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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 show more 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. Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, the second installment of the Zones of Thought series, is a 1999 Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel. show lessTags
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I am reading Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought novels in publication order. This second book is set earlier than the first. It does not engage the "Zonological" ideas introduced in A Fire Upon the Deep. It is structured very similarly however, with two parallel and converging narratives, one of which is cutting-edge space drama featuring (the original, in this case) Pham Nuwen, and the other of which takes place in a radically non-human planet-bound society.
The space story involves grappling between two human spacefaring societies. The Qeng Ho are Nuwen's mature interstellar mercantile culture, while the Emergents are the totalitarian development of a more local society whose hypostasized Emergency has resulted in an innovative form of show more enslavement. Simultaneous missions to contact the nascently industrializing aliens of Arachna erupt into catastrophic conflict, leaving the two competitors in a lopsided symbiosis full of intrigue.
The business on the world of Arachna is translated for the reader using conventions later rationalized as the work of the humans surveilling the planet from space. Although the denizens are quasi-arthropod "Spiders," they are characterized with Hobbitsy sorts of English names and traits, such as Sherkaner Underhill and Victory Smith. Since their technological level and social challenges better match our own, these creatures actually come off as more "human" than the either of the human cultures, at least during the first three-quarters of the book before the first in-person meetings between humans and Spiders.
I found it interesting what a mature figure Pham Nuwen is in this book, "resurrected" at its start in a more figurative manner than in A Fire Upon the Deep, but still with an enormous prior history. Despite a serious developmental arc within the scope of the current story, and some significant retrospectives to flesh out his character and motivation, Vinge has left many centuries to play with if he should ever want to compose a pre-prequel using Nuwen as the connective thread.
Big ideas that are central to this book include the coercive management of human attention, and the epistemological weaponization of networked information technology. These both feel more topical now than they would have been when the book was first published in 1999. Vinge also seems to have put a new turn on Ibn Khaldūn's theories of civilizational growth and decay, and the practical superiority of organized merchants to wealthy despots. These notions become intrinsic to the premise that a sufficient "industrial ecology" is needed to support productive interaction with interstellar travelers, who cannot carry such an ecology themselves even at the scale of a fleet. But the industrialized civilizations are necessarily finite in duration, acquiring vulnerabilities with their efficiencies.
Like the previous Zones of Thought book, A Deepness in the Sky is long--eventful, characterful, and thoughtful--and it took all my reading attention for a couple of weeks in order to get through it. Looking back at my review of A Fire Upon the Deep, I find myself in the same position of being glad to have read it and being unwilling to charge on to the next one without a significant pause to recover. And I already own a copy of The Children of the Sky. show less
The space story involves grappling between two human spacefaring societies. The Qeng Ho are Nuwen's mature interstellar mercantile culture, while the Emergents are the totalitarian development of a more local society whose hypostasized Emergency has resulted in an innovative form of show more enslavement. Simultaneous missions to contact the nascently industrializing aliens of Arachna erupt into catastrophic conflict, leaving the two competitors in a lopsided symbiosis full of intrigue.
The business on the world of Arachna is translated for the reader using conventions later rationalized as the work of the humans surveilling the planet from space. Although the denizens are quasi-arthropod "Spiders," they are characterized with Hobbitsy sorts of English names and traits, such as Sherkaner Underhill and Victory Smith. Since their technological level and social challenges better match our own, these creatures actually come off as more "human" than the either of the human cultures, at least during the first three-quarters of the book before the first in-person meetings between humans and Spiders.
I found it interesting what a mature figure Pham Nuwen is in this book, "resurrected" at its start in a more figurative manner than in A Fire Upon the Deep, but still with an enormous prior history. Despite a serious developmental arc within the scope of the current story, and some significant retrospectives to flesh out his character and motivation, Vinge has left many centuries to play with if he should ever want to compose a pre-prequel using Nuwen as the connective thread.
