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“Vinge is amazing. I should probably read this one again.”
Lingchih wrote this review Saturday, October 10 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Takes a bit of suspending everything you know and just flowing with the words. Goes on a little long for me. If you really like Sci-Fi, you will get on good with this.”
Mary Laura C wrote this review Tuesday, October 20 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“A human colony high in the Beyond (see below for an explanation of the Zones of Thought) had dispatched an expedition to the low Transcend, having learned of a massive 5-billion year old archive of data which had been off the Known Net for all that time. It offers the possibility of unthinkable riches for the ambitious young civilization of Straumli Realm, and an expedition of archaeologist programmers is dispatched to open the archive and discover its secrets.
Wendy B wrote this review Wednesday, July 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The expedition's precautions are insufficient, however, and their facility, known as High Lab, is compromised by a dormant super-intelligent entity similar to the Powers that develop in the Transcend, yet far more stable and able to exert influence in the Beyond. The entity, initially called the "Straumli Perversion" by the civilizations of the Beyond but later referred to as "the Blight," persuades the team to create machines and activate programs they do not understand nor can guard against. Slowly, the Blight awakens and takes over the expedition. This intelligence is able to infiltrate and control computer systems and biological beings, quickly infecting and taking over whole civilizations in the High Beyond. Hidden from the newborn Blight, two programs, copies of the minds of two expedition members, have Transcended and lurk in the facility's local network. Unable to stop the Blight, they settle instead for devising a risky scheme to activate the countermeasure against the Blight that is included in the archive.
With some understanding of what they have unleashed, a few humans escape from the research colony before the Blight regains its full capabilities and absorbs it; of the two vessels, only one successfully escapes. That vessel travels to the edge of the Slow Zone, where the Blight would have difficulty operating. They take with them some semi-living information about their enemy (later labeled Countermeasure) from the archive, though they do not know what to do with it.
They land their sleeper ship, with a cargo of children in suspended animation, on a planet with a medieval-level civilization of dog-like creatures (the Tines) who exist as small packs of individuals. Each individual consciousness is generated by the "marriage" or enlistment of several Tines, who coordinate their thoughts via high-frequency sound. A single Tine is about as smart as a clever dog; two to three can think as well as a young human child; four to six is the standard and possess human or greater intelligence and self-awareness and personalities; under normal circumstances packs that are much larger degrade into barely-coherent mobs, though a rational pack of eight is not unheard of and one such pack plays a large role. Other configurations are possible for specialized roles. Examples include long strung-out sentry lines and garrisoned slave teams.
The cargo ship carried most of the High Lab's children in "coldsleep boxes" - boxes which induce suspended animation. The boxes are rapidly failing, and so the surviving adults begin unloading them onto the hospitable near-Earth world they had landed on. However, they are quickly ambushed and fall victim to a long-lived conflict between two Tine nations who fight over the ship. The group that initially contacts the humans, the Flenserists, led by a Tine named Steel (the protégé of the charming but sinister genius Flenser, so named for his cruel research on other Tines), ambushes and kills the human adults and destroys many of the coldsleep boxes, intending to gain an advantage. The other group is led by the Woodcarver, so named for the artistic talent that first made her famous.
Flenser had developed a small but powerful kingdom that specialized in subverting and taking over neighboring countries. To escape assassination by a mob after a failed attempt to take over such a country, Flenser's component bodies had been dispersed into two or more packs, one of which is Tyrathect, whose other members had previously been part of a naive Flenserist school teacher; it is later learned that Flenser's other members had not escaped. Tyrathect makes her roundabout way back to Flenser's stronghold, traveling in the company of the packs Peregrine Wrickwrackrum and Scriber Jaqueramaphan. They observe the ambush of the humans. The pilgrim and the spy resolve to steal the only survivor they see: Johanna Olsndot, a girl about 12 years old. Because of the return of Flenser, the troops are distracted, and the two manage to escape with Johanna aboard a Flenserist boat. Unbeknownst to them, Johanna's younger brother Jefri also survived, but remains in the hands of the Flenserists. The two groups begin frantically attempting to gain their respective human's trust, and exploit them to develop cannon and other technology. The Woodcarvers begin with the assistance of an educational databank. Lord Steel's group begins developing radio and superior cannon with the help of Jefri and his communications with the outside world through the ship, as well as a well-placed spy in Woodcarver's camp. Each sibling is unaware of the other's survival and alliance with opposing groups.
The ship had been transmitting through its FTL ultrawave apparatus ever since it landed, and its message eventually reaches Relay, thanks to Ravna Bergsndot and the Old One. Ravna Bergsndot was working as the only human intern at the Vrinimi Organization, a vast, ancient, and wealthy communication and information provider (conceptualized as much like an ISP of the late 1980s or early 1990s) based in the system of Relay. Relay is so named because it is offset from the galactic plane in the Middle Beyond and so has a clear line of sight on many different and far-flung systems; it serves as a relay for a vast amount of Known Net traffic - somewhere around 2%.[1]
A benign Power called "Old One" (because it is known to be over 10 years old; Powers rarely maintain contact with the Beyond for more than a few years) makes contact, seeking information about the Blight and especially about humans in general who had released the Blight. It asks for Ravna to accompany its vessel back to the Transcend, but Ravna refuses, wary of the Power's intentions. The Vrinimi Organization supports her, even though the Old One was offering to set up an oracle for them. So instead it reconstructs a seemingly human man, Pham Nuwen, from a frozen body collected by a Slow Zone probe and stockpiled at Relay by Vrinimi Organization (along with parts from other bodies) and infuses him with some memory of his former life, to act as its remote agent. The Old One helps in the search for escapees from the High Lab, eventually finding Jefri's signal. It designs a ship, the Out of Band II, designed to travel to the bottom of the Beyond and even handle limited travel in the Slow Zone, to reach Jefri and investigate what the ship carried with it from the High Lab.
