fiction with a unique voice that only (one of) the first of its kind could possibly achieve
there's much to be said in any science fiction review about what it predicted (etc.), but to me what is more interesting is the use of magic and analogy that is at the crux of how we understand virtual communities today. some later cyberpunk work (in my opinion) focuses a little too much on the specifics of the tech, or the inner workings of a futuristic dystopian "real world" that risks taking over the story, but vinge allows that to take a backseat to explore the dynamics of cyberspace reality in action.
the essays, too, are interesting in their own right. i especially liked the articles about "habitat", an early virtual world. its vignettes were charming and applied nicely to the concept of analogies explored in True Names proper. though i think there was a little too much overlap in discussions about private/public-key cryptography (e.g. many repeated explanations about what, exactly, cryptography is) and that the social/psychological element of cyberspace is overall more interesting.
there's much to be said in any science fiction review about what it predicted (etc.), but to me what is more interesting is the use of magic and analogy that is at the crux of how we understand virtual communities today. some later cyberpunk work (in my opinion) focuses a little too much on the specifics of the tech, or the inner workings of a futuristic dystopian "real world" that risks taking over the story, but vinge allows that to take a backseat to explore the dynamics of cyberspace reality in action.
the essays, too, are interesting in their own right. i especially liked the articles about "habitat", an early virtual world. its vignettes were charming and applied nicely to the concept of analogies explored in True Names proper. though i think there was a little too much overlap in discussions about private/public-key cryptography (e.g. many repeated explanations about what, exactly, cryptography is) and that the social/psychological element of cyberspace is overall more interesting.
April 20, 2025
So here's the thing about this particular volume. The three star rating has more to do with the not very perspicacious tech libertarian screeds offered by a variety of self-appointed thinkers who aren't nearly as bright as they think they are. The actual novella, "True Names," is worth your time. As is Marvin Minsky's afterword. I read this book after I expressed my umbrage towards Vinge's trope-laden stories upon his passing and a friend said, "Yo, bald dude, you may want to read this." Well, he was right. Mostly. "True Names" is one of the most forward-thinking works of fiction when it comes to anticipating virtual worlds and the world we live in. Does it work as fiction? Not exactly. But I'll pardon the reliance upon easy narrative tropes to praise Vinge's tendency to think ahead of the curve, which he does so admirably here. Honestly, I wish this volume was just Vinge and Minsky. All the "essays" are gormless junk indistinguishable from USENET posts in the 1990s. But hey I liked this Vinge. And that's what counts.
March 24, 2022
"…it was likely that the governments of the world hadn’t caught up to the skills of the better warlocks because they refused to indulge in the foolish imaginings of fantasy."
— Vernor Vinge, True Names
True Names was a great novella! Highly creative with a great plot twist and the end. The essays preceding it, however, take the cake. Mostly dating from the 1990s, I was fascinated to learn more about the history of the Internet and have a much better understanding of remailing, PGP, public and private keys now than I did before. The essays brought up many great questions as to the future of privacy with the dawn of the internet, and posed great solutions that really got me thinking about how I could change my life for more privacy and freedom. I'm looking forward to delving into more on the subject. All in all, a very insightful and hopeful book. Cyberspace truly is a frontier, and one that everyone should learn to use and claim for themselves.
— Vernor Vinge, True Names
True Names was a great novella! Highly creative with a great plot twist and the end. The essays preceding it, however, take the cake. Mostly dating from the 1990s, I was fascinated to learn more about the history of the Internet and have a much better understanding of remailing, PGP, public and private keys now than I did before. The essays brought up many great questions as to the future of privacy with the dawn of the internet, and posed great solutions that really got me thinking about how I could change my life for more privacy and freedom. I'm looking forward to delving into more on the subject. All in all, a very insightful and hopeful book. Cyberspace truly is a frontier, and one that everyone should learn to use and claim for themselves.
