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A Deepness in the Sky

(Zones of Thought #2)

Vernor Vinge

4.32 · Rating details · 29,824 ratings · 1,013 reviews

(Alternate-cover edition - ISBN 10: 0812536355)

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 traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.

The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 775 pages

Published January 15th 2000 by Tor Science Fiction (first published March 1999)

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Mar 07, 2018 Mario the lone bookwolf rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: vinge-vernor

When the spidey senses are tingling, better watch out for 8 legged surprises spinning towards your colonialists.

It´s a shame that insects, reptiles, amphibians, plants, and fungi are always playing a secondary or superficial, not very detailed antagonist role, that no writer deems or wants to blow up genre conventions to mix up something new, to create a detailed vision of how a society with insectoid industrialization and culture would function, collaborate, what families, war, traditions would ...more

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Jun 02, 2008 Matt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, literature

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 right down to it, I think 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 right down to it, I think I'd rather read a good story teller's work than a good writer's work. If you must do without something, do without beautiful prose and artsy metaphors and just tell a rip-roaring good yarn which people will sit around campfires and recount for as long as humans live under the stars. If you must dispense with something, dispense with meter and perfect Ciceronian structure and eloquence and tell a story even a caveman could appreciate. Forsake all else, but never ever dispense with having an entertaining story.

In the elite group of authors of speculative fiction that truly understand the power of story and are masters of it, we must include such names as J.K. Rawlings, Lois McMaster Bujold, and the incomparable Vernor Vinge.

'A Deepness in the Sky' is one of the novels that I wish was taught in every high school in America, as an example of great, compelling, and entertaining fiction that isn't caught up in the moment, isn't pretentious or self-serving or self-important, isn't relying on shock value that should have been tired since the days of Baudelaire, or lauded solely because of the insight white people think they get from it, or praised because of its supposed 'historical relevance'. This is the sort of novel that I'd want to teach from - that demands to be reread, that's perceptive, that's timeless, that's subtle, that looks both forward and back, and which above all has a story which brings "the twists and stuff".

'A Deepness in the Sky' is just about too good to be read just once. So much more of the story opens up when you get to the end of it and understand all the different things that have been going on all along right underneath your nose that unless you have eidetic memory you are practically obligated to make a return voyage to the On/Off star. There is too much to love here to touch on it all.

I cannot think of a villain in science-fiction that is more thoroughly hate-worthy than Tomas Nau. Though he chews up the scenery as a smiling one-dimensional comic book villain, his sociopathic philosophy is thoroughly rationalized that he never seems the least bit unreal. On the contrary, he is so very believable that rather than finding that reality causes us to question the narrative, the narrative causes us to question reality in chilling and uncomfortable ways. Could it be that there are a lot of Tomas Nau's in the world? What separates the Robert Mugabe's of this world from Tomas Nau, save that Nau's depredations will never leave the written page and Mugabes kills and destroys out in the unreal real world? Even worse, could it be that this rational calculation is rooted deeply in all of humanity, in our 'selfish genes' or our sinful condition?

While the earnestly deadly culture war is playing out above, down on the planet we are introduced to the arachnid-like 'Spiders', which have to rank amongst the greatest alien species in all of science fiction. The 'Spiders' are undergoing a scientific revolution with all the revolutionary cultural changes that come with it. I've had a great affection for creepy-crawlies since childhood - to the extent of once keeping a black widow spider as a pet - but even distancing myself from my own bias as best as I can, I personally think that the 'Spiders' are more lovable than Spielberg’s pet-like goofy E.T. and yet at the same time alien to extent that is rarely approached in sci-fi. I find myself yearning for the chapters about the 'Spiders' so that I can follow the adventures of Sherkaner Underhill, about which much could be said, but the less said the better, lest I spoil some of the story.

What a wonderful cast of characters! I could go on and on, but the point is you care what happens to these people - human or spider. You feel for them. You celebrate with them. You worry for them. And, as the story progresses, the character's seemingly separate stories become more and more tightly wound, before ending up in a perfect storm of thread tying up that would be worthy of a Victor Hugo novel.

If there is anything I could say against the novel, it is that Thomas Nau doesn't endure nearly a painful enough death. I'd be much happier if it lingered, and failing that am happy to reread the passage several times in a row just to get the necessary enjoyment from the scene. More seriously, the only thing that makes me limit my recommendation it is that it is a nerd's novel filled with nerdy references to 'Cavorite' and a surprising amount of hard science for such a far future setting. One of the central protagonists is a 'Programmer-At-Arms', and there is quite a bit in the novel about programming, systems design and 'software archeology' (a discipline I expect to come into being sooner or later) that probably will bore the non-nerd. The campfire retelling of the story would probably necessarily feature a lot less nerdy stuff, though I think we'll have to wait until Hollywood writers and producers finally evolve at least Neanderthal intelligence before they could suitably adapt a work like this.

But I'm a nerd, so it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Apatt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

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 another book from that l 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 another book from that list but it is still an indispensable read all the same. This is a book that I imagine would be great all the way through on the second read because there would be no need to figure out the meaning of the setting of the book and the numerous characters' motivations. Initially I just could not understand Vinge's choices. Why did he anthropomorphise the aliens? Why do spidery aliens have names like Underhill, Brent, and Smith? Why not call them Zark or Vygphm or something more alienesque? The author really threw me for loop for the first quarter of the book, I thought may be he is too lazy to think up weird alien names, silly bast that I am.

