I am so sad to hear that we have lost Vernor Vinge, whose work was a tremendous inspiration to me. I once had the pleasure of interviewing him, and he was quite surprised when I told him that his characters in Rainbows End were a highlight. He thought of himself as a worldbuilder, but unbeknownst to himself, he was sometimes an author of truly nuanced character studies. gizmodo.com/vernor-vinge-says-that-when-the-singularity-happens-it-5860524