Book Review: A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge

Rousing, Big Idea space opera in a galaxy full of epic awesomeness and horror.

Tor, 1992, 391 pages

Publisher's description:

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 Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.

Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought", but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.

( Oh, Space Opera, I just can't quit you. I thought things were getting stale between us, but then you reminded me why I love you. )

Verdict: This is the best space opera I've read in a long time. It's packed with Big Ideas and weird physics and strange aliens, and it's got space battles and medieval adventures in the same book in a way that actually makes sense. A very deserving Hugo Award winner, and another author I've added to my must-read list. Space Opera, will you take me back? I promise not to leave you again.

Book Review: A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge

Rousing, Big Idea space opera in a galaxy full of epic awesomeness and horror.

Tor, 1992, 391 pages

Publisher's description:

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 Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.

Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought", but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.

Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.

( Oh, Space Opera, I just can't quit you. I thought things were getting stale between us, but then you reminded me why I love you. )

Verdict: This is the best space opera I've read in a long time. It's packed with Big Ideas and weird physics and strange aliens, and it's got space battles and medieval adventures in the same book in a way that actually makes sense. A very deserving Hugo Award winner, and another author I've added to my must-read list. Space Opera, will you take me back? I promise not to leave you again.