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67th out of 1,969 books
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A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought #1)
by
Vernor Vinge
A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.
Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit 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...more
Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit 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...more
Mass Market Paperback, 613 pages
Published
February 15th 1993
by Tor Science Fiction
(first published 1992)
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Joel
rated it
Recommends it for:
Brian Halberg
Recommended to Joel by:
Jo Walton
Shelves:
2011,
sci-fi-fantasy
Crypto: ◘
Syntax: 81
As received by: GR ServerFarm NW
Language path: Stream of Consciousness Babble→Poorly Considered Argument→LOLcats→Goodreads In-jokes→Only Funny to Me→Irony→English
From: Joeleoj
[A known Goodreads reviewer of Midwesten US origin. Extensive priors before this review began. Appears aligned with the Hipster Coalition but has denied close ties. Program recommendation: Imagine this post being read in a tone of self-satisfied ironic detachment]
Subjec...more
Syntax: 81
As received by: GR ServerFarm NW
Language path: Stream of Consciousness Babble→Poorly Considered Argument→LOLcats→Goodreads In-jokes→Only Funny to Me→Irony→English
From: Joeleoj
[A known Goodreads reviewer of Midwesten US origin. Extensive priors before this review began. Appears aligned with the Hipster Coalition but has denied close ties. Program recommendation: Imagine this post being read in a tone of self-satisfied ironic detachment]
Subjec...more
view all 22 comments
This is an impressive work of hard science fiction. I admire the author's creation and the writing is decent if not riveting.
I enjoyed the story of the Tines, aliens with pack minds, and I came to like the concept of the "zones of thought", where different levels of technology are possible in different areas of the galaxy.
But I found myself indifferent to the rest of the characters. The enemy they called the Blight seemed ominous only in the prologue - for the r...more
I enjoyed the story of the Tines, aliens with pack minds, and I came to like the concept of the "zones of thought", where different levels of technology are possible in different areas of the galaxy.
But I found myself indifferent to the rest of the characters. The enemy they called the Blight seemed ominous only in the prologue - for the r...more
I read this for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club here at GoodReads. It was the science fiction theme (space opera) selection for January 2009.
I must admit that only about a third or half of this story kept my interest. I was drawn in to the plight of Jefri and Johanna. And, by proximity, the inhabitants of the Tines world where Jefri and Johanna's parents crash landed them and left them stranded and orphaned.
The rest of the tale, which most likely qualifies...more
I must admit that only about a third or half of this story kept my interest. I was drawn in to the plight of Jefri and Johanna. And, by proximity, the inhabitants of the Tines world where Jefri and Johanna's parents crash landed them and left them stranded and orphaned.
The rest of the tale, which most likely qualifies...more
Brad
rated it
Recommended to Brad by:
SciFi & Fantasy Book Club Jan 2009 Space Opera
Shelves:
sci-fi,
to-read-again
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This is the galaxy in the unimaginably distant future, populated with millions of species. The shape of civilizations is dictated by the shape of the galaxy: close in at the core is the “slowness,” the place where only sublight travel is possible. Farther out is the “beyond,” where FTL drives function and cross-system communication passes on great data pipelines, and very advanced technology can begin to be truly sentient. And above that is the “transcend,” where automation goes beyond sentience...more
David Hughes
rated it
Recommends it for:
anyone who's ever thought they could possibly stomach science fiction
I want to make it clear that I don't lightly write rave reviews. Please read the following sentence twice:
This is an absolutely fantastic book.
On the outskirts of the Galaxy, far from the physical constraints of the Galactic core, faster-than-light travel is possible, and Transcended intelligences flourish to a complexity that dwarfs human comprehension. Scavenging for buried knowledge on a dead world, a party of humans awakes an ancient evil: an archive containing an e...more
This is an absolutely fantastic book.