I won't reveal the reason for Vinge's strange anthropomorphism, but it all makes perfect sense as you read on, and read on you must. My favorite "sf notion" from this book is Focus, a more elaborate type of mind control with no element of hypnotism. A Focused person is sort of ultra fixated on the single task they programmed to do, everything else eating, bowel movements and grooming become completely irrelevant.

Part of the book is a hoary sf trope of alien invasion turned on its head, in that humans are the invading aliens and the Spider race are the invadees. This leads to a humdinger of a climax and an Uplifting ending!

Vinge's gift for characterization is again evident here though, with lovable aliens, eccentrics and a mustache twirling Machiavellian archvillain (OK, no mustache!) called Nau. This seems to be something of a Vinge trope as Nau is cut from the exact same cloth as the villain of A Fire Upon the Deep Mr. Steel. The character Pham Nuwen is the only one from A Fire Upon the Deep, though his role is much larger here and he is not quite the same character.

I did get lost in some scientific details but most of them do become self explanatory as you read on. However, if you want some help with ramscoop, localizer and podmaster you may want to check out this Reddit thread.

I would rate this as a 4.5 stars book as I personally find it harder to "engage" with than the previous book. To engage is not merely to understand what is going on but to feel involved in the proceeding, to empathize with the characters, and generally to immerse in the book as an experience rather words printed on a book. It is for me the single most wonderful thing about reading fiction. Any way, from the half way point onward this book is very involving and you may need a deFocus treatment afterward. ...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Stuart rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hard-sf, galaxy-spanning, alien-contact, distant-worlds

A Deepness in the Sky: Might have been interesting at half the length
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
A Fire Upon the Deep was a big success for Vernor Vinge, winning the 1993 Hugo Award. Seven years later, he followed up with A Deepness in the Sky, set 20,000 years earlier in the same universe, and this captured the 2000 Hugo Award and John W. Campbell Award. I came to both books with high expectations and was eager for a big-canvas space opera filled with mind-boggling technologies, exot A Deepness in the Sky: Might have been interesting at half the length
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature
A Fire Upon the Deep was a big success for Vernor Vinge, winning the 1993 Hugo Award. Seven years later, he followed up with A Deepness in the Sky, set 20,000 years earlier in the same universe, and this captured the 2000 Hugo Award and John W. Campbell Award. I came to both books with high expectations and was eager for a big-canvas space opera filled with mind-boggling technologies, exotic aliens, galactic civilizations, and a big cast of characters. Sadly, the first volume didn’t engage me, and I’m afraid the second didn’t either. At 28 hours, this audiobook became a chore about halfway through, and I mainly forced myself to finish it because I wanted to be able to write a review of it as a Hugo winner long on my TBR list.

It was an interesting decision to set the “prequel” so far back in chronology that none of the distinguishing features of the Zones of Thought are known. The scale of A Deepness in the Sky‘s story is restricted to human-occupied space, before it was discovered that higher Zones of Thought exist. That was probably the most original and interesting idea of A Fire Upon the Deep, so I was surprised Vinge didn’t want to explore it further. In this book there is no FTL and humans have only encountered one other alien species that has not achieved advanced technological development.

Instead, human space has been explored mainly by the Qeng Ho, who have pursued interstellar trade throughout human space. When a new alien species is discovered on a planet orbiting an oscillating On-Off star, they immediately see this as an opportunity for potential new scientific discoveries, i.e. profit. However, a separate human civilization called the Emergents are also interested in the new alien species, so the two groups are set on a collision course.

What distinguishes the Emergents is that they have taken a ‘mindrot’ virus that plunged them into a Dark Age, and controlled it so that they can direct the mental activities of people and make them Focused, concentrating on just a single task with obsessive attention. In a sense, they are human computers, something like the Mentats of Frank Herbert‘s Dune but far less independent. Instead, they are used as specialized living tools to further the aim of the controllers, or pod leaders, and are treated as disposable equipment.

Initially the Qeng Ho and Emergents form a fragile truce as they observe the aliens, whom they dub ‘Spiders’ due to their arachnid appearance, but there are a number of plots brewing below the surface, and fairly soon there is a major betrayal that brings both sides into open conflict. Though the Emergents gain the upper hand due to their ambush, both sides suffer major losses of life and their ships are heavily damaged. This sets the stage for the bulk of the story in A Deepness in the Sky.

The story alternates with another narrative that is initially very confusing. We are introduced to an incongruous group of characters named Sherkaner Underhill, Victory Smith, Hrunkner Unnerby, Honored Pedure. Initially they seem to be people living in a simple small-town existence in an unnamed place not entirely unlike 20th century planet Earth. It is only over time that we come to realize they are very different from what we expected. It takes many hundreds of pages more to understand ‘why’ they were presented in this manner.

