Paperback, 592 pages
Published Oct. 2, 1995 by Gollancz.
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.
An amazing read. Such a deep story spread across a huge galaxy.
What a neat read. I felt like it was a cross between the baddie of the 5th element, the creatures from the dark crystal, Firefly, and a galactic zone system from Weiss & Hickman. What a crazy, crazy story.
There were a few dips that had my reading falter but for the most part it was a pretty engaged piece. I'd have liked to know more about the baddie, and the countermeasure. I had deep questions about the universe--but I suppose I have deep questions about most books most of the time.
Neat universe, races--and a race that actually gets solved in one read? Nice. With more? Let's see!
Very fun with pretty great aliens. Aliens were WAY TOO anthropomorphic. I mean, Vinge gave sentient sea ferns essentially human genders with modern western gender dynamics. 2 hours conversation with a botanist and this book could have been 1000x better. Sometimes the technical details on the alien usenet and archives was a little much, though I guess it would have been fascinating when the internet was so new? Also it would have been better if women were more than a comfort and a conscience to the heroic dudes.
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.
clever, a little slow, but very well designed. good characterization and interesting concepts
Engrossing self-deceit and self-defeat, in a story worthy of both its galaxy-spanning and personal components.
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 …
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 half involves a political squabble among factions of a pre-industrial race in the slow zone. These things are not equivalent in importance, and the planetbound sections of the book are comically tedious.
The sequel seems to narrow the focus - but in the wrong direction: it's set entirely on Planet Pointless. Vernor Vinge has terrific ideas, but he needs to find a better way to use them.
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.
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."
Will likely return to this one day.
I loved the first 4 or 500 pages of this book, especially the big ideas: zones of thought, transcendence, FTL travel, AI, etc. Unlike some, I was somewhat disappointed in the conclusion. Part of it was that the whole dog race thing just didn't work for me, not sure why. I also had a hard time rooting for Jefri. I loved the skroderiders.
I'm still wanting to read the sequel because the book felt very unfinished to me, as I suppose it was meant to do. However, next on the pile is the conclusion to the Hyperion series, which is in my view a better written series.
OK. So.
It's well-written and has some fantastic world-building and really, really interesting ideas.
It is also rife with personal tragedy. I stuck it out in the hope that all the painful ironies, cringe-inducing misunderstandings and heart-wrenching sacrifices would all be worth it, in the end, when the galaxy was saved in an epic battle.
But the ending was ambiguous and unsatisfying. Two main characters die; meanwhile, of the three alien bad guys, one is killed "off-screen" (you don't find out for sure that he died until later) and two get away scot-free (one possibly reformed, the other definitely unrepentant). And the deus ex machina that destroys the major bad guy is not only completely hand-wavy and incomprehensible, but also MIGHT NOT EVEN HAVE DONE THE JOB ARGH.
Seriously there were so many times I just wanted to throw this book across the room, and I just kept waiting and …
OK. So.
It's well-written and has some fantastic world-building and really, really interesting ideas.
It is also rife with personal tragedy. I stuck it out in the hope that all the painful ironies, cringe-inducing misunderstandings and heart-wrenching sacrifices would all be worth it, in the end, when the galaxy was saved in an epic battle.
But the ending was ambiguous and unsatisfying. Two main characters die; meanwhile, of the three alien bad guys, one is killed "off-screen" (you don't find out for sure that he died until later) and two get away scot-free (one possibly reformed, the other definitely unrepentant). And the deus ex machina that destroys the major bad guy is not only completely hand-wavy and incomprehensible, but also MIGHT NOT EVEN HAVE DONE THE JOB ARGH.
Seriously there were so many times I just wanted to throw this book across the room, and I just kept waiting and waiting for the payoff as the stakes got higher and higher and then IT NEVER HAPPENED.
Vinge actually makes the ambiguity explicit in the last few pages, when one of the main characters wonders whether it was all worth it, whether they really did save the galaxy, and concludes that, oh well, they'll never know for sure and they just have to make the best of it.
I guess maybe it was supposed to be bittersweet or something, but for me, there was just too much suffering with not enough payoff.
Pretty solid, I like what he did with both this one and deepness in the sky, stranding the main characters so that it turned from a space opera to a swords and sorcery thing.
i typically like my scifi to be more concept-heavy and less evil-monster-action-adventury, but i must admit that the mix of both here was page-turning and fun.
Vernor Vinge creates in interesting universe, where the level of intelligence possible is determined by physical laws that change as you move away from the center of the galaxy.
In this universe the Singularity is only possible in a certain zone of the galaxy known as the high beyond, as opposed to places like the slowness that are limited to things like the speed of light.
While this goes into some pretty dubious physics, and is actually not explained at all.
It makes for a better introduction to the concept of the Singularity and it's coexistence with less sophisticated intelligences than what Charles Stross does in Singularity Sky.
Vinge plays with different types of sentience in this book and I especially enjoyed the networked pack intelligence of the Tines race. Where it takes at least 4 members in a pack to reach sentience and it is possible to swap new …
Vernor Vinge creates in interesting universe, where the level of intelligence possible is determined by physical laws that change as you move away from the center of the galaxy.
In this universe the Singularity is only possible in a certain zone of the galaxy known as the high beyond, as opposed to places like the slowness that are limited to things like the speed of light.
While this goes into some pretty dubious physics, and is actually not explained at all.
It makes for a better introduction to the concept of the Singularity and it's coexistence with less sophisticated intelligences than what Charles Stross does in Singularity Sky.
Vinge plays with different types of sentience in this book and I especially enjoyed the networked pack intelligence of the Tines race. Where it takes at least 4 members in a pack to reach sentience and it is possible to swap new members to replace dead members, creating a new personality while preserving memories from the lost members. It is interesting to see the different approaches Tines take to crating and maintaining their packs/individuals.
This was my first Vernor Vinge book, I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading more of his work.
Every dozen pages or so my mind had to expand another notch, just to keep up. When the Galaxy is your playground, and history extends a billion years, give or take, there's a lot going on.
