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A Fire Upon The Deep
By Vernor Vinge
Book Actions
Start Reading- Publisher:
- Macmillan Publishers
- Released:
- Apr 1, 2010
- ISBN:
- 9781429981989
- Format:
- Book
Description
Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works.
A Hugo Award-winning Novel!
“Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin
Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.
Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.
Tor books by Vernor Vinge
Zones of Thought Series
A Fire Upon The Deep
A Deepness In The Sky
The Children of The Sky
Realtime/Bobble Series
The Peace War
Marooned in Realtime
Other Novels
The Witling
Tatja Grimm's World
Rainbows End
Collections
Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
True Names
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Book Actions
Start ReadingBook Information
A Fire Upon The Deep
By Vernor Vinge
Description
Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works.
A Hugo Award-winning Novel!
“Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin
Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.
Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.
Tor books by Vernor Vinge
Zones of Thought Series
A Fire Upon The Deep
A Deepness In The Sky
The Children of The Sky
Realtime/Bobble Series
The Peace War
Marooned in Realtime
Other Novels
The Witling
Tatja Grimm's World
Rainbows End
Collections
Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
True Names
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
- Publisher:
- Macmillan Publishers
- Released:
- Apr 1, 2010
- ISBN:
- 9781429981989
- Format:
- Book
About the author
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A Fire Upon The Deep - Vernor Vinge
Reviews
Why did this get lauds?
I think that I should read this book again, I could have simply been in a bad mood while I was reading it.
4 stars, not 3 because I think it could be a 5 next time around.
The world was interesting and I enjoyed even some details. The plot was good, I was even surprised and felt tension in a few occasions.
Two things which I very much did not like in the book: characters and writing style. The characters appeared shallow and childish. Sometimes (or often) their reactions or thoughts felt forced. Shallowness and low credibility applied to the groups and societies, too, maybe even more. You could suppose that when a whole advanced civilization chooses to speak as a whole to the rest of the galaxy, they most probably would use a good range of intellectual resources when gathering information, trying to make sense of it, and in the end, choosing what to publish and why. Not in this book.
Writing was just terrible: the author used excessive punctuation in place of words to form thoughts. The most annoying device, or easiest to recall, were the lists of single word questions, which elaborated on the meaning of previous sentence or word, for example. In fact, often the language in the book resembled somewhat a slide show presentation. Not my favorite.
The book as a whole was interesting enough that I wanted to continue reading it, but far from being good literature.
It took me almost 3 months to read this epic. It is so full of deep and challenging ideas that every 20 pages felt like a full meal, which I needed time to digest.
And frankly, I wished for about 30 more IQ points, which I felt would have helped me appreciate the book even better. Because Vinge is way smarter than me, and he's doing something very, very hard here: writing about intelligences far beyond current human level, in a setting that spans vast stretches of time and space. Audacious, to say the least.
Greatest science fiction novel ever? Well, I ain't read 'em all, but I've read quite a few. If we agree that SF is to be judged by the power of its imagination, the scope and originality of its ideas, then I'm hard-pressed to name another novel that's even in the same class.
I finished Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep" and let me tell you this monster book, clocking at nearly 600 pages, does have adventure, medieval civilizations, a bit of romance and has its dark side as well. Parts of the book do drag and the author might have been in need of an editor, but overall not a bad space tale.
Basic Premise, Some Comments:
In this universe we have 'zones of thought' that are linked through a subspace network, similar to our Internet which is colloquially called the "Net of a Million Lies." Would make a great advertisement for Wikipedia and the World Wide Web of today! The book was written in the 90s and so the pattern is of the Usenet groups of that time.
The book is broken down into several areas - the release of the "Blight", a malignant force that destroys all who oppose it, a family that discovers the "Countermeasure" but crash on a planet of dog-like aliens that only communicate in groups (a "pack" can think and respond only in a group, not singly), Ravna's planet, her job at "Relay" (as a librarian) and her relationship with a human (put together from parts by "The Old One," a superior being from "The Beyond", and their adventures together.
These parts don't always fit well. Each is expanded on (such as in the dog-like alien world, "Tine's World") and that's where the story tends to drag. We get involved in the intrigue, the castles, the battles and traitors of their race. The man and woman mentioned earlier crash-land and are immediately killed by this race. The brother and sister (Jefri and Joanna) are separated and each thinks the other is dead. The warring factions take advantage of this misunderstanding and slowly leech out technology that these children may know for their own advantages.
Interest:
I did enjoy the clash between factions in this alien society and the imaginative way they built "packs" where you would take different skills from each "dog" and they would somehow think together. With the invention of radio, thanks to the humans, the Tines discovered that they could radio to each others' brains! This was interesting but never expanded upon to include the whole race, but just one pack.
Other aspects of the story: The warring factions clash near the last 100 pages of the book which I found fascinating, how each faction used the children as pawns and at one point wanting to kill them to gain advantage.
The part where each discovers that the other is alive is heartwarming but also comes with the price of a life. That was the best part of the book.
Romance: There is a bit of this, between Ravna and Pham (at least before she discovers he's not all man - oops!). Also camaraderie and loyalty between starship captains as they attempt to rescue Ravna from "the Blight." Great space battle here.
World Building and The Internet:
The author dwells too long on detail and I felt the reader spends a long, long time on the chatter of the 'Net, which can be annoying as you just want to story to move along, and the extraordinary time we spend on the Tines' World. There's not a lot of explanation of the "Beyond" and how and what that's all about - just hints of superior beings and we as humans or lesser aliens are their pawns, and only in the lower levels are we safe from them.
Finally, it's a tough book to put down and wait awhile and pick up again. You have to reread a few sections to refresh your memory on what's going on. As well, Vernor Vinge tends to make up words without explanation and leaves it up to the reader to figure out, as well as not fully explaining what's going on. For example it took quite awhile into the book before discovering that the alien "packs" communicated as groups not as individuals.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, a decent read. Set aside some time and give Vinge your full cooperation. May not be as good as the amazing space operas of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, but it is a worthy, if dragged-out read. Recommended.
Vernor Vinge's Other Novels:
The Children of the Sky
Marooned in Realtime
The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
A Deepness in the Sky [Sequel to "Fire."]
I must admit that only about a third or half of this story kept my interest. I was drawn in to the plight of Jefri and Johanna. And, by proximity, the inhabitants of the Tines world where Jefri and Johanna's parents crash landed them and left them stranded and orphaned.
The rest of the tale, which most likely qualifies as the space opera epic, was confusing, sometimes appeared to be pointless, boring and just plain slow. As I approached the end, I admit I skimmed nearly all the parts that dealt with Ravna, Pham, the Skoderiders, the Blight and the chase to the Tines world.
If it weren't for the uniqueness of the Tines world and the independent struggles of Jefri and Johanna, I probably would have given this a two star rating. But I love the resilience of Jefri and his ability to assimilate and adapt to Amdi, an eight-member pack of about the same maturity level as Jefri but extraordinarily gifted in mathematics. And Johanna was the rebellious teenager, convinced she was the only survivor of the crash and out to get revenge on the packs who had ambushed her family. Great drama, politics and manipulation, espionage and intrigue - all you could want to keep you riveted to the page.
The ending was a bit tragic and I was left with uncertainty as to the Blight and the Countermeasure's struggle. I was never really given the chance to determine if the Blight or the Countermeasure were "evil" or "good" so I was ambivalent as to the Titanic struggle between the two. The only thing certain is that both the Blight and the Countermeasure destroyed billions upon billions of lives and whole swaths of civilizations in a large portion of the Galaxy. For that alone, neither of them are classified as "good" to me.