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'.