After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free...
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Dec 18, 2008
Matt
rated it: 
In the 'The Sixth Sense', the character Malcolm tries to tell a story. Unfortunately, it's a bad story, which Cole immediately picks up on, and comments, "You have to add some twists and stuff."
I tend to think that the essence of a well-crafted story is the unexpected. A good story has unexpected tragedies, unexpected joys, and unexpected crowning moments of awesome. Yet, there are a surprisingly few good writers that are also good story tellers. In fact, when it comes More...
I tend to think that the essence of a well-crafted story is the unexpected. A good story has unexpected tragedies, unexpected joys, and unexpected crowning moments of awesome. Yet, there are a surprisingly few good writers that are also good story tellers. In fact, when it comes More...
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Dec 31, 2011
Connie
rated it: 
4.5 stars.
First--This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time, and, despite the fact that it doesn't quite earn a 5 star rating from me (more on that later), I would highly recommend the book to anyone who's remotely interested in science fiction. It's a testament to the book that I managed to finish it while in the midst of an extraordinarily busy semester.
Vinge really hits the balance of "science" and "fiction" almost perfectly--a More...
First--This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time, and, despite the fact that it doesn't quite earn a 5 star rating from me (more on that later), I would highly recommend the book to anyone who's remotely interested in science fiction. It's a testament to the book that I managed to finish it while in the midst of an extraordinarily busy semester.
Vinge really hits the balance of "science" and "fiction" almost perfectly--a More...
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Aug 27, 2008
Nat
rated it:
It took me a little while to really get in to this one, but around maybe halfway or so, things picked up and I really enjoyed it.
A large part of the book goes back and forth between the Spiders' and the humans' storylines. I thought it was particularly interesting how for the most part, I found the Spiders' story to be even more human and identifiable than that of the humans. The Spiders had names like "Victory" and "Underhill" which, while slightly odd, were at More...
A large part of the book goes back and forth between the Spiders' and the humans' storylines. I thought it was particularly interesting how for the most part, I found the Spiders' story to be even more human and identifiable than that of the humans. The Spiders had names like "Victory" and "Underhill" which, while slightly odd, were at More...
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Dec 27, 2008
Angela
rated it: 
One of the more original sci fi books I've read. Chronologically it happens before "A Fire Upon the Deep," but Vinge actually wrote that book first.
This is the story of two types of human races and their encounter with a non-human race on the verge of their own information age. One of the races is led by a few cruel, sinister, manipulative people bent on acheiving their own ends by any means necessary; the other race must fight not only for their own survival but for that More...
This is the story of two types of human races and their encounter with a non-human race on the verge of their own information age. One of the races is led by a few cruel, sinister, manipulative people bent on acheiving their own ends by any means necessary; the other race must fight not only for their own survival but for that More...
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Dec 01, 2008
Jennifer
rated it:
I had a little trouble getting into this book the first time, put it down and tried again a few months later. The main problem, initially, was that I couldn't figure out how the two main story lines were related...and got frustated with the switching. The second time through, it became obvious that the "Sherkaner Underhill" character and his people were the spider aliens that the two human cultures were travelling to make contact with, though you really can't tell, from the narrative
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Nov 06, 2011
Adam
rated it:
Since I’ve been cultivating a gestalt knowledge of the science fiction canon for nearly two decades, I was able to notice nods and reflections of past works. The book owes an obvious and huge debt to James Blish’s Cities in Flight, but there are also Tolkien references, Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity nods and more.
The most surprising aspect of the book was its not-so-nuanced championing of free market capitalism. I’m used to science fiction that puts forth some sort of commentary o More...
The most surprising aspect of the book was its not-so-nuanced championing of free market capitalism. I’m used to science fiction that puts forth some sort of commentary o More...
Sep 22, 2011
Titus
rated it:
An amazing book by my favorite author. It is no surprise that this book won the Hugo (as did his subsequent two books). This is actually a re-read of the book in preparation for the next edition of his "Zones of Thought" series which will be released in a few weeks (_Children of the Sky_). My first read of this book was about ten years ago while I was out at sea. I remembered really liking it, but only vague snippets of the storyline.