Relay and Old One fall victim to a double surprise attack by the Blight; Relay is attacked by a vast armada. The Blight is forced to engage Old One in a very personal way, and Old One steals information about the Blight, and apparently discovers its weakness. Before dying, Old One downloads as much of itself as can fit into Pham, providing him with subconscious instructions to activate Countermeasure.
During the attack, Pham and Ravna are in the company of Blueshell and Greenstalk, intelligent plants of an eons-old trading race known as Skroderiders, who use sophisticated personal vehicles ("skrodes") to enhance both their mobility and cognitive capabilities (Skroderiders have an almost complete lack of short-term memory). All four escape Relay's destruction in the Skroderiders' ship Out of Band II, which had previously been chartered and equipped to rescue the human refugees. They then follow Jefri's signal to the Tines' planet.
While en route, they narrowly escape an alliance of anti-human military fleets, the "Alliance for the Defense," which not only knows that humans are responsible for the Blight's reanimation, but also accuse them of acting as its agents. After docking at the world of Harmonious Repose for necessary repairs to the Out of Band II, the group learns that the core human civilization of Sjandra Kei has been annihilated by the Alliance. Shortly afterwards, it is discovered that Skroderiders are the Blight's true puppets; skrodes had been designed by the Blight billions of years previously to create a race of sleeper agents.
After finally arriving at Tines' world and allying with Woodcarver to defeat Steel, Pham initiates the "Countermeasure," a nanotechnological fungus-like substance/device of Transcend capabilities and design. Countermeasure drastically alters the boundaries of the zones of thought in that sector of the galaxy, causing the Slow Zone to surge and penetrate into part of the Transcend. The massive shift envelops and destroys the Blight; however, this also kills Pham and strands the other humans on the Tines' world, now in the depths of the Slow Zone. An included Known Net message estimates that this event thrusts thousands of uninvolved civilizations into an environment where much of their technology no longer functions (a situation analogous to an Earth where electricity ceases to exist), causing trillions of deaths.
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“Good sci fi. Interesting universe. I will read the other Zones of Thought book as well.”
Butch F wrote this review Thursday, May 7 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I was a Vernor Vinge fan since The Peace War. This book is his ultimate novel.”
Scott D wrote this review Sunday, April 19 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Fantastic mix of sci fi and fantasy. Wonderfully done with memorable characters. This is one to buy and read again every so often.”
Pavel wrote this review Thursday, November 13 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“The beginning of the book held great promise. A galaxy teeming with intelligent life, some of which had gone past the technological singularity and a deadly force that threatened everything. Maybe I had different expectations when I started reading it. I was thinking that it would play out on a grand scale like Asimov's Foundation trilogy.
Lije B wrote this review Tuesday, September 23 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
But the story turned out to be something else. I felt the book was too long in some places. I could guess where the story was going and was gobbling up pages impatiently to get past those points. The science is good and has some interesting concepts, but it doesn't evoke wonder like Clark's books do. The characters aren't too deep and I found myself unable to root for them.
On the whole a decent read. It just didn't fit in with my idea of a great sci-fi read.”
“One of my favorite books ever. Yes, simplistic story line, elemental characters, some could claim a near sighted view of the Internet on a galactic scale, but the emotional impact is still great and the story line compelling.. Will remain on my 'reread' list for ever.. I have a first edition and a couple of paper backs that I actually read and pass on to those who show interest.
mtrcycllvr wrote this review Thursday, August 21 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
A literary font? No. An engaging and entertaining story/tale? YES!!”
0 of 1 members found this review helpful“I tried very hard to like A Fire Upon the Deep. The reviews for it are stellar, and it did won a Hugo. Also, I am a huge fan of SF, so I felt this book would be a sure-fire hit with me. Not so.
Daniel Roy wrote this review Saturday, July 26 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
As other reviewers pointed out, this book has some great ideas. Pack sentience is very nice, and the idea of zones is intriguing. Unfortunately, all these are wrapped in very shoddy writing. To tell the truth, the writing was barely above fan sci-fi in some places.
The characterization is also, most unfortunately, pretty bad. The Tine race is filled with potential, but the Tine characters are nothing more than stereotypes : the wanderer, the wise queen, the evil lord, the evil adviser, the betrayer. Human characters are predictable to the point of being boring, and their motivations serve the plot more than any sort of coherence. As a whole, the race is strangely 'Western european', despite their uniqueness. Also, as interesting as they were, I don't think they deserved that much of a treatment.
One major source of disappointment for me, also, was the way the Galactic net was portrayed. I'm aware the novel was written in 1993, but Vinge's depiction lacks any kind of vision whatsoever. It's silly to see the whole Galaxy chattering on newsgroups and sending each other emails. Not once did it try to be something else than the 1993's Internet surimposed on a galactic scale, and it was more a gimmick than anything else.
On a whole, the story has ambitions of grandeur, but fails at articulating it. The events are always portrayed vaguely and don't have resonance. In one scene, a character learns billions have died when her homeworld was devastated, yet this event only serves as a setup for the personal drama of the characters! Most of the story happens either among 5-6 individuals on the Tine world, or within the closed confines of the ship, and neither progress at a pace that would be satisfying.
There are some great ideas in this book, but they're buried under a nonsensical plot that fails to impress. Because of this, it has neither the scope nor the emotional impact of, say, Frank Herbert's Dune or Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy.
Finishing the book was a difficult endeavour, and I will NOT pick up the prequel. Phan Newen is far from being interesting enough a character to make me pick it up. ”
