A Fire Upon The Deep - Vernor Vinge

A Fire Upon The Deep

By Vernor Vinge

  • Release Date: 2010-04-01
  • Genre: High Tech Sci-Fi
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 305 Ratings

Description

Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works.

A Hugo Award-winning Novel!

“Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin

Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in 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 this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.

Tor books by Vernor Vinge

Zones of Thought Series
A Fire Upon The Deep
A Deepness In The Sky
The Children of The Sky

Realtime/Bobble Series
The Peace War
Marooned in Realtime


Other Novels
The Witling
Tatja Grimm's World
Rainbows End


Collections
Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
True Names

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Reviews

  • Excellent!

    5
    By Dwardeng
    This is what good Science Fiction should be. Challenging, intriguing and broadly scoped, it's an amazing novel with fascinating characters- human and alien. A must read for fans of the genre.
  • A great sci-fi story

    5
    By Mrfatibe
    Make sure that when you read this, you don't let the fairly murky beginning make you put the book down. The story does a very good job of clearing itself up and explaining everything fairly well by the end. Although it did take me a second read to fully comprehend every little detail (such as the dogs using vibrating protrusions from their head and shoulders to read their packs thoughts, it's not telepathy) it was totally worth taking the journey all over again. Once you've read this, I strongly recommend taking a look at its prequel, A Deepness In the Sky. Another fantastic book that follows the main character's history with the Qeng Ho fleet, millennia before the events of this book.
  • Epic

    5
    By apptuner
    Epic, thoughtful, internally consistent space opera.
  • 100 Words or Less

    2
    By JRubino
    I loved the opening chapter … and then came the doglike telepathic symbiotic warriors? Ugh. I suppose those aliens are as good as any, but from that chapter I knew exactly where this novel was heading. Okay, maybe I didn’t know exactly, but it was enough of a disappointment for me to stop reading. I just have no patience for the “children among aliens” plot devices.
  • Banal

    1
    By Rural Rabbi
    Semi-mystical mental fog.
  • Great scifi

    5
    By arktouross
    Awesome