First of all, for being somewhat "har More...
First of all, for being somewhat "har More...
Jun 01, 2011
Brian
rated it:
Prequel to "A Fire Upon the Deep," but only tangentially related. Semi-hard science fiction on a smaller scale relative to his other book.
Mild spoilers follow. It's hard to talk about the book without giving just a little bit away. But not too much!
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Three players in this one. Two are bitter foes forced to co-exist and unable to continue the fight after the damage they dealt e More...
Mild spoilers follow. It's hard to talk about the book without giving just a little bit away. But not too much!
=======================================================================
Three players in this one. Two are bitter foes forced to co-exist and unable to continue the fight after the damage they dealt e More...
Feb 02, 2011
Nathaniel
rated it:
It's strange how I stumbled upon some sci-fi authors so early (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Card) because it seemed my friends and parents' friends were all reading them (a lot of my recommendations for reading as a kid came from adults rather than from other kids), and yet other authors (Cherryh, Bujold, Vinge) I never even heard of.
That's the reason I'm enjoying going through the Hugo winners methodically - it's like a more unbiased sample of everything there is out there. It's the rea More...
That's the reason I'm enjoying going through the Hugo winners methodically - it's like a more unbiased sample of everything there is out there. It's the rea More...
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May 29, 2010
Josh
rated it:
I loved this book, and Vernor Vinge has officially replaced Greg Bear as my current favorite science fiction writer. The history and operation of the Qeng Ho is very "romantic" and appealing, and I liked the presentation of human space as being full of far-flung colonies that rise and fall from civilization repeatedly over thousands of years... it's really a great sci-fi universe set up, and provides interesting background to A Fire Upon the Deep. It's really interesting how the pre
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Jul 30, 2009
Jason
rated it:
I liked this book muchly, although perhaps it was because I've been venturing outside the safe waters of sci-fi into weirder stuff that has to do with feelings and whatnot. Vinge doesn't have the page-turniness of Steven King, but I had a voraciousness for the book and I read it pretty fast. This caused some backup in my current events tracking, but apparently all I missed was some crap about some white professor being arrested by a black cop and "dissing" him so that he got arrested
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Jul 21, 2011
Curt Hopkins
rated it:
Vinge combines world-building, thunderingly weird scientific extrapolation and really lovable characters (when half of those characters are spiders) is an achievement. Loved it.
Sep 15, 2011
Darrell
rated it:
This was a really fun book to read, and more importantly, it opened my mind to quite a few new ideas and possibilities. This story is, for the most part, a very realistic view of humanity thousands of years in the future. I like that Vinge didn't shy away from the problems of time dilation when traveling at high velocities. Rather, it was a central element to the setting and plot. In Vinge's book, humans travel aboard ramjet fusion (I believe) starships that can top out at 0.3 c. Of course, this
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Jun 07, 2011
Melissa
rated it:
I have a poor memory. Recently, I was asked the simple question, “What’s your favorite book?” and I said what I’d been saying for years, “Vernor Vinge wrote it. I can’t remember the name—A Darkness in the Deep or A Deepness in the Dark—something like that. It’s awesome; the ending had me jumping around, I was so excited at how clever it was.”
When I realized I couldn’t even remember what had me so excited, I decided to reread it. I’m glad I did.
Plot and title were not the More...
When I realized I couldn’t even remember what had me so excited, I decided to reread it. I’m glad I did.
Plot and title were not the More...
May 09, 2010
Jeff
rated it:
The indirect prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, Deepness in the Sky borrows some stylistic elements from the prior book. While I'll rate Fire an excellent read, I'll have to be a little more reserved about Deepness. Again interesting well developed aliens prove a counterpoint to humanity. Here however we miss out on the varieties of alien life available in the Beyond. While both Fire and Deepness have a time factor built into them, the actual fact that Deepness's time span is 40 years, makes t
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Mar 19, 2009
Ron
rated it:
Too bad Vernor Vinge didn't write this book before A Fire Upon the Deep. It would have been a good introduction.