On the outskirts of the Galaxy, far from the physical constraints of the Galactic core, faster-than-light travel is possible, and Transcended intelligences flourish to a complexity that dwarfs human comprehension. Scavenging for buried knowledge on a dead world, a party of humans awakes an ancient evil: an archive containing an e...more
The first third of this book is some of the best science-fiction I have ever read: good writing, fast pace, some breathtaking action, excellent balance between narrative and explanation, and some really, REALLY cool ideas thoroughly thought-out and implemented. Several times my brain practically crackled and I said, "wow" out loud when certain ideas Vinge had been hinting at "clicked" and became clear. Vinge is also pretty skilled at keeping the vast hard-sci-fi-space-oper...more
This is one of the weirdest books I've ever read. It was amazingly creative and clever, and is easily one of the best sci-fi books I've ever laid hands on. The only problem is that it is written in such an extreme third-person viewpoint that people not experienced with sci-fi material will have trouble understanding what is going on; as such, I can only recommend it to experienced sci-fi readers.
This book comes highly recommended by Redditors and several "best of sf" lists. However, seeing that Vinge is a scientist I did not expect much from this book, some cool, believable sf concepts at the most. The book did not start well for me with silly names like "Wickwrackrum" popping up and a confusing first chapter. However, once I begin to follow the book (about 30 pages in) Vinge really surprised me with his talented authorship. He has the ability to create characters wo...more
Maybe I'll come off as bi-polar when I start this five star review (my first of 2011) with an extensive list of why the book I'm applauding is utter garbage. But what the hell, I'm game if you are. Let's do it.
Why "A Fire Upon the Deep" is Utter Garbage
1. Mr. Vinge's characters are only so-so, and the humans are the worst of the lot. Every once in a blue moon a character will shine, which makes it so hard to bear their poor treatment at other critical points. Vern...more
Why "A Fire Upon the Deep" is Utter Garbage
1. Mr. Vinge's characters are only so-so, and the humans are the worst of the lot. Every once in a blue moon a character will shine, which makes it so hard to bear their poor treatment at other critical points. Vern...more
Vernor Vinge's 1991 novel A FIRE UPON THE DEEP is certainly a work of great proportions. Vinge takes us from the wider view of a universe filled with sentient life who fly starships and debate on galactic message boards to the political intrigues of a pre-spaceflight world inhabited by dog-like creatures.
Vinge's unique twist on space opera is his concept of "zones of thought". In the universe of A FIRE UPON THE DEEP, the Milky Way was "partitioned" at some point i...more
Vinge's unique twist on space opera is his concept of "zones of thought". In the universe of A FIRE UPON THE DEEP, the Milky Way was "partitioned" at some point i...more
Brief synopsis: Humans exploring at the edge of the galaxy accidentally awaken an ancient malevolent entity hell bent on conquering the galaxy. An interesting cast of characters is inadvertently caught up in the race to stop it.
I really enjoyed the well thought out, original and interesting ideas coupled with equally well developed aliens. I never thought I could empathize with a character that pretty much amounts to a small palm tree on wheels ... but the Skroderider Blueshell was...more
I really enjoyed the well thought out, original and interesting ideas coupled with equally well developed aliens. I never thought I could empathize with a character that pretty much amounts to a small palm tree on wheels ... but the Skroderider Blueshell was...more
I had a hard time getting into this book, the first 30 pages or so - the writing from the point of view of the aliens was difficult to get a feel for, until I realized it was a pack mind - the Tines were packs of dog-like creatures sharing an intelligence - that things started to get rolling. The characters in the book are believeable and loveable - especially Amdijefri, the human child-Tines puppy pack, and the Skroderiders, weird potted plants on jet skis. This book was well worth it, and I'...more
When I read this book, I thought it offered fantastic new perpectives on the impact of gravity on time and space and the construction of conscious thought. Now that I am in library school, I can see that this book could have been titled "Where's a Librarian When You Need One?" I think librarians will understand what I mean when they read the book, as information mismanagement lies at the heart of all the problems that challenge the heroes. In fact the heroine is a sort of librarian, th...more
I like it. I really did. I'll have to think about it for a day or two. perhaps I'll adjust the rating upward.
