A deepness in the sky

Sometimes it felt like a Cold war story complete with the capitalistic Good Guys, the mind ruling Bad Guys and the hint of mutually assured destruction or whatever. Then for the space twist: throw in some sentient spiders, weird astronomy and some trully brutal characters that makes you sick (without having to go into gory details, Vinge sure knows how to make a story pretty fucking dark) and you got an emotionally tough story on the cover.

Despite this, I was deeply hooked like never before! Usually there's some side story that makes you groan and cause a little struggle with a book, but here I was completely engulfed in each and every page, every side story engaging and contributing to the overall story. I've never had this strong engagement with a book before and I can't really articulate why. I guess my mind and mood was in a winter state that fitted well with this kind of book at this time?

Anyway, I loved following the technological progression of the spiders, learning of the "legendary origins" of the Cheng Ho traders was interesting and I hated the sadistic Emergents. Thumbs up.

A decent follow up to the excellent "Fires Upon thr Deep". Although set in the same universe, Vinge tackles a different aspect of a reality where the majority of mankind is trapped in a scientific and technological cage in a partitioned galaxy. The book only obliquely explores the reality of a species spread and separated across thousands of light years with only fraction of light speed travel to hand (though much more than in the previous book) - instead the primary focus is on interaction with a novel lesser developed species and a human civilization of slavery and tyranny. The writing is a times a little clunky, and there is a little bit too much melodrama for my tastes (with a few silly moments), with the overall feel more towards a feel-good space opera than hard sci-fi. But the ideas are there, and the space opera is fun and interesting so it does not hold the ideas back. The focus is much narrower in scope than Fires Upon the Deep (mainly one star system) but still maintains interest. Definitely a worthwhile read and worthy Hugo Award winner.

I honestly have no idea how to even rate this. Objectively, it's a very solid book. Vinge's prose is kind of dry and his habit of throwing a bunch of hints at you before really telling you what's going on is alternately effective and obnoxious.

I found the first few hundred pages terribly hard to read, though. It's not a pleasant story, and Vinge doesn't pull any punches. If you're like me and triggered by deception, manipulation, and oh, rape with bonus memory-erasure... buyer beware. Vinge also likes to do this thing where, not only is there dramatic irony because you know something the main characters don't, but he takes you inside the head of the villain. I hate this. Dramatic irony is hard enough for me, but something about seeing the innermost thoughts of the bad guy makes me feel complicit.

If you can make it through those bits, it gets a little better as the story progresses. I thought the ending, after all that had happened, was a little too pat. And I didn't really believe that, after all they had been through and suffered, Tomas Nau died and everyone was just magically OK again. It seemed to me that more of them should have been like Trixia and Anne, especially Qiwi. For all that the story and world were complex and interesting, Vinge seems to have been unable -- or unwilling -- to contend with actual emotional complexity.

In retrospect, I'm furious with Vinge for his treatment of women, and I think it's one reason I found this book so triggery. There are strong female characters (Qiwi, Trixia, Anne) at the outset of the story, but their agency is completely taken away. They're mind-controlled, subjugated mentally and sexually. Meanwhile, the men are merely physically enslaved. They get to stay themselves and plot the overthrow of the Emergents, they get to be brave and clever and bide their time and ultimately save the world. The women are reduced to pawns, used to keep the men in line (even among the Emergents, e.g. the pilot's girlfriend), the devices of Focus and mindscrubbing used to keep them from being able to contribute anything meaningful to the story. Even the strong female VILLAIN turns out to just be a strong female heroine whose mind has been subjugated by Focus.

Even (or especially) poor Qiwi, who ultimately only got hers at the end by a combination of luck and Ezr Vinh's urging. She had such potential, but ultimately we never get any real insight into her character, and in the end it seems as soon as she finds the right guy to take care of her, all her problems are solved. It rang so false for me that she wouldn't be more deeply affected by losing years of her life as Nau's plaything. That, more than anything else, is what made me think "this could only have been written by a man".

So: points for world-building and the Spider culture. Bonus point for FLYING KITTENS. Demerits for sexism and not really understanding how emotions work. Points for pretty epic scale. Demerits for the "and then everything worked out and it was all fine" ending. That comes out to, oh I dunno, let's say two stars.

I'd give this 3 and a half stars if I could - it isn't quite a four star read for me, but 3 stars doesn't do it justice. Like some other reviewers, I found it slow going early on, and had to push myself to persevere, but I was very glad I did. Vernor Vinge can write alien intelligences and different cultures with an authenticity and a strangeness that few others achieve, and he does so wonderfully here, weaving the stories of the Qeng Ho, the Emergents and the Spiderkind together into a neat web of intrigue and action. It wasn't, for me, quite as brilliant as 'A Fire Upon the Deep', which he wrote first but which takes place after this book - but it's still a very worthwhile read, and adds insight to Pham's character which I hope will enrich a subsequent re-reading of 'A Fire Upon the Deep'.