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A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought) | 
 enlarge | Author: Vernor Vinge
Publisher: Tor Books
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Rating:  201 reviews
Sales Rank: 48695
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 792
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 0812536355
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780812536355
ASIN: 0812536355
Publication Date: January 15, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Minor shelf wear to cover. No internal or external markings.
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Amazon.com Review
This hefty novel returns to the universe of Vernor Vinge's 1993 Hugo winner A Fire Upon the Deep--but 30,000 years earlier. The story has the same sense of epic vastness despite happening mostly in one isolated solar system. Here there's a world of intelligent spider creatures who traditionally hibernate through the "Deepest Darkness" of their strange variable sun's long "off" periods, when even the atmosphere freezes. Now, science offers them an alternative... Meanwhile, attracted by spider radio transmissions, two human starfleets come exploring--merchants hoping for customers and tyrants who want slaves. Their inevitable clash leaves both fleets crippled, with the power in the wrong hands, which leads to a long wait in space until the spiders develop exploitable technology. Over the years Vinge builds palpable tension through multiple storylines and characters. In the sky, hopes of rebellion against tyranny continue despite soothing lies, brutal repression, and a mental bondage that can convert people into literal tools. Down below, the engagingly sympathetic spiders have their own problems. In flashback, we see the grandiose ideals and ultimate betrayal of the merchant culture's founder, now among the human contingent and pretending to be a senile buffoon while plotting, plotting... Major revelations, ironies, and payoffs follow. A powerful story in the grandest SF tradition. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk
Product Description
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 tow 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 196 more reviews...
 Ugghh. Ponderous. Way too long... September 18, 2008
Bic (CA)
Decent premise. But the length of this book was 350 pages too long. Do yourself a favor and skip every other page.
At the end, I was simply hoping all the characters ended up in a black hole as the "anti matter" took hold.
The author needs a decent editor in the worst way...
 Compelling Universe August 28, 2008
Andrew Fox
I can understand why this book won its Hugo. I think that the universe that Vinge develops is extremely interesting. As with his novel, "A Fire Upon the Deep," this setting could easily support an entire series of novels, and the universe, its history, culture, and technology are the most interesting aspects of the entire book. The character development was much more satisfying than in "A Fire Upon the Deep," and both novels do this much better than most pop-fiction crap you'll find on the shelves (Kevin J. Anderson, I'm looking at you.) However, the aliens feel a lot less, well, alien than in the previous novel, which was a little bit disappointing, though the plot explains this away in a reasonable way.
Disappointing August 12, 2008
Ganil Hagedorn (Jerusalem, Israel)
The sequel to this novel, "A fire upon the deep", is in my opinion one of the best SF books I have ever read. The universe described there with its "zones of thought", the utterly alien "dog" life-form described there and the horror of the blight were excellently done. Based on this I was really looking forward to this book, the prequel, set in the same universe and starring one of the charachters from the original book.
This book is disappointing, however, not nearly as good as "A fire". This is because of two key issues:
- The brilliant universe setting Vinge created is not used at all - the entire story takes place in the slow zone. In my mind the author should have utilised that setting in this story as well.
- The aliens are just humans in a bug suit. In "A fire" the aliens were so, well, alien, their thoughts, their behaviour, their society - all so different and well imagined. Here, as part of the plot the "spiders" society is shown to the reader through the "translations" of humans - and as other reviewers pointed out - they are to all intents and purposes, human, down to even human names ("Smith"...)
I think that what made Vinge's previous novel so brilliant were these two points - his idea of the universe and his writing of aliens. Here, they are just MIA. Sure, there are a lot of other interesting ideas (the localizers, the focus to name a couple), but they just don't measure up.
So to sum up - I expect another breathless read, and found myself getting bored.
 Vinge pens another instant classic. June 30, 2008
Michigoon (Mid-MI)
Years from now, Vinge's "Zones of Thought" series (A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep) will be viewed as two of the top Sci-Fi classics of this era in literature. That's how good they are. I could leave my review at that, but I'll go into a bit more detail to back up my claim.
First up is the most obvious point of his books, the technology. Both books in the Zones of Thought series thus far (I hope he writes more!) present an incredibly interesting and detailed future for mankind. There's ultradrive, and lasers, and combat armors, and all that fun stuff.
But it's not just the technology, it's the cosmology. For anyone not yet familiar, the Zones are areas of the galaxy that limit the ability to think. As you travel down deeper and toward the center of the galaxy, your IQ will drop and higher technology ceases to function. As you climb up and away, your IQ rises and new technology becomes possible. This creates universal cycles- the societies on the fringes of space watch civilizations in the "Slowness" rise and fall and grow and die in a pattern that has now been scientifically mapped, as they rise and fall themselves. This creates an incredibly interesting universe, where over the centuries whole eras of technology have been forgotten and lost and rediscovered hundreds or thousands of times. Intrigue and wonder await.
But that's just about the universe this story takes place in- the story of itself, trying not to give too much away, is about two warring groups of humans who stumble upon an incredible new world. The rewards for contacting this new world are immense, and both groups are desperate to claim the reward for themselves. The eventual bad guys of the book are smart and full of finesse, always keeping two steps ahead through real thought and not just bumbling along on established advantages. For our hero to win, he must overcome startling odds and incredibly smart enemies.
And there is a hero. Really, there are several heros, but the alpha among them is Pham Nuwen. This entire book is essentially a prequel story to A Fire Upon the Deep, focusing on Pham Nuwen's life and times. But even then, there's intrigue and wonder to be had- Pham Nuwen has disguised himself for this voyage, and you don't find out where he really is until a good way into the book.
A Deepness in the Sky is a lot of things. It's a space opera. It's a story about aliens. It's a story about intrigue and double-crosses. What it isn't is your average run-of-the-mill space story where a bunch of paper-thin stereotypes load onto a starship and claim their fame. If you're a fan of Sci-Fi at all, read some Vernor Vinge today and see that modern classics are indeed possible.
SciFi fans of the 60s and 70s June 29, 2008
Steven Cowles (Alexandria, VA United States)
Story details, synopsis is in numerous other reviews. If you grew up in the 60s and 70s and enjoyed that periods scifi, sweeping, epic stories with good and evil, heroes to cheer for....this is one of several books that brought me back to scifi after about a 20 year hiatus. Belongs with Stranger in a Strange Land, Dune, Childhoods End, Forge of God.....
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