Good spread and imagination. Loved the "Net of a Million Lies" line. That's so true.
Good spread and imagination. Loved the "Net of a Million Lies" line. That's so true.
This book deserves all of the praise it has been given. It's a very imaginative story with creative ideas about what humanity and the galaxy could be like in the far future. It raises familiar sci-fi motifs: what alien life might be like, implications of super-light travel and communication, AIs as more intelligent and dangerous than humans, disparity of technology between races. However, each of these seems clever and original in this book, the most interesting idea being Vinge's pack-mind spec...more
I seem to be one of the few geeks who was dramatically underwhelmed by this book. I guess that this is classic "hard SF", in the sense of being all ideas and not so much on the characterization. And maybe I've just passed the time in my life when that really excites me. But overall, it just didn't grab me.
The notion of the zones of thought was interesting, albeit a real stretch to me. The tines were a kind-of interesting construction, though mass minds have been done be...more
The notion of the zones of thought was interesting, albeit a real stretch to me. The tines were a kind-of interesting construction, though mass minds have been done be...more
I liked this book very much. It is a proper space opera, but I think it is better than most of the ones I have read. The universe reminds me most perhaps of the one laid out by Ian M Banks in Consider Phlebas and the sequels. It is the story of a "blight" which is an intelligent organism that a group of humans accidentally release from an "archive" (sort of a mine of ancient data) The blight then spreads rapidly and takes over big chunks of the universe. A small group es...more
I read the first few pages of Children of the Sky, the recently released third volume in the Zones of Thought trilogy and realized right away that I wanted to re-read the first volume, A Fire Upon the Deep, before I took up the story again. Now that I'm halfway through CotS, I don't think my concerns about getting lost in the plot were valid—Vinge does a fine job of easing back into the plot, characters, and even the nature of the weird aliens, the Tines. (The Tines are dog-like creatures who on...more
This was the first book I read by Vernor Vinge, what must have been about ten years ago. I remember liking it so much that I considered Vinge to be my new favorite author. Most likely I was somewhere submerged in the middle of the Pacific when I read this, though, because I didn't actually remember much of the story.
So re-reading it in preparation for starting the Children of the Sky was in many ways like reading a brand new book by one's favorite author. What parts I do remember were ...more
So re-reading it in preparation for starting the Children of the Sky was in many ways like reading a brand new book by one's favorite author. What parts I do remember were ...more
Hawk
rated it
Recommends it for:
Anyone who has ever thought they might enjoy science fiction.
Shelves:
favorites
A masterpiece of transhumanist* sf. Vinge's world-building is exquisite, full of brilliant and fascinating ideas such as the 'zones of thought', a conceit which easily solves the problem of creating conflict in fiction with godlike entities as characters, and the Tines, a species who share consciousness across individual bodies and posses truly unique culture as befits their bizarre physiology.
With that said, the strength of Vinge's novel is definitely in its ideas rather than its st...more
With that said, the strength of Vinge's novel is definitely in its ideas rather than its st...more
I tried very hard to like A Fire Upon the Deep. The reviews for it are stellar, and it did won a Hugo. Also, I am a huge fan of SF, so I felt this book would be a sure-fire hit with me. Not so.
As other reviewers pointed out, this book has some great ideas. Pack sentience is very nice, and the idea of zones is intriguing. Unfortunately, all these are wrapped in very shoddy writing. To tell the truth, the writing was barely above fan sci-fi in some places.
The characterization is also, most unfortu...more
As other reviewers pointed out, this book has some great ideas. Pack sentience is very nice, and the idea of zones is intriguing. Unfortunately, all these are wrapped in very shoddy writing. To tell the truth, the writing was barely above fan sci-fi in some places.
