A Fire Upon the Deep
Ratings157
Average rating4
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.
Series
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3 primary books5 released booksZones of Thought
Zones of Thought is a 5-book series with 3 primary works first released in 1988 with contributions by Vernor Vinge.
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In NPR's top 100 Sci-fi/Fantasy list this was one I'd been wanting to read for a while. The ideas presented in it were inventive and elaborate, but my difficulty in following them kept me from fully enjoying the story. After reading the wiki synopsis of the book upon completion, I realized how many small things I'd missed. Vinge doesn't talk down to his readers – he lets them discover things for themselves – but unfortunately I didn't read between the lines on a number of concepts, leaving me confused for far too long. I have a feeling I would enjoy this one a lot more on a second reading.
ANALYSIS
The prologue was mildly interesting. Something about an ancient evil having been awakened by human scientists, that forced them to escape their planet. This evil is so powerful that it threatens all existence.
But as soon as the story started, the prose was too dense, it was just too boring to read. Reading other people reviews, the sci-fi notions do sound awesome. This might be a candidate for speed reading, not a novel to enjoy for its literary values (like engrossing dialog, empathetic characters, etc).
READ 1:08 / 21:42 5%
I just finished re-reading this, and I was curious if it would stand up to the test of time or not. If anything, I think it was better the second time around.
This is an epic space opera, and character development is largely non-existent, but worldbuilding and “big ideas” are more interesting to me anyway so that wasn't a big deal. For those of you who prefer character driven dramas, you probably won't find this nearly as exciting.
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