Big ideas that are central to this book include the coercive management of human attention, and the epistemological weaponization of networked information technology. These both feel more topical now than they would have been when the book was first published in 1999. Vinge also seems to have put a new turn on Ibn Khaldūn's theories of civilizational growth and decay, and the practical superiority of organized merchants to wealthy despots. These notions become intrinsic to the premise that a sufficient "industrial ecology" is needed to support productive interaction with interstellar travelers, who cannot carry such an ecology themselves even at the scale of a fleet. But the industrialized civilizations are necessarily finite in duration, acquiring vulnerabilities with their efficiencies.
Like the previous Zones of Thought book, A Deepness in the Sky is long--eventful, characterful, and thoughtful--and it took all my reading attention for a couple of weeks in order to get through it. Looking back at my review of A Fire Upon the Deep, I find myself in the same position of being glad to have read it and being unwilling to charge on to the next one without a significant pause to recover. And I already own a copy of The Children of the Sky. show less
A Deepness in the Sky is the first Vinge novel that I read, and while it lacks the cosmological intensity of A Fire in the Deep, I think it holds up as the superior work.
In the distant future humanity has hit a plateau of development. Human planetary civilizations rise and fall over their century-long cycles, while the interstellar traders of the Qeng Ho skip from system to system in sublight ships, hoping to find a technological civilization worth trading with when they arrive. Just outside of human space is the OnOff star, a stellar anomaly that recently begun crude radio transmissions. The possibility of aliens inspires two great expeditions: a Qeng Ho trading fleet and one from the Emergents, a small interstellar empire that uses a show more unique form of neurological slavery. What they find is a civilization of giant spiders gone into hibernation, at the threshold of a leap into the information age. It's the most profitable time to arrive, and with the first contact the technological aliens, the value of the prize is infinite.
Above a frozen alien world the fleets collide, nearly annihilate each other in a flurry of nuclear sneak attacks, and the Qeng Ho and Emergents settle into an uneasy unified society. Both sides need each other for survival, and neither trusts the other. The only hope is to last until the locals Spiders develop a tech base that can be bootstrapped to space-flight. Qeng Ho 'peddling' is practically treason to the Emergents, who's use of Focused slaves (people infected with a specialized disease and turned into monomaniacal experts) is anathema to the basic concept of human rights. The Emergents have all the guns, but the Qeng Ho have a secret weapon. In hiding is Pham Nuwen, the legendary founder of the Qeng Ho and a practiced programmer-at-arms. All he has to do is evade the unblinking eye of the most effective police state imaginable, where the will of sadists is backed up by enslaved analysts capable of putting together the pieces of any plans. Meanwhile, the Spiders are facing their own annihilation, with the specter of a nuclear exchange overshadowing mastery of technology that would overturn their long history under the strange OnOff star.
This is a book of slow exploration of three alien societies--even the humans are foreign to us--and then rapid bursts of violent action. Vinge has a real eye for espionage, and the way that slow plans explode into violence and split-second decisions. He uses the multiple points-of-view to maximum effect, revealing how ordinary Qeng Ho see Pham Nuwen's disguise, and the plots of the Emergent dictators. Two technologies, the neurological Focus and the localizers (tiny internet-of-things chips) that Nuwen uses as his backdoor, stand out as some great sci-fi. The Spiders are deliberate cast as twee Victorian Heroic Engineers, a some-what grating narrative choice that is explained in book.
There are some similarities with A Fire in the Deep: Pham Nuwen, an alien society reaching new levels of technology, a Machiavellian antagonist, but this book handles the same themes with greater elegance and style, absent the hoary space-opera-isms of the earlier book. show less
In the distant future humanity has hit a plateau of development. Human planetary civilizations rise and fall over their century-long cycles, while the interstellar traders of the Qeng Ho skip from system to system in sublight ships, hoping to find a technological civilization worth trading with when they arrive. Just outside of human space is the OnOff star, a stellar anomaly that recently begun crude radio transmissions. The possibility of aliens inspires two great expeditions: a Qeng Ho trading fleet and one from the Emergents, a small interstellar empire that uses a show more unique form of neurological slavery. What they find is a civilization of giant spiders gone into hibernation, at the threshold of a leap into the information age. It's the most profitable time to arrive, and with the first contact the technological aliens, the value of the prize is infinite.