Once I understood why they were described in this way, the story made more sense, but it’s a major spoiler to say much more, and even after the truth emerged, I wasn’t really comfortable with how Vinge handled this part of the story. Sure, it’s an innovative approach, but it made these characters much more ‘conventional’ than they would normally be in a sci-fi context. After hundreds of pages it felt like an overused gimmick, and didn’t really reveal anything of importance about perceptions that we don’t already know.

The scientific details of the arachnid world and its unusual sun are certainly interesting — this is the hard sci-fi I was expecting. And the Spiders themselves have developed a unique society. Vinge excels at thinking about primitive alien species, and much like the telepathic dog packs in A Fire Upon the Deep, he devotes lots of pages to describing their society in depth. But unfortunately, just like the previous book, I found their societies somehow lacking in alienness or menace. They were both difficult for me to take seriously (this was also the case in C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station). I’m struggling to put a finger on what bothers me, but somehow Vinge’s aliens seem too ‘anthropomorphized’, for lack of a better term. When I think about encounters with the alien, I am much more inclined to believe in aliens that are truly inscrutable and terrifying, like those in Peter Watt’s Blindsight, for example.

The other main narrative in A Deepness in the Sky focuses on the dozens of Qeng Ho and Emergent characters as they are forced to work together to observe the Spiders as their society emerges from the darkness as their star enters the ‘On’ period. There is a huge amount of scheming, scientific meddling, and numerous discussions of the ethics of the Emergents’ use of “Focused” humans, contemptuously call “zipheads” by the Qeng Ho. It is quite disturbing to see how they are treated like disposable wetware, while at the same time being relied on as sophisticated technicians in every conceivable aspect of Emergent life. They actually reminded me a bit of the Scanners in the famous Cordwainer Smith story “Scanners Live in Vain.”

The final third of the book picks up the pace of events, as the two human factions start meddling heavily in the Spider’s technological development for their own reasons, and the Spiders themselves struggle with differing political ideas and social conflict. It’s all quite complex and detailed, and I suspect I was at a disadvantage following it on audio. Events build toward a climax similar to A Fire Upon the Deep, with numerous groups’ plots and sub-plot converging in a complex ballet of space battles, nuclear weapons, and various individual betrayals and twists. This was the best part of A Deepness in the Sky, but after 20 hours of slow-moving story, I was a bit tired and hoping the story would end soon.

That’s why I think A Deepness in the Sky and its predecessor would both have been more effective and exciting if they could drastically cut back on their overlong middle sections. But it seems that major space operas often have to weigh in at 500-700 pages to be taken seriously by fans and award committees, judging by major works by Dan Simmons, Peter Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks, etc. I myself prefer them in the 300-400 page range unless the story really justifies such length. In any case, although there are plenty of unanswered questions Vinge has left after two books in his Zones of Thought series, the reviews of the third book Children of the Sky are fairly negative, so I’ll try something more promising instead. ...more

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Jan 02, 2012 kat rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

I honestly have no idea how to even rate this. Objectively, it's a very solid book. Vinge's prose is kind of dry and his habit of throwing a bunch of hints at you before really telling you what's going on is alternately effective and obnoxious.

I found the first few hundred pages terribly hard to read, though. It's not a pleasant story, and Vinge doesn't pull any punches. If you're like me and triggered by deception, manipulation, and oh, rape with bonus memory-erasure... buyer beware. Vinge also I honestly have no idea how to even rate this. Objectively, it's a very solid book. Vinge's prose is kind of dry and his habit of throwing a bunch of hints at you before really telling you what's going on is alternately effective and obnoxious.

I found the first few hundred pages terribly hard to read, though. It's not a pleasant story, and Vinge doesn't pull any punches. If you're like me and triggered by deception, manipulation, and oh, rape with bonus memory-erasure... buyer beware. Vinge also likes to do this thing where, not only is there dramatic irony because you know something the main characters don't, but he takes you inside the head of the villain. I *hate* this. Dramatic irony is hard enough for me, but something about seeing the innermost thoughts of the bad guy makes me feel complicit.

If you can make it through those bits, it gets a little better as the story progresses. (view spoiler)

In retrospect, I'm furious with Vinge for his treatment of women, and I think it's one reason I found this book so triggery. (view spoiler)

So: points for world-building and the Spider culture. Bonus point for (view spoiler). Demerits for sexism and not really understanding how emotions work. Points for pretty epic scale. Demerits for the (view spoiler) ending. That comes out to, oh I dunno, let's say two stars. ...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Connie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: with-reviews

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--and, even though the book weighs in at a hefty ...more

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Jul 10, 2017 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, science-fiction

I love science fiction stories that incorporate novel concepts, and this one introduces several intriguing concepts. First, there is the variable sun that goes through a long on-off cycle. Second, there are the alien creatures living on a planet in the sun's system that have evolved to live through this cycle. They are called "spiders" because they are short and have multiple limbs. Then there are the Qeng Ho, a loosely organized human civilization whose culture is based on interstellar trading ...more

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Nov 13, 2018 Peter Tillman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: award-win-nom, science-fiction, reread-list

