A Fire Upon the Deep

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%

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.

An interesting read, but fails to fully expand on it's ideas.

The opening of the book was difficult to follow. Usually I enjoy a story that respects its readers intelligence, a book that isn't afraid to have the reader be temporarily confused as they slowly take in the details of the universe. However, A Fire Upon the Deep pushes this too far. We are introduced to multiple different characters of different species, in different locations of the universe. All the while, a universe level cataclysm is brewing - involving a complicated tiered universe that must be understood to fully appreciate the intensity of the conflict. This all happens in basically the opening chapters of the book. It's simultaneously very interesting and very frustrating because of how quickly we are forced to accept all this information.

Further aggravating this frustration is that, as the book continues past the opening it has seemingly run out of ideas. Vernor seems to have spent all his ideas creating the universe and saved nothing to keep readers interested as the book progresses. What we are left with is a mostly shallow, and quite frankly boring “race against time” that reads like a police chase taking place on an escalator, in which both parties are unable to move their feet. There are few compelling characters and very little story development. The book just meanders slowly towards it's inevitable conclusion at a painstakingly slow pace.

Among the interesting ideas that Vernor fails to satisfyingly elaborate on is the Tines - a race of dog like creatures who must combine into groups of multiple individuals to form single entity. I found it an very compelling idea, but the book fails to satisfyingly explore the idea. Aside from a few core differences, the Tines form a civilization essentially the same as humankind. They develop castles, bows and arrows, and boats all in basically the exact same form as humans have. Perhaps Vernor is exploring the idea that all invention must converge on a few core concepts - if so that belief was not adequately explored. And so the compelling idea of a multi-minded race become essentially packs of intelligent dogs imitating humans. It's frustrating and ultimately gets worse in the book that follows A Fire Upon the Deep.

If you crave Sci-fi in all it's forms, by all means give the book a shot. There are enough interesting ideas to make the book readable.

If you crave storytelling, interesting characters and philosophical ideas explored in interesting ways - stay away.

This book was definitely interesting. I liked the overall concept and the it was written well. The alien race was well thought out and unique in an interesting way. Unfortunately it feels like the story never quite reaches its potential and occasionally tries too hard to feel epic and grandiose.

Entertaining but not much more.

The idea of a being like the tines, multiple members with one consciousness, was interesting to me, and I thought it was portrayed in a humanizing way. Hiveminds like that are often portrayed as strange or alien. I also enjoyed the stylistic choice of Usenet messages being used to convey news, that's very fun. The main characters, tines, human and otherwise, had an appreciable amount of depth for what could have just been a concept/setting-exploration story.

I felt that some of the back part of the book dragged and that the episodic nature of the OOB's descent contributed negatively to that, but there was never a point where I didn't want to see the end.

This is another one of those books that makes me happy I joined Sword and Laser. From the cover and the description, I would've shelved this under “Dad Book” and moved on. Boy, would I have missed out. This book is vast. The scale goes from a small, medieval society all the way up to incomprehensible transcendant superintelligences. Yet, both ends of the civilization scale and everything in between are treated as viable peoples with genuine concerns. There is no stomping about by superhumans in the stone age, and in fact the stone age poses its own threats.

Its also vast in its ideas of consciousness and thought. I don't think many would disagree that the best part of this book is the Tines, a pack-minded species of sentient dogs who are only intelligent in groups of 3 or more which make up an individual person. It is one of the best reveals of a concept I've ever read, and I ended up caring for these characters so much. Maybe too much as I was always a little disappointed when POV switched back up to space opera.

The scope made me feel like I was reading a little Redwall and a little Ringworld at the same time, and that is really all I every wanted out of a book. I have a large stack of must reads on my shelf, so it may be a bit before I get to the sequels, but I definitely plan to get to them.

A very good book with plenty of cool ideas.

We got a berserker AI trying to eat whatever races it encounters, a planet of peculiar species of group minds and an interesting take on Singularity.

A galaxy divided into Zones where its laws of physics determine the intelligence their inhabitants have, even for artificial beings makes the book even more intriguing.

Similar to Gateway by Frederik Pohl, I read the Spanish version but in this case the way they translated the name of some species put me a bit off.

Cartea se derulează în două planuri:
- unul space opera; mediocru și banal, pe alocuri de-a dreptul prost, cam 2,5/5; multă imaginație de formă (specii în diverse forme) dar aproape deloc de fond (o amenințare foarte meh și aventuri foarte ”seen those before”); o singură bătălie spațială, prost descrisă, personaje unidimensionale (Pham) sau practic lipsite de personalitate (plantoizii); l-am comparat constant cu Hamilton, și Vinge a pierdut de departe;
- unul ”first contact” excelent, 5+/5, cu o rasă originală ca idee și interesantă, cu intrigi, trădări și războaie bine descrise și captivante; cu personaje credibile, imprevizibile și complexe (Oțel, Pelerinul, Jupuitorul, regina - foarte bine create); m-a făcut mereu să mă gândesc la ”Shogun”, în sensul bun;
Per total, e undeva la 4 și ceva; am avut tendința să-i dau un 5, dar nu pot, pentru că m-au enervat foarte tare personajele care acționează stupid și orbește, credule până la tâmpenie (Ravna), sau fixate unidimesional doar pe-o obsesie (Johanna, Pham); de asemenea, telegramele mi s-au părut obositoare prin întreruperea constantă a ritmului și prin faptul că reprezintă o metodă foarte leneșă de a prezenta fundalul. O carte foarte bună, chiar și-așa, deci voi citi și continuările.