Above a frozen alien world the fleets collide, nearly annihilate each other in a flurry of nuclear sneak attacks, and the Qeng Ho and Emergents settle into an uneasy unified society. Both sides need each other for survival, and neither trusts the other. The only hope is to last until the locals Spiders develop a tech base that can be bootstrapped to space-flight. Qeng Ho 'peddling' is practically treason to the Emergents, who's use of Focused slaves (people infected with a specialized disease and turned into monomaniacal experts) is anathema to the basic concept of human rights. The Emergents have all the guns, but the Qeng Ho have a secret weapon. In hiding is Pham Nuwen, the legendary founder of the Qeng Ho and a practiced programmer-at-arms. All he has to do is evade the unblinking eye of the most effective police state imaginable, where the will of sadists is backed up by enslaved analysts capable of putting together the pieces of any plans. Meanwhile, the Spiders are facing their own annihilation, with the specter of a nuclear exchange overshadowing mastery of technology that would overturn their long history under the strange OnOff star.
This is a book of slow exploration of three alien societies--even the humans are foreign to us--and then rapid bursts of violent action. Vinge has a real eye for espionage, and the way that slow plans explode into violence and split-second decisions. He uses the multiple points-of-view to maximum effect, revealing how ordinary Qeng Ho see Pham Nuwen's disguise, and the plots of the Emergent dictators. Two technologies, the neurological Focus and the localizers (tiny internet-of-things chips) that Nuwen uses as his backdoor, stand out as some great sci-fi. The Spiders are deliberate cast as twee Victorian Heroic Engineers, a some-what grating narrative choice that is explained in book.
There are some similarities with A Fire in the Deep: Pham Nuwen, an alien society reaching new levels of technology, a Machiavellian antagonist, but this book handles the same themes with greater elegance and style, absent the hoary space-opera-isms of the earlier book. show less
I found A Deepness in the Sky to be slow going at first, and I had a hard time finding much sympathy for any of the human characters. But, I stuck with it and by the end had come around to thinking it is one of the great recent science fiction novels.
The Emergents are truly creepy and despicable bad guys; Vinge does an effective job of gradually revealing more and more reasons to hate them. I felt ambivalent about the other human faction in the book, the Qeng Ho, who had both good points and bad points; it was only as I understood the depravity of the Emergents that I started really rooting for other side.
The alien "Spiders" are the best thing about the book, and indeed, for me, Sherkaner Underhill and his very easy to root for family show more were the true protagonists of the story. He is a brilliant scientist who has yet to discover much of what the secretly-orbiting-and-spying-down-on-them humans already know. His entire family plays a critical role in the political and military maneuverings on-planet and in the ultimate system-wide resolution when the humans finally act.
The pace eventually picks up and builds to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion with plenty of surprises. It's only very loosely associated with A Fire Upon the Deep; I wouldn't really call it part of a series. show less
The Emergents are truly creepy and despicable bad guys; Vinge does an effective job of gradually revealing more and more reasons to hate them. I felt ambivalent about the other human faction in the book, the Qeng Ho, who had both good points and bad points; it was only as I understood the depravity of the Emergents that I started really rooting for other side.
The alien "Spiders" are the best thing about the book, and indeed, for me, Sherkaner Underhill and his very easy to root for family show more were the true protagonists of the story. He is a brilliant scientist who has yet to discover much of what the secretly-orbiting-and-spying-down-on-them humans already know. His entire family plays a critical role in the political and military maneuverings on-planet and in the ultimate system-wide resolution when the humans finally act.