An excellent book, that I don't love quite as much as "A Fire Upon the Deep" -- but it's still pretty amazing. The review to read is Jo Walton's: https://www.tor.com/2011/09/28/a-fini...
Sample:
"One of the things SF can do is show you characters with different mindsets. Anyone can write a character whose dreams have failed. Vinge’s writing people from whole societies whose dreams have failed over millennia. And yet, this is a cheerful optimistic book in which awful things happen but good wins ou ...more

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Aug 26, 2011 mark monday rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-modern

I was imagining a movie version while I was reading this one. half of the movie would be animated and would feature adorable spider-aliens. love those aliens. but I don't know what I'd do with the other half, and the endless cycle of rape and mind control that happens to a particularly sympathetic character. I don't think I'd want that in my movie. ...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-read, space-opera, nebula-nominee, own, science-fiction, hugo-winner

I don't know about you, but I spend an inordinate amount of time meditating upon the far future of humanity. I don't just worry about the future of my generation, or the future of the generation after mine, or the future of a couple of generations down the line. I'm talking one-, ten-, fifty-thousand years into the future. Will humanity still exist—would we recognize it as humanity even if it does? How many times between now and then will civilizations rise and fall? Because if there's one const ...more

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Dec 19, 2019 Gabi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hugo_winners, nebula_nominees, locus_nominees

Unfortunately this book wasn't meant for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first Zones of Thoughts novel, but this second one was too much of several things for me to care: too many characters, too much talking, too many (and too long) flashbacks.

There are terrific ideas like the on/off sun and what this means for the evolution of a species, or the conflict of two human fractions with very different ideas of society.
Even though it was handled a bit clumsily prose-wise the irritating view on the spide ...more

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Jul 28, 2011 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: space-opera, science-fiction, great-villains, space, all-time-favorites, aliens

Vernor Vinge has hit a home run twice in a row. A Deepness in the Sky had all the fantastic alienness mixed with human drama and far future sci-fi awesomeness that made A Fire Upon the Deep one of my favorite SF novels ever. I've become a lot pickier about my sci-fi, but A Deepness in the Sky has held up even better than the first book in the twelve years since it was written.

At its heart is a conflict between two starfaring cultures: the Qeng Ho, a culture of interstellar traders who take the l Vernor Vinge has hit a home run twice in a row. A Deepness in the Sky had all the fantastic alienness mixed with human drama and far future sci-fi awesomeness that made A Fire Upon the Deep one of my favorite SF novels ever. I've become a lot pickier about my sci-fi, but A Deepness in the Sky has held up even better than the first book in the twelve years since it was written.

At its heart is a conflict between two starfaring cultures: the Qeng Ho, a culture of interstellar traders who take the long view and regard planetary civilizations as customers, and the Emergents, a tyrannical empire powered by the secret of Focus, a virus that turns people into super-intelligent, docile slave-minds. The Qeng Ho and the Emergents arrive simultaneously at a strange star that flares into brilliance for a few decades and then goes dormant for centuries in a perfectly regular cycle.

On the single planet orbiting the OnOff star is a race of spider-like aliens who have evolved to live on this planet that is only inhabitable for a few decades out of every couple of centuries. When the Qeng Ho and the Emergents arrive, the Spiders are dormant, frozen in their deepnesses, but when the star flares to life, they are poised to enter a modern technological age in the next generation.

This three-way contest, with Qeng Ho and Emergents fighting a bitter war with each other full of treachery and dashed hopes, while the fate of the Spiders hangs in the balance, makes for a compelling story all the way through to the end. Vinge didn't drop the ball once, and he even made the Spiders relatable and interesting characters, so that the shift between human and Spider POV never annoyed me the way some books do when a more interesting character's story is left hanging to shift to a less interesting one. There is a whole raft of characters and you root (or hiss) for all of them. The book was epic and fully self-contained and one of the "harder" space operas out there, meaning it's mostly believable. Vinge does not rely much on hand-wavium to make his technology and plots work.

Just plain awesome. I give my highest recommendation for both this book and A Fire Upon the Deep. ...more

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Feb 28, 2015 Megan Baxter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I had, it must be admitted, a hard time getting into this one. I'd pick it up and read a bit, but not make much real headway. Partly it's because other books that people had on hold at the library came in, or I needed to blast something through to be ready for my book club. These external factors, however, weren't all of it. Once I finally did get into the book, I really enjoyed it.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can re ...more

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May 24, 2020 Oleksandr Zholud rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a ‘hard’ space opera, with speed of light limit on communication/travel, quite unusual for the genre. While this is a prequel/sequel (the story happens earlier, but the novel was written later) to award-winning A Fire Upon the Deep, it can be read as a standalone, even if in this case you’ll miss the tragedy (warning: spoilers). I read is as a Buddy read in May 2020 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.

The story has an amazing start, that sets the scope of the novel:

“The manhunt e This is a ‘hard’ space opera, with speed of light limit on communication/travel, quite unusual for the genre. While this is a prequel/sequel (the story happens earlier, but the novel was written later) to award-winning A Fire Upon the Deep, it can be read as a standalone, even if in this case you’ll miss the tragedy (warning: spoilers). I read is as a Buddy read in May 2020 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.