April 21, 2024
Call this 3 1/2 stars, with some caveats. One is just, I only read the intro material and the title story (True Names) because I was trying to establish just how foundational VV was to everything cyberspace and uh...that is legit. The story felt like a prototype of 100 other stories and movies I've seen since, and so in a way it was a bit repetitive, but only because it somehow figured out the gears and innards and whatnot that drive a story like that (think hackers flying through a neon psychedelia landscape, if you die in Canada you die in real life, Deus ex Machina, all the tropes)
But it also worked really well, and I think that's partly down to this being a bit longer and now I suspect VV needed that space to make his stories take flight. It was enjoyable even if I could see the beats miles ahead of time.
Anyway I skipped all the essays re: opening the frontier but I'm sure they're fine if you like that thing.
But it also worked really well, and I think that's partly down to this being a bit longer and now I suspect VV needed that space to make his stories take flight. It was enjoyable even if I could see the beats miles ahead of time.
Anyway I skipped all the essays re: opening the frontier but I'm sure they're fine if you like that thing.
November 3, 2017
I always like reading more about future predictions. This book provides a window from the past, in which a prediction of a future with internet dominated society is described. The book covers a great deal of conflicts and problems that are at the core of our technical methodologies used to make cyberspace happen. A good book to have lots and lots of insights about where such a network mechanism is heading. Almost all of the predictions are accurate enough to match what has happened so far. The bad side of reading such a book is as you know more about cyberspace you start to easily lose the trust and understand that it's a system built to change and manipulated, and in the meanwhile it will manipulate our futures for better or worse...
June 9, 2021
What a ride! A good book for everyone who loves science fiction stuff. A bit on the shorter side for me but I think this was meant as a short story so it definitely delivers on that front. Apart from some technical terms which I believe were thrown in just to sound futuristic, I really appreciated the read with its connected world, characters and their short interaction.
The one thing which I liked the most was Afterword which explains the nitty gritty and delves into some philosophy (at least that's what I think) which really makes you think about the parallels of the fictional world and ours. This part should definitely be NOT skipped.
The one thing which I liked the most was Afterword which explains the nitty gritty and delves into some philosophy (at least that's what I think) which really makes you think about the parallels of the fictional world and ours. This part should definitely be NOT skipped.
April 24, 2020
Vinge's 1981 prophetic fiction describing a super cyberspace much of which is now a reality. It had a cult following and by 1981, much of what we have now was already envisioned and in the works. Just fascinating to think of the genius, connections and communities that intersected to bring about what we take for granted today.
This reprint of Vinge's novella is accompanied by explanatory essays, essays that give depth and reality to the earlier vision. They're academic though and by comparison, the essays seem ponderous and inflated.
This reprint of Vinge's novella is accompanied by explanatory essays, essays that give depth and reality to the earlier vision. They're academic though and by comparison, the essays seem ponderous and inflated.