The characterization is also, most unfortu...more
My very first Vinge novel, but not the last! This is really a great space opera, but with limited "hard science fiction" despite what other reviewrs may say. This novel's strength lies in its description and devotion to alien minds and cultures: from the midieval "Tines", a canine race defined by a group consciousness but limited by the inability to work cooperatively; to the "Skroderiders", an uplifted race of animal-plant synthesis, carrying an ancient but terri...more
I think it's odd that this book is considered #2 in the Queng Ho series. Technically there is one character in common across the two books but--without giving too much away--he's really not the same person at all. None of the motivations from the first book are present in the second.
The universe is also completely distinct as well. Yes, technically it's in the same imagined galaxy, but essentially nothing whatsoever from the first book has anything at all to do with this book. ...more
The universe is also completely distinct as well. Yes, technically it's in the same imagined galaxy, but essentially nothing whatsoever from the first book has anything at all to do with this book. ...more
"Come spiegarlo? Come descriverlo? Anche il punto di vista onnisciente lo troverebbe difficile."
Questo il singolare incipit del romanzo. Mi viene quasi da pensare che dietro la voce del narratore, in questa precisa frase, si nascondesse l'autore stesso, perché in effetti a mio giudizio non è stato in grado di descrivere e spiegare l'impianto narrativo dell'intero romanzo, pur adottando il punto di vista onnisciente.
Universo incostante è un romanzo di fantascienza dai pre...more
Questo il singolare incipit del romanzo. Mi viene quasi da pensare che dietro la voce del narratore, in questa precisa frase, si nascondesse l'autore stesso, perché in effetti a mio giudizio non è stato in grado di descrivere e spiegare l'impianto narrativo dell'intero romanzo, pur adottando il punto di vista onnisciente.
Universo incostante è un romanzo di fantascienza dai pre...more
I will say right off of the bat that I don't read a ton of hard science fiction. The premise of this book sounded fascinating and it is a Hugo award winner. Then a co-worker of mine starting talking about this wonderful book he just finished and I was like hey that sounds like this Vernor Vinge book I wanted to read. So he lent it to me and I read it. It is an interesting and complex book, but it is also very long and a bit wordy.
The plot is complex. Humans in the Beyond (a porti...more
The plot is complex. Humans in the Beyond (a porti...more
A Fire Upon the Deep is a "far future" book. I guess it leans towards the "hard" side of SF, but it's set (at least) tens of thousands of years in the future. Vinge has a lot of really interesting concepts that he weaves together. One is that the Milky Way is divided into various "zones". Earth is in the "Slow Zone" where AI works less well and faster-than-light travel is impossible. (Almost) all of this book takes place outside of the Slow Zone, so we ge...more
Shirari Industries
rated it
Recommends it for:
vegans, people interested in technology and identity
Recommended to Shirari by:
Jeremy
Shelves:
scifi
A friend lent this book to me since I was raving about Rainbows End. This earlier book by Vinge contains a lot of the thinking that went into Rainbows End: Within the book, the dramatic chase / rescue story is discussed by online postings from many sources. The characters are reading what the Net is saying about them as the action goes down, which makes for a very interesting narrative that hits very close to home.
The concept of the book is also technological in nature - Vinge posits...more
The concept of the book is also technological in nature - Vinge posits...more
I didn't care for this as much as I did the prequel. It may have been something to do with the Digital version (Kindle) that I read, but there were numerous flaws (spelling and grammar) in the writing and the formatting for the annotations scattered liberally through the book was jarring and of little interest to me. If I had been able to turn off the annotations I gladly would have done so.
The story was still great, though I couldn't help feeling that it paled severely in comparison...more
The story was still great, though I couldn't help feeling that it paled severely in comparison...more
OK. So.
It's well-written and has some fantastic world-building and really, really interesting ideas.
(view spoiler)...more
It's well-written and has some fantastic world-building and really, really interesting ideas.
(view spoiler)...more
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Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels A Fire Upon The Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999) and Rainbows End (2006), his Hugo Award-winning novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay "...more
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