The story has an amazing start, that sets the scope of the novel:

“The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light-years and eight centuries. It had always been a secret search, unacknowledged even among some of the participants. In the early years, it had simply been encrypted queries hidden in radio broadcasts. Decades and centuries passed. There were clues, interviews with The Man’s fellow-travelers, pointers in a half-dozen contradictory directions: The Man was alone now and heading still farther away; The Man had died before the search ever began; The Man had a war fleet and was coming back upon them.”

In order to give the setting of the story, there are some spoilers from about the first 10% of the book. A strange star is discovered, which turns on and off cyclically (with on part about 50 and off about 250 years). Just prior to its last turn-off there were radio messages from there – the first ever non-human industrial civilization and two expeditions are sent to make a contact. The first are Qeng Ho, wandering traders, who try to keep the human civilization (light years apart) the whole. The second are the Emergent, a tyrannical civilization that just returned from the dark ages, who have a unique edge: the Focused, people affected by brain-infecting virus, which allows to turn them into autistic monomaniacs, focused on any given task. The two groups came to the On/Off star almost simultaneously and are about to research the planet of sentient ten-legged spider-like creatures.

The novel can be seen as a homage to many SF classics, from Foundation with its idea of rise and fall of civilizations and the attempt to prevent it; The Moon is a Harsh Mistress with its pro-free market libertarian and anti-tyranny ideas and a lot of others.

The book is extremely strong, but it is hard to read it in one go; it clearly benefits from a reread.
...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Clouds rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hugo, science-fiction-series, reviewed, pub-1990s, science-fiction, read-in-2014

Have you ever read someone else's review of a book and thought, "Yes! That is exactly how I felt!"

Well, Apatt has nailed this one for me. To the extent that I'm not sure what else to add.

Seriously. Go read his review first, and then come back to hear me witter on if you're still interested...

...

...

...

...

So what can I add to that?

My first experience with Vinge was Rainbow's End, which I did not get along with. I thought it was rubbish. I picked up A Fire Upon the Deep as a Hugo winner, with ...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Palmyrah rated it liked it · review of another edition

An interesting variation on a science fiction theme I am especially fond of, the first-contact story. In this case, the monstrous alien invaders are the humans, conspiring to foment nuclear war among a race of unsuspecting intelligent arachnoids. To make things more interesting (and give us some anthropomorphs to cheer for), the humans are also divided up into good guys and bad guys.

Of course, the above variation has already been explored in SF. Frederik Pohl's Jem springs to mind; indeed, Pohl An interesting variation on a science fiction theme I am especially fond of, the first-contact story. In this case, the monstrous alien invaders are the humans, conspiring to foment nuclear war among a race of unsuspecting intelligent arachnoids. To make things more interesting (and give us some anthropomorphs to cheer for), the humans are also divided up into good guys and bad guys.

Of course, the above variation has already been explored in SF. Frederik Pohl's Jem springs to mind; indeed, Pohl seems to be a strong influence on Vinge, and I was reminded of the former many times while reading this book. Pohl is, however, by far the better writer.

Vinge, a professor of mathematics by day, doesn't seem to be able to write convincing characters. Out of a cast of dozens, he manages to make us care about just one: an old soldier named Hrunker Unnerby – who happens to be one of the arachnoids. The real humans are all cardboard.

Of course, cardboard characters are pretty much to be expected in hard SF. The virtues of the genre lie elsewhere, and its aficionados (rightly) don't give a toss for the traditional literary ones. But Vinge has problems that go beyond the usual. For one thing, he aims higher. However, he reveals an amateur's clumsiness in deploying his characters, clearly finding it hard to move them around and make them interact convincingly. Nearly all the scenes involving human interaction are cartoonish and unconvincing. This includes scenes featuring the aliens, who are presented to us by the author as human in all respects but the physical.

This, incidentally, is one of many places in the text where the reader's willing suspension of disbelief falters, for the aliens are utterly different from us in terms of their physical structure, sensory perceptions, instinctive tropisms and reproductive behaviour. Even given the excuse that we see them, for most of the book, through the mediating lens of human perception, they shouldn't be quite so like us. Surely these physical differences must make for mental ones as well? But Vernor Vinge appears to be immune to the fascinations of speculative xenopsychology, and we are left with creatures that look like giant spiders but act just like people.

Other aspects of the plot also beggar belief. The regularly interrupted social evolution of the arachnoids nevertheless proceeds incredibly fast – they go from early experiments with internal-combustion engines to intercontinental ballistic missiles within a single generation. The turning of the human Ezr Vinh, a critical plot element, is based on an impossible chain of extrapolations from an obscure hint dropped by another character. A starship explicitly not designed for operating within a planetary atmosphere, last seen falling at one hundred metres per second, wreathed in flames and starting to break up, somehow manages to land without killing its crew. Civilizations rise and fall within the timeframe of a mere thousand years, yet humans undertake trading voyages between the stars that last for centuries. The whole thing is confused and rather nonsensical.