The pace eventually picks up and builds to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion with plenty of surprises. It's only very loosely associated with A Fire Upon the Deep; I wouldn't really call it part of a series. show less
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 only things I’d forgotten about the Hugo award-winning ‘A Deepness in the Sky.’ Maybe it was because I was young when I first took this tome on, with time on my hands to spend entire afternoons absorbed in a story, but dang! Deepness is show more LONG. It took me forever to read it this time, squeezing in a chapter between meetings and appointments here, a few pages between chores and obligations there. This is not to imply that reading Deepness again was in any way a chore or obligation—on the contrary, the book is every bit as good as what I recalled of it.
Refreshing my memory only served to reinforce this novel’s place at the top of my favorites list. There’s no way this review can do it justice, so before I try to explain exactly what’s so great about it, please just take my word for it. Even if you’re not a science fiction fan, it’s simply the best.
First of all, Vinge’s intellectual brilliance (he’s a retired computer scientist and Professor of Mathematics) shines through in his work. Not just in his exceptional concepts, but in his ability to filter those concepts through effective word usage, sentence structure, plot and characterization. In other words, he’s a scientist who also happens to be a great writer. He’s got a unique vision of what civilization might be like thousands of years in the future, and the technical skills to put that vision on paper in a highly effective manner.
(Plot summary/Spoiler Alert!)
The Qeng Ho (pronounced Cheng Ho) are the future. Star faring humans, a huge family of traders with ships spread out over known space. In all the thousands of years of exploration, there’s only been one other intelligent race found, until now. Whoever makes first contact will secure great fame and fortune. One Qeng Ho fleet is speeding through space, but hot on their heels are the Emergents, a civilization that has recently ‘emerged’ from a heinous civil war.
In the On/Off solar system, the planet Arachna’s sun phases between light and dark. During its dark phase, the planet’s inhabitants burrow deep underground, where they go into a natural frozen hibernation as the atmosphere of the planet dissipates. The dominant species is a spider-like race with technology similar to that of mid-twentieth century earth.
The Qeng Ho and Emergents arrive at the solar system at nearly the same time. They form an uneasy alliance that is soon destroyed when the Emergents attack. Tomas Nau, the Emergent ‘Podmaster,’ is surprised at the Qeng Ho’s resilience. Even as the Emergents’ horrible biological weapon, a ‘mindrot’ virus, is unleashed, the Qeng Ho manage to fight back. The result is that both fleets are nearly decimated. The remaining Qeng Ho are enslaved, and those whose immune systems were unable to fight off the mindrot virus are subject to ‘focus,’ a deliberate manipulation by Emergent technicians of the virus in their brains that causes them to focus only on one area of specialization. These unfortunate ‘zipheads’ can now hardly even care for themselves; they are only concerned with whatever they’ve been focused on.
Nau must play a dangerous game of keeping the Qeng Ho sublimated through pervasive ziphead-enhanced surveillance as they wait for Arachna’s star to relight. The one attempt at rebellion is quashed quickly and brutally, further subjugating the remaining unfocused Qeng Ho population.
All this sounds very science-fiction-y, doesn’t it? And I promised you’d like it even if you don’t like sci-fi.
Well, there’s more to the story to than the background (and there’s significantly more to the background than I describe here). That’s what’s so great about this novel. The unique stage Vinge sets allows him to write about human behavior under extreme circumstances. And it’s the multi-dimensional characters that really set this story apart. We care about these people—even the ones who aren’t ‘people.’
Vinge uses multiple points of view, including that of the ‘spiders’ themselves before they enter the long ‘deep,’ and again when the sun relights and they emerge. We see through the eyes of one family, whose patriarch is a progressive-minded genius named Hrunkner and whose matriarch is a respected general in the King’s army named Victory. Even though Vinge’s vivid description reminds us often that these creatures are very different physically from us, he rounds them out with familiar emotions. We peek in at their lives as they attempt to change their world through technology and logic aimed at converting the culturally ignorant majority. This world mirrors old earth (us, sixty or so years ago), politically. As nuclear power becomes a reality, the major countries arm themselves with nervous pointed ‘hands’ poised above the red button.
