But rarely has he (or anyone in general) built a better thing than is done in the fast, colorful and very inventive short story that is offered to you - in the short story “Chatterbox”. The strong influence of Robert A. Heinlein is obvious here - part of the novella is an undisguised tribute to Heinlein's "Star Beast", which is directly mentioned in the text, although the influence of Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Charles Harness and, perhaps, Roger Zelazny (in my opinion) can also be traced , his influence appears even more clearly in “True Names”). Consciously following the plot structure of "Star Beast", Vinge introduces several unexpected moves along this familiar path, as well as radically new thoughts about what interstellar societies will actually be like - these thoughts precede his well-known discussions of the "Singularity" (the coming point in time , when technological progress accelerates to such an extent that society becomes incomprehensible even to the people living in it), and they are likely to have a strong influence on future works of space adventure, although not out loud, as True Names had its influence on literature of virtual reality.