April 12, 2024
现在阅读这部小说，总会让我想起《百年孤独》那著名的开头：“多年以后，面对行刑队，奥雷里亚诺·布恩迪亚上校将会回想起父亲带他去见识冰块的那个遥远的下午。”时代的进步太快了，我们现在就是站几十年前的科幻小书中的未来的角度来回忆过去——或者叫曾经的未来。人类总有一些人的想法如此超前，也正是因为这些人，人类的科技才有了更明确的走向；也有了很多未雨绸缪的预测。当网络成为现代社会的组成部分时，人工智能的发展处于直线上升的状态，虚拟和现实的界限如此模糊。真名实姓的魔法控制也成为现实中的首要问题。本书开篇加入了数片探索个人隐私和加密的早期文章。有些技术内容当然明显过时，就像计算机的打孔带一样，如果不是读这些文章，我绝不会怀念他们，还有需要自己录入声音训练语音指令的那些日子。但是其中关于国家信息基础设施是否会成为一种“圆形监狱”，我们如何“加密隐私”的讨论在今天更为迫切。
现在流行的故事大部分都是人类为了保护自己，用自身拼命去炸毁、灭掉具有自我意识的人工智能的物理载体。其实现实早就有了另一种版本，可能都被大家遗忘的CIH病毒：可以直接烧毁计算机硬件。我认为，用这样的程序后门来防止人工智能对人类的攻击也是可能的。类似“机器人三定律”的规则再怎么控制，我们也未必能完全理解人工智能的心智运行。撒旦也是上帝创造的。这样的科幻小说是人类文明的一种超强推动力。过时的只有技术性，它的思想性一直在。
现在流行的故事大部分都是人类为了保护自己，用自身拼命去炸毁、灭掉具有自我意识的人工智能的物理载体。其实现实早就有了另一种版本，可能都被大家遗忘的CIH病毒：可以直接烧毁计算机硬件。我认为，用这样的程序后门来防止人工智能对人类的攻击也是可能的。类似“机器人三定律”的规则再怎么控制，我们也未必能完全理解人工智能的心智运行。撒旦也是上帝创造的。这样的科幻小说是人类文明的一种超强推动力。过时的只有技术性，它的思想性一直在。
February 3, 2022
Vinge’s later, much longer novels are better written but this story is worth it for historical context - part of the Neuromancer/Snow Crash gang in terms of anticipating the internet/cyberspace (here The Other Plane) but even more interesting in terms of crypto currency and the moral battle between government and personal liberties which is unfolding before us all in 2022. The essays that come with the Penguin reprint (the one with a Hari Kunzru introduction) are helpful too.
May 22, 2022
I had never heard of Vinge before a friend recommended ‚True Names‘. I can see how this story was influential for a generation of people in cryptography, ai etc. The book includes the most lengthy introduction I ever witnessed, embodied by 9 essays of some big names. So this book is a mix of reviews and points of view on privacy, cryptography and the like and also the science-fantasy story by Vinge.
October 26, 2023
In 1981, a few years before the groundbreaking William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, Vernor Vinge imagined cyberspace. His seminal novella also contains hints of transhumanism.
Vinge's vision of cyberspace is eerily prescient. His story about a group of hackers explores some of the potential dangers and benefits of this new technology.
True Names is a must-read for fans of sci-fi, and cyberpunk in particular. It is a classic story that has aged very well and remains relevant today.
Vinge's vision of cyberspace is eerily prescient. His story about a group of hackers explores some of the potential dangers and benefits of this new technology.
True Names is a must-read for fans of sci-fi, and cyberpunk in particular. It is a classic story that has aged very well and remains relevant today.
May 21, 2017
Eerily prescient and applicable to modern times. That we choose or chose, ever, to reveal ourselves online, our True Names, is baffling. We've been conditioned to trust, and in such lost a lot of our magical power.
September 14, 2017
The title story, True Names, is the first and, for me, the best cyberspace story. It gets 5 stars.
Other stories in this collection are enjoyable as well, mostly 3 and 4 stars.
So, overall, a 4 star collection.
Other stories in this collection are enjoyable as well, mostly 3 and 4 stars.
So, overall, a 4 star collection.
March 28, 2018
Only two short stories in this compilation, both very good and well ahead of their time, written in the late 90’s. The rest are articles on web security, crypto analysis and future developments. All a bit dry for me.
September 26, 2021
Great read
A sci fi classic full of visionary ideas, including many that have manifested already. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how the world we currently find ourselves in, came to be.
A sci fi classic full of visionary ideas, including many that have manifested already. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how the world we currently find ourselves in, came to be.
May 11, 2024
Interesting compilation
I started reading this book because I wanted to read True Names. However, the accompanying pieces are interesting and a good preparation for the piece de resistance. Best, after the main text, is the postscript by Minsky, very insightful.
I started reading this book because I wanted to read True Names. However, the accompanying pieces are interesting and a good preparation for the piece de resistance. Best, after the main text, is the postscript by Minsky, very insightful.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews