The Peace War [Paperback]

The Peace Waris quintessential hard-science adventure. The Peace Authority conquered the world with a weapon that never should have been a weapon--the bobble, a spherical force-field impenetrable by any force known to mankind. Encasing governmental installations and military bases in bobbles, the Authority becomes virtually omnipotent. But they've never caught Paul Hoehler, the maverick who invented the technology, and who has been working quietly for decades to develop a way to defeat the Authority. With the help of an underground network of determined, independent scientists and a teenager who may be the apprentice genius he's needed for so long, he will shake the world, in the fast-paced hard-science thriller that garnered Vinge the first of his four Hugo nominations for best novel.

After the World Ends

Fifty years before, the Peace Authority took control of governments worldwide with a radically different weapon, the bobbler, which encased its targets within an impenetrable force field, rendering resistance impotent. After the decimation caused by severe plagues, civilization fell into a semifeudal state, and all high technology was banned.

But Paul Naismith, inventor of the bobbler, has never given up hope, and having hidden from the usurpers for decades, he is finally ready to lead the tinker underground against the evil he helped to create. The odds against them seem impossibly long. Nothing has been able to defeat the Peace Authority's bobbler.

Until now . . .

Combines the tautness of a political thriller with strong characterizations. A suspenseful story.
--Library Journal

Conveys the excitement of a conceptual breakthrough as well as the gap between theory and actuality.
--Publishers Weekly

A fascinating scientific concept worked into a colorful, carefully thought-out future.
--Locus

The novel that garnered Vinge his first Best Novel Hugo Finalist nominatl“'