In The Peace War, a rogue research group, later calling itself the Peace Authority, takes control of the world after perfecting the art of conjuring and projecting bobbles...impenetrable spherical force-fields. Fifty years after they've taken down nearly every national government on the planet by negating the governments' every weapon with the bobble, a rebellion is finally stirring, a rebellion led by Paul Naismith...a Tinker whose mastery of Banned technology (high-tech stuff was banned by the Authority because it presents a threat to the Authority's power...namely the sole proprietorship of the bobble technology) puts Naismith in the perfect position to help bring about an end (with the help of his fellow Tinkers) to the Peace Authority's tyrannical rule. But Naismith is an elderly man (around 80), and knows his time is waning. Because of this, Naismith takes on an apprentice, someone he can pass his Tinker secrets to...an heir. He chooses (or has thrust upon him, depending on the point of view) Wili Wachendon...for most intents and purposes a thief...but also a mathematical genesis of the highest caliber -- once Naismith instructs him on some fundamentals anyway. Naismith and Wachendon, along with their Tinker friends and a few others, ultimately confront the Peace Authority on their own turf...in more ways than one...where nothing short of the fate of the world lies in the hands of Naismith, Wachendon, and their friends.

Once one puts aside the unbelievability factor -- conqueroring every government in the world, even with a technology as incredible as the bobble -- the book is really quite good. The bobble is an interesting concept that Vinge handles quite adeptly...for instance, in the shadows of the large bobbles that surround entire cities, the surrounding ecosystem is dramatically altered because of a change in climactic patterns brought forcefully on by the bobbles. I found this to be a very plausible and common-sense consequence of using the bobbles that I'm not sure every author would have considered. Also, I found it interesting that at least one of Naismith's devices (I won't say which, because it is one of the minor mysteries that gets solved early on in the book) seems to be an "ancestor" to one of the devices used in A Deepness in the Sky written about 15 years later.

Overall, The Peace War is certainly worth reading if you are a fan of Vinge, a techy, or are just plain interested in good scifi.


An epic struggle for freedom   April 15, 2000
 19 out of 25 found this review helpful

Using its superior weapon, the Peace Authority grabbed control of the world. During the brief struggle an unknown nation released deadly biological agents. Billions died, and the Peace Authority stepped in to pick up the pieces. In many places civilisation was left to revert to feudalism.

So now its fifty years later and the world has had fifty years without a war. The Authority preserves the peace by stamping out all high energy physics research, they do not permit any biological experimentation and all large-scale weapons of war are forbidden.

But everything has its price. Peace has been achieved at the cost of crushing of the human spirit and the stagnation of human potential. The Authority also tries to suppress innovation by siphoning off the young intellectual cream to its stronghold, the former Livermore University campus. There they are trained to work for and think like the Peace Authority.

The organisation's power is derived from the possession of the ultimate weapon. The invincible, impenetrable force fields known as the `Bobble'. Any transgressors are immediately enclosed in this spherical force field and are trapped for all eternity dying slowly from asphyxiation in an airless tomb.

Unbeknown to the Authority, small groups have been working together on low energy, high tech research. The fruits of this research take the form of intelligent weapons, untraceable communications and computing power many orders of magnitude above anything the Peace Authority possesses. These groups known as the Tinkers also have as their ally Paul Hoehler the genius that invented the Bobble and unwittingly unleashed the Peace Authority on the world. Paul has been trying to for fifty years to undo this harm, but time is running out for Paul. He is now old and frail, he needs to find an apprentice to assume his mantle, but genius is a rare commodity and the Peace Authority is finally closing in on him.

This is a beautifully written novel detailing an ` David and Goliath' struggle between the Peace Authority and the Tinkers. It is also a graphic lesson in why totalitarianism doesn't work, no matter how good the intentions of the rulers (the road to Hell is paved with such good intentions!). There is no such thing as a good dictatorship.

While I was reading this story I couldn't help but note the many amusing parallels between the Tinker's struggle with the Authority and the Linux OS developers battle against a certain popular software company. Like the Tinkers the Linux community are innovative, adaptable, fast moving and technically advanced. Like the Authority the popular software company is a ponderous leviathan that is slow to react and frankly has trouble innovating. Who will win the struggle? Read this excellent book and decide for yourself.


Not the best Vinge   May 16, 2006
 14 out of 15 found this review helpful

I am a HUGE fan of "A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky", but this book doesn't measure up. It's got an interesting idea (if implausible), but nowhere near what Vinge came up with for his other two books.

I also found the characters a bit thin. Paul, Wili, and the rest just don't seem real to me. I don't have a sense of how these people got to where they are now. So, Paul is a genius, and has something to do with the origins of the bobbles. Great, but what happened to him in the 50 years that the bobbles have been around? How did he get to where he is? Unanswered questions.

Overall, I'd skip this and stick with the other two books I mentioned.


part one of the greatest   October 15, 2005
 9 out of 13 found this review helpful

Bar none the best fiction I have ever laid eyes on. Unless you count Calvin and Hobbes. The best book comprised of only words then. And the only thing more outrageous than the fact that the year "The Peace War" was published, it had its Hugo award STOLEN away by the inferior (yet undeniably more popular) "Ender's Game" by Card, is the fact that "Marooned In Realtime", the second volume of this book, which somehow held up to the unimaginibly high standard of "The Peace War", had the Hugo that rightfully belonged to it stolen away by the VASTLY inferior sequel to "Ender's Game", "Speaker For The Dead", by the same stinker. Oh well. It just goes to show how little the Hugo people know what they're doing. (Their winning choices for short stories are even more ridiculous. For instance, one in particular where the author got EVERYTHING so wrong, even the most basic concepts, it was hard for me to even stand to read, such as the fact that tidal force is proportional to the inverse cube of the distance, so if you approached a sufficiently massive object, you wouldn't feel it until the instant before you were blasted to bits. And of course none of the story's characters, advanced space travelers mind you, had foreseen that this massive object would have a deadly tidal force and were all taken off guard.)

That said, if you give this book a CHANCE, I think you will find it the most compelling, fascinating story you have ever read. Unless you have read things I have not. Which is more than likely. The premise: what would happen if a group of people got ahold of the ULTIMATE weapon? A weapon so strange that no one could possibly have expected its invention, yet so powerful that it made nuclear weapons obsolete, and a few people controlling it could conquer the world? That's The Peace War. The long-term effects of this technology, and long term trends of human technological development in general are what fuel the second book, "Marooned in Realtime". Interesting social analysis, and I think a very likely interpretation of the nature and fate of intelligent life in the universe. Prepare for the ultimate showdown, the ultimate fight for freedom, perhaps even the ultimate battle between good and evil, because the bad guys conquering the world is only the beginning of the story.

I would recommend, however, that you search for "Across Realtime" and get that book. It's both this AND "Marooned in Realtime" in one volume, with a short story in the middle that sort of bridges the two.


Still in Print, I think   August 3, 1998
 6 out of 11 found this review helpful

There's a book available that combines 'The Peace War' and 'Marooned in Real-Time' called "Across real-time" or something like that. Check into it.