This is what Tomas Nau is counting on. His zipheads are in incognito communication with the spiders, feeding them information that both propels them forward technologically and keeps the various countries at legs-length. Meanwhile, the true hero of the story (well, okay, there are several heroes, but this one is the *main* one), an old Qeng Ho man named Pham Trinli, has figured out an ingenious way to infiltrate Nau’s near-impenetrable surveillance system. We learn a lot about Pham in back-story that’s woven in almost seamlessly. Pham is not the swaggering blow-hard everyone thinks he is.
Life in space under Nau’s thumb has been hard for the Qeng Ho. Entertainment is at a premium, and every week they gather to hear the ziphead’s interpret a spider radio program for children, produced by Hrunkner and Victory and acted by their children. The Qeng Ho, and even some of the Emergents, grow very fond of the beings on the planet they are spying on. They lurk in space, waiting for the spider’s technology to reach a point where it will be profitable to make first contact.
I don’t want to give any more away.
Even if you don’t take my word for it that this book is more than read-worthy, maybe those silver rocket ships on Vinge’s mantel (his Hugos) might sway you. He’s got, I think, four or five of them…
(Review originally posted to Booksquawk) show less
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 only things I’d forgotten about the Hugo award-winning ‘A Deepness in the Sky.’ Maybe it was because I was young when I first took this tome on, with time on my hands to spend entire afternoons absorbed in a story, but dang! Deepness is show more LONG. It took me forever to read it this time, squeezing in a chapter between meetings and appointments here, a few pages between chores and obligations there. This is not to imply that reading Deepness again was in any way a chore or obligation—on the contrary, the book is every bit as good as what I recalled of it.
Refreshing my memory only served to reinforce this novel’s place at the top of my favorites list. There’s no way this review can do it justice, so before I try to explain exactly what’s so great about it, please just take my word for it. Even if you’re not a science fiction fan, it’s simply the best.
First of all, Vinge’s intellectual brilliance (he’s a retired computer scientist and Professor of Mathematics) shines through in his work. Not just in his exceptional concepts, but in his ability to filter those concepts through effective word usage, sentence structure, plot and characterization. In other words, he’s a scientist who also happens to be a great writer. He’s got a unique vision of what civilization might be like thousands of years in the future, and the technical skills to put that vision on paper in a highly effective manner.
(Plot summary/Spoiler Alert!)
The Qeng Ho (pronounced Cheng Ho) are the future. Star faring humans, a huge family of traders with ships spread out over known space. In all the thousands of years of exploration, there’s only been one other intelligent race found, until now. Whoever makes first contact will secure great fame and fortune. One Qeng Ho fleet is speeding through space, but hot on their heels are the Emergents, a civilization that has recently ‘emerged’ from a heinous civil war.
In the On/Off solar system, the planet Arachna’s sun phases between light and dark. During its dark phase, the planet’s inhabitants burrow deep underground, where they go into a natural frozen hibernation as the atmosphere of the planet dissipates. The dominant species is a spider-like race with technology similar to that of mid-twentieth century earth.
The Qeng Ho and Emergents arrive at the solar system at nearly the same time. They form an uneasy alliance that is soon destroyed when the Emergents attack. Tomas Nau, the Emergent ‘Podmaster,’ is surprised at the Qeng Ho’s resilience. Even as the Emergents’ horrible biological weapon, a ‘mindrot’ virus, is unleashed, the Qeng Ho manage to fight back. The result is that both fleets are nearly decimated. The remaining Qeng Ho are enslaved, and those whose immune systems were unable to fight off the mindrot virus are subject to ‘focus,’ a deliberate manipulation by Emergent technicians of the virus in their brains that causes them to focus only on one area of specialization. These unfortunate ‘zipheads’ can now hardly even care for themselves; they are only concerned with whatever they’ve been focused on.
