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This is in my list of top 10 (ish) books I've read. If you've enjoyed it, He's got two more books in the Zones of Thought universe: A Deepness In The Sky, whic
by mawise 5y ago
This is in my list of top 10 (ish) books I've read.
If you've enjoyed it, He's got two more books in the Zones of Thought universe: A Deepness In The Sky, which follows Pham in his Queng Ho days before A Fire Upon The Deep (recommended!) as well as Children Of The Sky, which follows Ravna and the children on the Tines world as a direct sequel to Fire Upon The Deep.
- cybernautique 5y agoThanks for the recommendations! I'll put them on the top of my reading list. I generally consider A Fire Upon the Deep to be one of the great achievements of human imagination. Reading this book and discovering Vinge's unique vision of a variable physics universe was akin to reading Tolkien and discovering his vision of a divine universe.
- hinkley 5y agoVinge already cemented himself with the peace war books, but his ability to present otherness in the Zones of Thought books is probably his most impressive accomplishment. Spiders you both can and can’t understand, and then hive mind mammals… The facile approach would be to cut out the middleman and make hive insects, and he did not. The speed of sound aspect of his hive mind was a brilliant stroke, the intergenerational element was the cherry on top.
- jrootabega 5y agoI acknowledge that I'm digressing into general Vinge talk here instead of Zones of Thought, but Rainbow's End was good, too, as more of a near-future vision that, these days, would barely be considered sci-fi. It's also got some elements that are scarily analogous to current trends in government/social media/political dialogue.
- ghaff 5y agoOn the more general Vinge theme, his "True Names" novella is probably overlooked compared to his novels. But, along with Varley's "Press Enter" (written about the same time) is a really good early take on the "Net" and its intersection with the real world.
- ineedasername 5y agoI read Rainbow's End during breaks at the 2006 HOPE conference. It was coincidence, just what I had next up in my reading list, but I don't think there could have been a better setting for it. I specifically remember putting it away as a session on rainbow tables began. Getting mooned by Jello Biafra was also interesting.
- moonbug 5y agoStay away from Children of the Sky unless, having finished Fire Upon the Deep, your response was "I'd sure like to hear more about those whiny children and the dogs"
- abecedarius 5y agoWhen it came out I was also disappointed, but nowadays the villainous power-seekers and the unhinged denialist group make Vinge seem more clear-seeing than I was. (If you think I'm dissing just one side of today's culture wars, nope.)
- ansible 5y agoVinge fans (myself included) were expecting another high-concept space opera, and weren't that interested in social commentary (however relevant that has turned out to be to present day society). It has been a while, maybe I'll give it a re-read at some point.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoToo late a warning. I hate post-award contract-filler sequel books.
- jwalton 5y agoI read an interview with Vernon Vinge where he said he had this whole story arc with Ravna planned out that he expected to take five books in total. It’s been 10 years since the last Zones of Thought book… Although, it was longer than that between book two and book three.
- rsync 5y ago"Stay away from Children of the Sky unless, having finished Fire Upon the Deep, your response was "I'd sure like to hear more about those whiny children and the dogs"" See my other comment up-thread ... what I really want is the opposite of this. I want the battling civilizations beyond the void memes all fleshed out. I want more details on how the civilizations "ascended" beyond the (whatever the demarcation point was). I want more details on how they came back on "our side" of that point and what it means and what their motivations are, etc. Those are the plot pieces and background that are never fully fleshed out in Upon the Deep that make me rate it lower than In the Sky. Let me also say ... I have never played Mass Effect but there is a fascinating and deep backstory and created universe for that game that I find interesting and terrifying in the same ways I am interested in, and terrified by, the Vinge books: "The Reapers are the original creators of the Citadel and the mass relay network. These massive constructs exist so that any intelligent life in the galaxy would eventually discover them and base their technology upon them – all part of a scheme to harvest the galaxy’s sentient life in a repeating cycle of purges that has continued relentlessly over countless millennia. " https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Reaper https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Reaper
- edflsafoiewq 5y agoA Deepness in the Sky is terrifying.
- akkartik 5y agoA Deepness in the Sky is my sentimental favorite scifi novel of all time. I rarely reread scifi.
- ineedasername 5y agoI liked Children of The Sky, but in terms of plot it seems clearly meant to be a bridge to a next book, and seemed to suffer from the "middle book" syndrome of trilogies, losing a lot of the faster pace of the first book as it slowly builds up the details and tension to be resolved in the next book.
- undersuit 5y agoThere is a short story "The Babbler" set after Children but I don't think there will be another full book.
- duskwuff 5y ago"The Blabber" (not Babbler!) was actually written some time before "A Fire Upon The Deep". Some of the details in Blabber aren't fully consistent with the later novels; it's best seen as a first draft of the Zones of Thought universe. In an interview, Vinge has stated his hope to continue Children, but without much conviction: https://ttdlabyrinth.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/reprint-in-deep/ https://ttdlabyrinth.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/reprint-in-dee...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- roca 5y agoChildren of the Sky was incredibly disappointing. Fire and Deepness are packed full of great ideas. Children has none.