The author is so uninvolved with his characters that he casually dumps the two most sympathetic ones for good in a scene that takes place offstage. Indeed, many vital scenes are pushed offstage. Among them is the action climax of the novel, the aforementioned starship crash. Perhaps it's just as well; the only big action scene in the book, which takes place inside the chief bad guy's artificial water-garden, is a clumsy, sodden mess. The chief villain's comeuppance is also unsatisfyingly quick and merciful, while that of his sadistic lieutenant takes place – again, and frustratingly – offstage. This is a scene we are dying to see through his eyes, but he's long gone by the time we hear what's happened to him. Equally incompetent are the handling of an early, mandatory scene in which the bad guys are revealed to be sadistic perverts, and various other scenes of violence, cruelty or complex action – frankly, the author is too squeamish to write them properly, and he shouldn't even have tried.

So, with all these complaints, why am I giving this book three stars? Well, it kept me reading. Some of the technical ideas were interesting, though nothing was actually new or even very freshly rendered. And first-contact stories are my favourite kind of hard SF story.

Yes, there were times when I grew bored with the endless backstory expositions, the cartoon characters, the long, long gaps between important scenes – Vinge captures the tedium of deep-space exile only too well – but for all that, I kept reading. Of course, I'm a genre slut – I always have round heels for SF – so for me it was a three-star book despite its decidedly two-star qualities.

I shall now go and re-read one of Iain M. Banks's Culture novels to remind myself that hard SF doesn't always have to be lousy literature. ...more

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Apr 21, 2010 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Science Fiction Fans

Shelves: science-fiction, libertarian, fiction, novels

I loved this and was up all night finishing it. That's rather rare with science fiction, at least hard science fiction. Few science fiction writers--hell, few writers--have Vinge's sense of pacing and ability to create suspense. That's because you care about his characters intensely, human as well as alien. Not something you find enough in Hard Science Fiction--and Vinge brings off some mind-blowing concepts without ever falling into infodump or other awkward constructions. I thought I had read I loved this and was up all night finishing it. That's rather rare with science fiction, at least hard science fiction. Few science fiction writers--hell, few writers--have Vinge's sense of pacing and ability to create suspense. That's because you care about his characters intensely, human as well as alien. Not something you find enough in Hard Science Fiction--and Vinge brings off some mind-blowing concepts without ever falling into infodump or other awkward constructions. I thought I had read this novel before--I know it had been sitting on my shelves for years, even somehow had a rating, but I couldn't remember anything about it--for good reason--I'm sure I hadn't read this before--I would have remembered.

This is a prequel to the first book of the Zones of Thought trilogy, but not only can this stand alone, I think it might be best to read it first. It involves the most memorable and vibrant of the human characters, Pham Nuwen and his time among the trading fleet, the Qeng Ho. It's notable though that in A Fire Upon the Deep, what got mentioned in my review and made the greatest impression were the alien characters, the dog-like Tines. This book also features aliens--a Spider-like race. Like the Tines they are memorable and striking both as a species and in their individuals. I found the Tines a bit more endearing--but not by much. But in this book I found the human characters as strong or stronger than the aliens. Part of that is Pham Nuwen, who is central here. But the dystopia here--and Fire has one too--is a human one. The "Focus" is one of the most chilling forms of slavery I've seen in fiction--one where with your mind enslaved, your body follows. So the story of the "Emergents" versus the Qeng Ho was every bit as interesting as what was happening on Arachna. Vinge shifts between points of view and that in itself ups the tension--I was never impatient to get past a section, but at the same time I'd be left worried about what was "happening" to others while our attention was elsewhere.

The next and last of the trilogy was published only about two years ago and is a direct sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep and starts two years after the close of events there. I'm sorry to say goodbye to Pham Nuwen and the other characters of A Deepness in the Sky, but I'm already excited at the thought I'll soon be back with my old friends among the Tines. ...more

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May 21, 2019 Kostas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, space-opera, hard-sci-fi

8/10

Following the superlative A Fire Upon the Deep that showed his vision of a far future, reminiscing something from the magic of the Golden Age’s best and crafting a space saga of grand-scope, Vernor Vinge goes in the Hugo Award-winning A Deepness in the Sky, the second novel of the Zones of Thought series, thirty thousand years into the past, taking us in a story of Traders, slavers and aliens, but also of exploration and exploitation, conspiracy and treachery, and conflict and survival; in a ...more

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Mar 10, 2012 Mark rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, hugo-award

This is a fantastic story. Books like this are why people read science fiction. Sure, it's got aliens and spaceships and technology that you have to use your imagination to understand, but at the core of it is a series of characters who are undergoing struggles that are truly timeless. I love this stuff.

I probably never will get tired of a well-written story where people are struggling against a ruthless tyrant. This is represented well here by Tomas Nau, the Emergent Podmaster, in control of hi This is a fantastic story. Books like this are why people read science fiction. Sure, it's got aliens and spaceships and technology that you have to use your imagination to understand, but at the core of it is a series of characters who are undergoing struggles that are truly timeless. I love this stuff.

I probably never will get tired of a well-written story where people are struggling against a ruthless tyrant. This is represented well here by Tomas Nau, the Emergent Podmaster, in control of his army of enslaved intellectuals, running his totalitarian closed state in this cut-off Lord of the Flies environment. Pham, Ezr and all the rest: everybody is playing his or her own game against this force, and everyone thinks they are making a difference, and maybe they are.