Good character development, good action. Well-developed history. Alien cultures and aliens strange enough to require a bit of imagination.
Such a rich cast that it needed a list of characters, though to be helpful it would have had to give things away.
Good character development, good action. Well-developed history. Alien cultures and aliens strange enough to require a bit of imagination.
Such a rich cast that it needed a list of characters, though to be helpful it would have had to give things away.
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Nov 20, 2011
Apatt
rated it:
Vernor Vinge, a scientist who can tell a good yarn, another anomaly among genre writers, the other anomalous authors being China Miéville and David Brin, and they are all bald! Makes me want to shave my head, I bet Patrick Stewart can write amazing books if he wanted to, make it so Pat!
A few months ago I read A Fire Upon the Deep, Vinge's first "Zones of Thought" novel, it quickly barged its way into my all-time top 20 list. A Deepness in the Sky is not going to dislodge an More...
A few months ago I read A Fire Upon the Deep, Vinge's first "Zones of Thought" novel, it quickly barged its way into my all-time top 20 list. A Deepness in the Sky is not going to dislodge an More...
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Feb 01, 2012
David
rated it:
Far better than Fire Upon the Deep, but I still feel that something is missing from Vinge's books that would propel them to legendary status. And I think it might have to do with the off-handed, almost light, way that he deals with the fact that entire civilizations are born, evolve and die in his books, sometimes in the same sentence. But his characters seems to deal with this fact as one would deal with bad weather.
Awe, I think, is the missing ingredient in Vinge's books. Awe at spac More...
Awe, I think, is the missing ingredient in Vinge's books. Awe at spac More...
Jul 17, 2011
Jordan
rated it:
It was a little slow in the beginning, but boy, did it pick up after that! I might have given this five stars, but I'm really nitpicky about authors portraying aliens. The aliens are just too human for me, even though they're scary space spiders. It's partially explained away that they're written that way in the book, but I'm not going to write about how since it's a spoiler. I don't think that will be a problem for most people.
Vernor Vinge writes some pretty compelling, nuanced and More...
Vernor Vinge writes some pretty compelling, nuanced and More...
Jan 20, 2012
5/15/10--It may sound stupid, but I'm glad I won this FirstReads book that is nowhere near new. I loved A Fire Upon The Deep. I think Tor put a lot of their most popular books on FirstReads to celebrate their 30th anniversary this year.
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Jan 20, 2011
Adam
rated it:
Man, space opera, why are you so awesome? Building off of Fire Upon the Deep, Vinge offers us a prequel in Deepness in the Sky that is at once slightly better and slightly worse than its predecessor. In addition to his customary gigantor-concepts, this book has lots working in its favor: memorable characters (certainly something more than the avatar-types that populate most science fiction), an intriguing alien world (spiders were a leap of faith, but they're at least as interesting as the f
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Sep 15, 2009
This is a prequel to the previous Vinge book I read - A Fire Upon The Deep. It has a lot of the same strengths as the previous one, though notably less creative excess. The entire plot takes place well before the previous one, filling in an episode in the history of one of the characters in A Fire Upon The Deep. The plot is more involved than the other novel, though I'm a bit ambivalent about it. Large portions of the book seem to extend almost endlessly onwards without much happening, thoug
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Oct 21, 2011
Klytia
rated it:
Se c'è una cosa che detesto sono gli alieni umanizzati.
In questo romanzo gli alieni sono delle specie di ragni, con occhi multipli e diverse zampe, che si chiamano "Signore" o "Signora", vanno in giro in macchina, vivono belle casette con salottini e biblioteche, hanno radio e televisione, e una chiesa un po' invadente che considera abominazioni i ragnetti nati fuori dai periodi stabiliti.