Nau must play a dangerous game of keeping the Qeng Ho sublimated through pervasive ziphead-enhanced surveillance as they wait for Arachna’s star to relight. The one attempt at rebellion is quashed quickly and brutally, further subjugating the remaining unfocused Qeng Ho population.
All this sounds very science-fiction-y, doesn’t it? And I promised you’d like it even if you don’t like sci-fi.
Well, there’s more to the story to than the background (and there’s significantly more to the background than I describe here). That’s what’s so great about this novel. The unique stage Vinge sets allows him to write about human behavior under extreme circumstances. And it’s the multi-dimensional characters that really set this story apart. We care about these people—even the ones who aren’t ‘people.’
Vinge uses multiple points of view, including that of the ‘spiders’ themselves before they enter the long ‘deep,’ and again when the sun relights and they emerge. We see through the eyes of one family, whose patriarch is a progressive-minded genius named Hrunkner and whose matriarch is a respected general in the King’s army named Victory. Even though Vinge’s vivid description reminds us often that these creatures are very different physically from us, he rounds them out with familiar emotions. We peek in at their lives as they attempt to change their world through technology and logic aimed at converting the culturally ignorant majority. This world mirrors old earth (us, sixty or so years ago), politically. As nuclear power becomes a reality, the major countries arm themselves with nervous pointed ‘hands’ poised above the red button.
This is what Tomas Nau is counting on. His zipheads are in incognito communication with the spiders, feeding them information that both propels them forward technologically and keeps the various countries at legs-length. Meanwhile, the true hero of the story (well, okay, there are several heroes, but this one is the *main* one), an old Qeng Ho man named Pham Trinli, has figured out an ingenious way to infiltrate Nau’s near-impenetrable surveillance system. We learn a lot about Pham in back-story that’s woven in almost seamlessly. Pham is not the swaggering blow-hard everyone thinks he is.
Life in space under Nau’s thumb has been hard for the Qeng Ho. Entertainment is at a premium, and every week they gather to hear the ziphead’s interpret a spider radio program for children, produced by Hrunkner and Victory and acted by their children. The Qeng Ho, and even some of the Emergents, grow very fond of the beings on the planet they are spying on. They lurk in space, waiting for the spider’s technology to reach a point where it will be profitable to make first contact.
I don’t want to give any more away.
Even if you don’t take my word for it that this book is more than read-worthy, maybe those silver rocket ships on Vinge’s mantel (his Hugos) might sway you. He’s got, I think, four or five of them…
(Review originally posted to Booksquawk) show less
A surprisingly good classic SF. I've not read it before, and despite being over 20 years old (thought it was older) it has held up very well. Aidan Tchaicovsky's Children Time is similar but maybe not quite as good which is a very unusual statement for me to make having loved all his works!
A trader family sets off on a new expedition. A world has been found orbiting a most unusual star and such things can bring fame and fortune. The traders are part of a galaxy spanning network, enforcing a common culture because how else would you trade with anyone. Some of the crew turn out to be from 'conquered' worlds and have not forgotten their history and culture. The ensuing struggle ruins both factions and the survivors are left huddled on the show more moon watching the civilisation develop beneath them. Both sides are in agreement the only way home is (as oft before) to nurture the aliens to sufficient technological prowess that they can provide the necessary equipment to get them all home. An uneasy truce prevails.
But the aliens below are far stranger than anything the civilisation has ever faced before, and the planet itself even weirder. The sun periodically bakes or freezes the world, and only in the interregnum does life prosper. A full understanding of their culture will be required, and this is never a one-way process.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, wonderful politics, invention, aliens and the importance of culture. show less
A trader family sets off on a new expedition. A world has been found orbiting a most unusual star and such things can bring fame and fortune. The traders are part of a galaxy spanning network, enforcing a common culture because how else would you trade with anyone. Some of the crew turn out to be from 'conquered' worlds and have not forgotten their history and culture. The ensuing struggle ruins both factions and the survivors are left huddled on the show more moon watching the civilisation develop beneath them. Both sides are in agreement the only way home is (as oft before) to nurture the aliens to sufficient technological prowess that they can provide the necessary equipment to get them all home. An uneasy truce prevails.
