Across Real Time Series - Vernor Vinge

Written by Vernor Vinge
Read by Bruce Huntey
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Vernor Steffen Vinge born October 2, 1944) is a retired San Diego State University (SDSU) Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas.

1: The Peace War
The story takes place in 2048, 51 years after scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop “the ultimate weapon”, a force field generating device they term a Bobbler. The bureaucracy running the Laboratory use it to enforce an end to conventional warfare (triggering a brief war in the process), calling themselves the Peace Authority. The Bobbler creates a perfectly spherical, impenetrable, and persistent shield around or through anything, and is used to contain nuclear weapons, people, and occasionally entire cities or governments, separating them from the rest of the world (and presumably killing everyone inside by eventual suffocation and lack of sunlight).

2: Marooned in Realtime
In the story, a device exists which can create a “bobble”, a spherical stasis field in which time stands still, allowing one-way time travel into the future. These frictionless, perfectly reflective spheres are also used as weapons, as shields against other weapons, for storage, for space travel (combined with nuclear pulse propulsion), and other purposes.