Il solito Vinge insomma, ci risiamo con un'altra forma di vita aliena, come More...
In questo romanzo gli alieni sono delle specie di ragni, con occhi multipli e diverse zampe, che si chiamano "Signore" o "Signora", vanno in giro in macchina, vivono belle casette con salottini e biblioteche, hanno radio e televisione, e una chiesa un po' invadente che considera abominazioni i ragnetti nati fuori dai periodi stabiliti.
Il solito Vinge insomma, ci risiamo con un'altra forma di vita aliena, come More...
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Apr 04, 2009
Dan
rated it:
This is kind of a sequel to "A Fire Upon The Deep". It has some interesting ideas but I didn't like it quite as much.
There's one bit I really like near the beginning, where the characters show up in a new interesting star system and there's an unknown ship there. So they meet up with the unknown humans, try some diplomacy, take their best guess at what's what, and then they hold a meeting. "Can we trust them not to sneak-attack us? Should we sneak-attack them? Wha More...
There's one bit I really like near the beginning, where the characters show up in a new interesting star system and there's an unknown ship there. So they meet up with the unknown humans, try some diplomacy, take their best guess at what's what, and then they hold a meeting. "Can we trust them not to sneak-attack us? Should we sneak-attack them? Wha More...
Nov 21, 2008
Michael
rated it:
This book is reallllllllly long. I think I really would have loved it if it was about half as long.
The point of view of the spiders is kinda lame at times. While the luddite spiders were kind of an interesting dynamic, I didn't really love reading about them quite that much. I also go over the spider babies really quickly. The author does dive a bit into speculative software design of the future, which you might expect from a Computer Science professor. I thought it was pretty More...
The point of view of the spiders is kinda lame at times. While the luddite spiders were kind of an interesting dynamic, I didn't really love reading about them quite that much. I also go over the spider babies really quickly. The author does dive a bit into speculative software design of the future, which you might expect from a Computer Science professor. I thought it was pretty More...
Jun 21, 2010
Jesse
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Jan 09, 2010
Mike
rated it:
Vernor Vinge does something that only the great writer E.B. White was able to accomplish: He makes spiders the good guys. This story is obstensibly about the discovery of a different race of space alien. What I have always liked about Vinge is that he refrains from making social, political or environmental statements and just allows the story to tell itself. What is unfortunate about this book is that he wastes too much time in his attempt to span 80 years by giving us the long view of characte
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Sep 06, 2011
Sdluvingit
rated it:
I don't know what it is about Vernor Vinge's novels that make me resist reading them; when I finally read one I love it. Then, inexplicably, I don't read another for an extended period. Each time I kick myself because they are great and I don't understand why it takes me so long to get around to another.
I was at my favorite local bookstore (Mysterious Galaxy in SD) several years ago and there was a gentleman there talking with the manager. From what I could hear of the conversation I More...
I was at my favorite local bookstore (Mysterious Galaxy in SD) several years ago and there was a gentleman there talking with the manager. From what I could hear of the conversation I More...
Apr 08, 2011
Darthyoshiboy
rated it:
This was an excellent book by every usage of the term. The characters were satisfying and the subject matter was great. Sadly it seems unlikely that there will be much else to see here. There doesn't appear to be a great deal of movement on any continuing adventures for Pham Nuwen (though Joan Vinge seems to be writing something) and "A fire upon the deep" didn't hold my attention in the same way as this.
I would strongly recommend, to anyone, reading this book. It's a great t More...
I would strongly recommend, to anyone, reading this book. It's a great t More...
Sep 23, 2010
Matthew
rated it:
An almost entirely highly entertaining hard sci-fi adventure. For the most part, there is a great deal of action and many interesting and well-weaved narrative threads. After about the mid-point of the book, perhaps a bit before, it does begin to drag, but on the whole even these sections contribute in a satisfying and coherent manner to the overall development of the plot. Characterization is excellent; each character has believable (if incredible) motives, emotional depth and unique limitation
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