First introduced in Vinge's story, “The blabber”, the Tines are the best part of this book, a truly wonderful and appealing alien species, and here he tells us much more about them and shows their society in action. I think I could happily read a whole series of books about them, if well done. I initially gave this book four stars on the basis of the Tines.

However, the book has two different sets of protagonists operating in very different environments. The Tines are confined to one world and initially know nothing of anything else; while Ravna Bergsndot and her associates travel between the stars, among vastly larger and more advanced societies in a different part of the galaxy.

Ravna is likeable enough, but the galaxy in which she lives is so vast and so alien. It's hard to make it seem real and convincing, and for me Vinge doesn't quite succeed. His Zones of Thought are implausible; his Powers and Perversions and Blights seem like childish nightmares, and the disasters they cause are over the top and hard to take seriously.

The way he peppers the story with alien Internet postings may have seemed forward-looking at the time of writing, but it already looks rather archaic by now, especially as he includes lengthy header information with each post; and this stuff contributes little to the plot.

In the end the two threads of the story converge and join to give us a fairly satisfactory ending.

Rereading the book, I tend to read about the Tines and skim or skip through much of the rest. Even the story of the Tines suffers somewhat from an overdone villain. Evil people can be found in real life, I suppose; but most real-life conflicts are between relatively normal people with some notion of morality, who happen to have conflicting interests and/or somewhat different notions of morality. Completely bad or completely good people are unusual but boring; most people have some bad and some good in them.

Executive Summary: This book started out pretty strong for me, but lost steam as I went on. I liked it, but not as much as I hoped.

Full Review
My reading of this book was pretty uneven. I read about 25% on a plane, then several days with no reading. Then I read another 25% on a plane and several more days with no reading. After that it was a chapter or two here or there stretching the whole thing out over 2+ weeks. It's not a short book, but it was obvious to me as I went on that I was losing steam.

This book is largely space opera, which is generally my wheelhouse when it comes to Science Fiction. There is also a computer element with the Usenet like service that used by the entire galaxy to communicate.

I really enjoyed the Tines. They were probably the most interesting part as they were unlike anything else I've read/watched before.

I struggled with the start a bit, because I didn't really know what was going on, but that got better as the book went on. I still never felt like I had a complete understanding of certain aspects of the story. I mostly found by the end I didn't care. I was able to follow the story fine if I didn't let myself get too caught up in little details of the world Mr. Vinge created.

By the end though, I was more interested in finishing to see how things worked out rather than being excited to learn what happens next. I'm glad I read it, but I didn't love it as much as I hoped.

A world with different “zones of thought”, where the local laws of physics influence the speed of computation. Where A.I.s that reach a technological singularity become “powers”. And we meet the medieval culture of the “Tines” who live as packs that form group minds. Exploring that concept - the advantages the disadvantages of groups minds - was especially fascinating. Around it all is a space opera. I could have done without the occasional action sequence, as they felt a bit B-movie like. But, all in all a fun read.

Fantastic book! It has been years since I read this originally, long enough that I'd essentially forgotten everything about it. It was definitely worth the re-read, though. The concept of the “Zones of thought” is so original, but makes a sort of sense that may have you wondering if it's scientific truth. And the way the concept is explored is pretty fantastic. It has some hard science edges to it that are reminiscent of Alastair Reynold's revelation space books, but I have to admit I prefer Vinge's prose. The characters are well fleshed out with motivations that make sense.

The plot line is also very well done. It's essentially a race in space. As I'm writing this, I find myself thinking of the race that makes up the majority of The Last Jedi movie and how horribly done that is compared to this one. Whereas TLJ's race is dumbfounding, making no sense from a scientific or plot line point of view, this one is exciting. You know the risks. The consequences. And it's a huge thing for not only those involved in the race itself, but essentially the rest of the galaxy as well.

This is essential reading for any fan of science fiction. One of the absolute best books out here.

I was all fired-up to dive into some good old SF but about 200-odd pages in I gave up on this one. On the plus side, the dog-like medieval denizens of Tines World were very interesting. They had group-minds and acted as one in groups of four to six individuals. Definitely some clever stuff there. I was getting interested in the plight of two human children stuck on Tines World. But the other half of the story concerned the galactic “Blight” and focused on a human character named Ravna along with a couple other interesting aliens. But the motives and world-building in this section were too obtuse for me to get a handle on. I think the techno-babble did me in the most. But also Ravna's character wasn't very interesting. Reading this became more of a chore than fun so I made the decision to cut my losses. I'm in the minority with this viewpoint, but not alone.