I imagine there are quite a few people on the list who like Vernor Vinge's
books.  He's one of my favourite writers, and A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (1992)
and A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY (1999), his last two novels, are excellent.

His new one, just out in the last week or so, is RAINBOWS END, and I
recommend it to anyone here.  It's shorter than the other two, and set in
the near future, in the same place as his recent short story "Fast Times
at Fairmont High."

A library and a digitization project are at the centre of it, and those
are always fun to read about.  Beyond that, though, there's much to think
about relating to our field: if the future is like what Vinge describes,
what the hell will we be doing?  What will our roles be?  What is
librarianship in a world just on the verge of the technological
singularity?  Read the book and try to imagine what code4lib will be like
in twenty or thirty years.

Bill
--
William Denton : Toronto, Canada : www.miskatonic.org : www.frbr.org