Ah, but the real stars here are the Spiders. They inhabit a planet that orbits a sun that is called the OnOff star, because it's off for 200 years and then on for 35 years. What are the physics behind this? Who really cares? The point is that it happens. This means the Spiders have a unique culture that is based around this, although as we meet them we find they are undergoing some rapid change thanks to the seemingly insane brilliance of one Sherkaner Underhill. The merchants and the totalitarians are stranded alike, and they need the Spider civilization to develop enough to get spare parts to go home.

I felt like the best parts of the book were the Spider parts. Vinge does something really clever with how he writes the Spiders. Their alien-ness is introduced gradually. When you first meet Sherk he could almost be human. He is described as having won a car at a casino thanks to some kind of shady card counting. "How are these guys aliens?" you start to think, but the next time you meet the Spiders they are a little weirder, and weirder still. The emotions all remain human even as it becomes increasingly apparent that the physiology is not.

The book is long, but it's definitely worth it. The plot moves at a slow, steady burn, so it never seems to drag, or at least it didn't to me. We spend some time in characters' heads. We get to know them, and like them, or hate them. This is important for the story because nobody ever quite understands everything that's going on, though they all try to do so. Heavy with dramatic irony, then, where the reader knows a bit more than the characters, sees collisions building but can't do much about it.

(view spoiler)

Loved this from cover to cover. Heartily recommended to anyone who can get over the spaceships and the aliens to enjoy a good story. ...more

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May 06, 2009 Luke Burrage rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-on-the-sfbrp, read-more-than-once, reading-with-juliane, recommended-by-sfbrp-listeners, audio-book, rant-fodder, hugo-novel

Some books aren't what you remember, and aren't worth revisiting. Unfortunately for such a huge book, this is both.

I remembered lots more spiders and far less humans. It's also way more baby-boomer focused than I want from my fiction at the moment, which is the most "november 2019" thing to say, but soooo true.

Full review on my podcast, SFBRP episode #412.

http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/1628 ...more

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Jun 21, 2017 Andrew Leon rated it liked it · review of another edition

Wow, it's been a whole year since I reviewed A Fire Upon the Deep. If you remember back to that book, I said I was only going to read this one if it was better, and it was better, better enough that I wanted to know what happened even though I had some major issues with the book going in. And this one was slow, too, but not quite as slow as Fire. But let's just cut to it...

The first major issue with this book is that it's barely related to the first book in this "trilogy." Vaguely. Like, there's ...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Peter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: especially-recommended

It's been thousands of years since humanity has spread to the stars. There is no galactic empire, the physics of star travel don't really allow for that, but there are hundreds of worlds, some of which have fallen into barbarism and recreated their civilization several times over. But rarely has there been something truly new... until now. Two of these distantly separated branches of humanity reunite at an astrological anomaly, chasing radio signals that are truly alien... one is the Qeng Ho, an It's been thousands of years since humanity has spread to the stars. There is no galactic empire, the physics of star travel don't really allow for that, but there are hundreds of worlds, some of which have fallen into barbarism and recreated their civilization several times over. But rarely has there been something truly new... until now. Two of these distantly separated branches of humanity reunite at an astrological anomaly, chasing radio signals that are truly alien... one is the Qeng Ho, an interstellar trading culture. The other are the Emergents, a high-tech totalitarian government. The two naturally clash, but then find themselves having to work together to survive and secretly watch the alien culture develop. Because neither of them can go home without the help of the alien Spiders below, who are decades away from their own Spacefaring Age... if they can survive war among their own nations.

This book is technically a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep... however, there is only one character in common, and possibly hundreds of thousands of years separate the events, so it can be read independently. If you only plan to read one, it doesn't really matter which... but if you might read both, A Fire Upon The Deep is a better start, merely because A Deepness in the Sky definitively answers some things that are left mysteries in the other. I've read both several times, and this time around I'm reading them in chronological order, rather than publication order.

This is one of my favorite books. It's jam-packed with ideas, breaks my hearts at times, is at moments both inspiring and depressing, and is filled with plots. In this book you feel like you get something like 2 novels, and a bunch of extended short stories all in one package, but they all come together perfectly, and it explores enough SF concepts that could fill 5 or 6 books each focused on one idea. The book has one of the most chilling hi-tech tyrannies I've ever seen (all the more so because, at it's core, there's something extremely tempting), a well-thought-out alien race with an evolutionary history that suits its strange environment, and also has one of my favorite science fiction characters, the great Pham Nuwen.

It's not a perfect book by any means, though, despite my five-star rating. There are flaws... the villains are occasionally on the edge of too cartoony-evil. Some might feel the aliens are too "relatable" for a truly alien race (however, there is a deliberate purpose to this). I don't buy into some of the social theories. And it's heavy at times on tech and jargon: This is not a book to hand to somebody who's never read SF before, or has only read a little, unless they also happen to be very well-versed in science. If you're a big SF fan, you shouldn't have any trouble understanding what's going on, but it may still put you off a little (and the humans measuring all time in units like ksecs and Msecs can get frustrating even for me).

But I love it so much it deserves the score. Every time I start, it sweeps me up in the story and takes me on a ride like few others. ...more

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Sep 21, 2011 Geoffrey Dow rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I really ought to know better by now. It doesn't matter whether an award is given out by fans or by peers, critics or the general public, whether the criteria is ostensibly "best" this or "favourite" that.