But the aliens below are far stranger than anything the civilisation has ever faced before, and the planet itself even weirder. The sun periodically bakes or freezes the world, and only in the interregnum does life prosper. A full understanding of their culture will be required, and this is never a one-way process.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, wonderful politics, invention, aliens and the importance of culture. show less
A Deepness in the Sky paints a picture of a humanity that has evolved into an interstellar trading culture. Because of lengths of time it takes to travel between systems at sublight speeds, these Qeng Ho traders rely on building up the technology level of client worlds so that they can refuel and trade. This book relates the story of one such encounter, but this time with the first ever alien culture encountered by humans. This is complicated when the Qeng Ho arrive at the same time as another human culture, the authoritarian Emergents, who ambush and subjugate the Qeng Ho despite the traders' attempts to cooperate. The story weaves back and forth between the various human groups, particularly Qeng Ho traders who cooperate with or try show more to undermine their Emergent masters, and the alien Spiders whose 1950's-like culture is undergoing their own scientific revolution amidst a tense political atmosphere. The humans know that failure to work with the Spiders means they will never escape the system, but cooperating with the Emergents may have even worse consequences. This book was fantastic--it had many layers of politics and intrigue along with compelling and believable characters, all set within an fascinating thought experiment of a setting. show less
I really want to rate this 5 stars. As it is my rating should be 4.5.
What made this book special for me was that I had no idea where the story was going. I read a lot and I often find that after reading 20-25% of a book I have a basic idea about the general outline of the story. This often makes reading a bit boring. But with this book I had no idea, mainly because there were so many options. There were some brilliant twists and a tiny remark at the end which cleared up what was a rather big question for me.
So why isn't this a 5 star rating? I think the ending was a bit too pat, and a couple of what should have been major issues were not addressed. But overall this is a rather minor problem. Definitely one of the best sf books I have read.
What made this book special for me was that I had no idea where the story was going. I read a lot and I often find that after reading 20-25% of a book I have a basic idea about the general outline of the story. This often makes reading a bit boring. But with this book I had no idea, mainly because there were so many options. There were some brilliant twists and a tiny remark at the end which cleared up what was a rather big question for me.
So why isn't this a 5 star rating? I think the ending was a bit too pat, and a couple of what should have been major issues were not addressed. But overall this is a rather minor problem. Definitely one of the best sf books I have read.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Au tréfonds du ciel
- Original title
- A Deepness in the Sky
- Original publication date
- 1999
- People/Characters
- Pham Nuwen; Tomas Nau; Qiwi Lin Lisolet; Ezr Vinh; Anne Reynolt; Sherkaner Underhill (show all 7); Victory Smith
- Important places
- Arachna (planet); OnOff star; L1
- Dedication
- To Poul Anderson,
In learning to write science fiction, I have had many great models, but Poul Anderson's work has meant more to me than any other. Beyond that, Poul has provided me and the world with an enormous treas... (show all)ure of wonderful, entertaining stories - and he continues to do so.
On a personal note, I will always be grateful to Poul and Karen Anderson for the hospitality that they showed a certain young science fiction writer back in the 1960s.
--V.V. - First words
- 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.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Somewhere down there the old Spider might still sleep, waiting for his lady lost ... and beginning on his greatest Lurk of all.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)So high, so low, so many things to know. - Publisher's editor
- Frenkel, James
- Blurbers
- Brin, David; Bear, Greg; Niven, Larry; Benford, Gregory; Steele, Allen; Resnick, Mike (show all 8); Letson, Russell; Strahan, Jonathan
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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