A fire upon the deep

(Zones of thought series)

430 pages

English language

Published Nov. 11, 2011 by Tor.

ISBN:
9780765329820
OCLC Number:
711989014

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (93 reviews)

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.

13 editions

A Masterpiece of Science Fiction

5 stars

This is a masterpiece of a book, deservedly considered a classic. It starts with a group of human scientists re-awakening an AI, but everything goes pear-shaped very quickly. From there two plot lines proceed in parallel, one concerning a family from the group that worked on the AI, the other concerning a group of mixed human and alien beings that are trying to deal with the menace unleashed on the galaxy by this AI. The greatest fascination of this novel is the alien races. They are very disctinctly different, but Vinge makes them believable at the same time. The plot line of the escaped family takes them to a world inhabited by beings with group consciousness. They are like small mammals, but an individual of this species is not even conscious or intelligent. It is only when they they join together in groups of 5-8 that they become intelligent entities. …

Review of 'A Fire Upon The Deep' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I reread this recently, and it didn't hold up very well. Don't get me wrong - I would still recommend it as a rip-roaring good read the first time through - the universe and plot twists and turns earn all the praise they've gotten over the years. But on this later read, the weak character development and pedestrian writing style made it a bit of a slog - since I knew how things would turn out, I didn't have much motive to finish again.

Review of 'A Fire Upon The Deep' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

The central conceit of this novel, the "zones of thought", is brilliant.

The laws of physics change as a factor of distance from the galactic center, allowing increasingly advanced civilizations toward the edge of the galaxy. Earth's civilization, trapped in the "slow zone" - the interior region where nothing travels faster than light - is limited to the solar system by that impassable barrier.

This idea allows sci-fantasy staples like FTL travel and interstellar civilizations to exist within a rigorous sci-fi universe. It also creates a rich analogy between galactic geography and the hierarchy of oceanic life forms. Entities closer to the galactic center are tend to be lower life forms, those closer to the edge are more advanced.

If only the story was as compelling as the setting. Half of the book is a grand space opera about the struggle to contain a godlike extragalactic threat while the other …

Review of 'A Fire Upon The Deep' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Wow. The first three chapters alone blew me away with all the cool ideas. I was so fired up to talk about this with my friends, but when I did I had a difficult time trying not to sound like a raving lunatic. No wonder [a:Jo Walton|107170|Jo Walton|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1353809579p2/107170.jpg] wrote:

"Any one of the ideas in A Fire Upon the Deep would have kept an ordinary writer going for years."



Highly recommended for anyone who is looking for space-faring scifi that is actually challenging.

Review of 'A Fire Upon The Deep' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I had read Vinge's earlier books, but missed this one until 1997 when I
learned of it through a forwarded message from SWIL. (www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/swil/lists/sfdt.html) I remember that the title put me off, I was not expecting anything like this.

As an evocation of a certain period of Usenet, this surely helped inspire me to build olduse.net. Which involved digging up an archive and reanimating it, and I hope will end well..

All of which says nothing about AFOtD as a peice of fiction, but anything I could say has been said before anyway.

avatar for Thriveth

rated it

4 stars
avatar for ajft

rated it

4 stars
avatar for whitmad

rated it

5 stars
avatar for faited

rated it

4 stars
avatar for jimfingal
jim

rated it

5 stars
avatar for haagen_daz

rated it

3 stars
avatar for inga-lovinde

rated it

5 stars
avatar for chris_st

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Lasu

rated it

5 stars
avatar for evanstucker

rated it

5 stars
avatar for agd
agd

rated it

5 stars
avatar for agd
agd

rated it

5 stars
avatar for samullen

rated it

3 stars
avatar for asmundg

rated it

4 stars
avatar for nonskanse
Vee

rated it

4 stars
avatar for salvage

rated it

4 stars
avatar for DavidAmes

rated it

5 stars
avatar for localstatic

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Trentie

rated it

4 stars
avatar for jhelwig

rated it

4 stars
avatar for gimley

rated it

4 stars
avatar for hughrawlinson

rated it

4 stars
avatar for mosspiglet

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Yogthos

rated it

5 stars
avatar for DerekCaelin

rated it

3 stars
avatar for akkartik

rated it

4 stars
avatar for ianbetteridge

rated it

4 stars
avatar for wolfwitte

rated it

3 stars
avatar for lnklnx

rated it

3 stars
avatar for stim
T

rated it

2 stars
avatar for anaulin

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Jarmer

rated it

5 stars
avatar for jumpinggrendel

rated it

4 stars
avatar for reverse

rated it

5 stars
avatar for j6m8

rated it

5 stars
avatar for BreadAndCircuses

rated it

5 stars
avatar for BeachReader

rated it

3 stars
avatar for IndustrialRobot

rated it

4 stars
avatar for kevinpotts

rated it

2 stars
avatar for Thriveth

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Azuaron

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Chigaze

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Jaytee

rated it

5 stars
avatar for KidDogDad

rated it

3 stars
avatar for ceoln

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Stonebender

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Bhawthorne

rated it

4 stars
avatar for agentydragon
Rai

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Medievalist

rated it

5 stars
avatar for TidePoolParty

rated it

4 stars
avatar for lukeg

rated it

3 stars
avatar for kfieldho

rated it

5 stars
avatar for CaptainCornflake

rated it

4 stars
avatar for wafonso

rated it

5 stars
avatar for kbg
kbg

rated it

4 stars
avatar for rschulman

rated it

3 stars
avatar for cwhitfield

rated it

5 stars
avatar for stinkingpig

rated it

5 stars
avatar for tartley

rated it

5 stars
avatar for mattlehrer

rated it

2 stars
avatar for xorn

rated it

5 stars
avatar for betty

rated it

3 stars
avatar for Konrad

rated it

4 stars
avatar for mikewilson

rated it

2 stars
avatar for theo_the_artist1

rated it

3 stars
avatar for bug138

rated it

4 stars
avatar for lebushjr

rated it

5 stars
avatar for eyal

rated it

5 stars
avatar for xianny

rated it

5 stars
avatar for haliphax

rated it

5 stars
avatar for valen

rated it

5 stars
avatar for sebastost

rated it

5 stars
avatar for cody

rated it

5 stars
avatar for windchime

rated it

4 stars
avatar for jelmervdl

rated it

4 stars

Subjects

  • Life on other planets
  • Fiction