Awards are a crap shoot, influenced by fashions, by lobbying and by plain old bad taste.

That's right, I said it. Sometimes an award is given out to a book (or a movie, or a play, or a poem — the list is as endless as variations in the arts) that simply doesn't deserve it. That doesn't even meri ...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: moderately advanced science fiction fans :-)

Recommended to Richard by: Borderlands-Books.com

Shelves: bookclub, scifi-space-opera, scifi, award-hugo

This is an Michener-sized epic tale of conflict, cooperation and betrayal between two human civilizations racing to make first contact with an alien race.

To a very small extent, this is a prequel to Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep — it is set much earlier in the same universe, and features the character Pham Nuwen (who plays a somewhat unusual role in Fire).

While Fire involves the interactions between many races, Deepness takes place before humans had met any other technological civilizations. ...more

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Dec 01, 2008 Jennifer rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 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, that they ...more

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Apr 02, 2018 Octavia Cade rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

With the best will in the world I couldn't get into this. It took me literally months to read. I kept at it because I hate not finishing books, but it felt like a chore.

Part of it was the length - this book is enormous, and my patience for enormous SFF gets measurably lower by the day. Part of it was the pacing, which I found unutterably turgid until the last hundred pages or so. But the big thing that put me off was the two competing stories. Although they come together in the end, the bulk of ...more

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Aug 25, 2014 Justin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, audio

I understand the appeal of this book. I loved A Fire Upon The Deep. But I was very disappointed in this one. It all came down to the spiders.

One would think that an alien species evolving many, many light years from Earth would end up with a culture, history, and technological advancement utterly alien (pun intended) to what Earth spawned. Instead, we find the spiders living in a near carbon copy of 20th-century Earth.

I know much of what we read with the spiders is supposed to be coming at us th ...more

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Sep 18, 2018 Gavin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: competence-porn, proto-favourites, novel, the-romance-of-technology, sf

A beautiful portrait of pragmatism vs idealism, colonialism and collaboration, surveillance culture vs everything, the possibility of deep translation, the beauty and gaucheness of trade, and the ultimate fate of civilisations.

Programming went back to the beginning of time. It was a little like the midden out back of his father's castle… There were programs here written five thousand years ago, before Humankind ever left Earth. The wonder of it — the horror of it… down at the very bottom of i

...more

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Jun 20, 2010 Zozo rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I hate it when aliens act like humans. These spiderlike creatures live in houses, they have breakfast and dinner, they have stairs, jackets, short barreled shotguns, kids, wives, cars, universities. They have in all 2 specialties in their culture that we do not have. They talk like humans, they act like humans. If I want to read about humans with deformities I will try the hunchback of notre dame. But I want aliens with interesting cultures. Like the Prador.

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Aug 14, 2018 Bryan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction-to-read, science-fiction-read, my-library

“So High, So Low, So Many Things to Know” 🚀🌌
The premise for this book is pretty spectacular: "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 traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.
◾️
The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to “So High, So Low, So Many Things to Know” 🚀🌌
The premise for this book is pretty spectacular: "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 traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.
◾️
The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as it does every two hundred and fifty years....
▪️
Then, following terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by the Qeng Ho and Emergents alike.
▪️
More than just a great science fiction adventure, A Deepness in the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love." (From the publisher)
▪️
Now, I have to admit, from my standpoint, when it comes to highly touted sci-fi with aliens with spider qualities, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time wins out against Deepness. This is only the case due to pacing and just feeling so fatigued while working to finish this 28 HOUR AUDIOBOOK. I understand a lot of people worship it but I’m still giving it 2.5/5 stars. Vinge is the originator of one of my favorite sci-fi concepts called Zones of Thought. Essentially, that the cosmos is not uniform in what is actually possible. For example, Faster-Than-Light travel could be possible in other areas of the known universe and enhanced intelligences brought about by a Singularity event might occur more easily elsewhere. I respect this book and will probably return to it for another shot a good deal of time from now. There were so many concepts sprinkled within this book I loved but it was just very long. I’ll end with a great little quote: “We were looking for starfarers, but we were too small and all we saw were their ankles.” ...more

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About Vernor Vinge

Vernor Vinge

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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 hi ...more

Other books in the series

Zones of Thought (3 books)

Books by Vernor Vinge

A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought, #1)

Marooned in Realtime (Across Realtime, #2)

The Children of the Sky (Zones of Thought, #3)

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“Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.” — 13 likes

“On this small world, there will be no more real darkness. But there will always be the Dark. Go out tonight, Lady Pedure. Look up. We are surrounded by the Dark and always will be. And just as our Dark ends with the passage of time in a New Sun, so the greater Dark ends at the shores of a million million stars. Think! If our sun's cycle was once less than a year, then even earlier our sun might have been middling bright all the time. I have students who are sure most of the stars are just like our sun, only much much younger, and many with worlds like ours. You want a deepness that endures, a deepness that Spiderkind can depend on? Pedure, there is a deepness in the sky, and it extends forever.” — 10 likes

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