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4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence
It took me a long time to pick this up after reading Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep," which I didn't like very much--and even longer to finish it, as it's nearly 800 pages long. I think I had to check it out of the library three separate times. But all that said, I really liked it!
I feel like it's rare for me these days to enjoy a SF/F novel that's not character- or relationship-driven, but this one managed to hit a sweet spot. The characterization is fine, and certainly not as wooden as other hard SF writers I'm familiar with, like Arthur C. Clarke. Sherkaner Underhill, the lead Spider protagonist, is probably the best-drawn character, and Tomas Nau is definitely one of the most twisted villains I've come across. Pham, Ezr, Qiwi, and other main characters are fine.
But Vinge manages to spin out his core hard-SF concepts in really thought-provoking ways. A few selected examples:
- The history of technology portrayed in the book is super interesting, even if you "cheat" by bringing in external knowledge of how this universe works from reading AFUTD. The Dawn Age (our time) is followed by the Age of Failed Dreams, when humanity discovers that technological dreams such as artificial intelligence, FTL travel, and immortality are simply not achievable. Thus, the tech of the universe is a very advanced but basically recognizable version of our own world. This is a really different approach than much SF takes and it leads VV to some interesting places.
- I'd give as an example the concept of Focus. As a brief fairly spoiler-free recap, Focus is sort of a dark version of Dune's mentats--humans whose brains are transformed to make them much more capable at some specific task (piloting, translation, art), but through a process that more or less destroys their essential humanity and makes them incapable of living normal lives; basically a form of enslavement. This idea struck me as much more believable than the Dune mentats, who are just people who are really good at calculating stuff. (Come to think of it, it's much more closely related to Dune's guild navigators.)
- The on-watch/off-watch shifts of coldsleep induce some really interesting relationship dynamics, which could have been drawn out even better if VV focused more on writing relationships. There are characters who fall in love with someone younger who, due to the shift schedule, ends up being much older than them.
- The society of the Spiders was really interesting to me, somehow much more so than the dog-society in AFUTD. The regular hibernation of their star drives a lot of the structure of their culture, similar to the recurrence of "fifth seasons" in Jemisin's Broken Earth series. I also thought that Vinge handled the first contact between the Spiders and humans really deftly, showing how visual and physical revulsion are forces that we can, and probably should, try to overcome in building relationships with other sentient beings. I can well imagine that first contact with a real alien species, where we receive transmissions far in advance of physical contact, could go similarly to what is depicted in this book.
In addition to the characters/relationships not being a strong point, I also thought that certain plot points were resolved too quickly or neatly, specifically relating to people picking up on deceptions faster than I think they would have. And I do think the book could have been edited down to a more manageable length without losing critical plot. But I do think I will continue to think about this book well after putting it down.
I feel like it's rare for me these days to enjoy a SF/F novel that's not character- or relationship-driven, but this one managed to hit a sweet spot. The characterization is fine, and certainly not as wooden as other hard SF writers I'm familiar with, like Arthur C. Clarke. Sherkaner Underhill, the lead Spider protagonist, is probably the best-drawn character, and Tomas Nau is definitely one of the most twisted villains I've come across. Pham, Ezr, Qiwi, and other main characters are fine.
But Vinge manages to spin out his core hard-SF concepts in really thought-provoking ways. A few selected examples:
- The history of technology portrayed in the book is super interesting, even if you "cheat" by bringing in external knowledge of how this universe works from reading AFUTD. The Dawn Age (our time) is followed by the Age of Failed Dreams, when humanity discovers that technological dreams such as artificial intelligence, FTL travel, and immortality are simply not achievable. Thus, the tech of the universe is a very advanced but basically recognizable version of our own world. This is a really different approach than much SF takes and it leads VV to some interesting places.
- I'd give as an example the concept of Focus. As a brief fairly spoiler-free recap, Focus is sort of a dark version of Dune's mentats--humans whose brains are transformed to make them much more capable at some specific task (piloting, translation, art), but through a process that more or less destroys their essential humanity and makes them incapable of living normal lives; basically a form of enslavement. This idea struck me as much more believable than the Dune mentats, who are just people who are really good at calculating stuff. (Come to think of it, it's much more closely related to Dune's guild navigators.)
- The on-watch/off-watch shifts of coldsleep induce some really interesting relationship dynamics, which could have been drawn out even better if VV focused more on writing relationships. There are characters who fall in love with someone younger who, due to the shift schedule, ends up being much older than them.
- The society of the Spiders was really interesting to me, somehow much more so than the dog-society in AFUTD. The regular hibernation of their star drives a lot of the structure of their culture, similar to the recurrence of "fifth seasons" in Jemisin's Broken Earth series. I also thought that Vinge handled the first contact between the Spiders and humans really deftly, showing how visual and physical revulsion are forces that we can, and probably should, try to overcome in building relationships with other sentient beings. I can well imagine that first contact with a real alien species, where we receive transmissions far in advance of physical contact, could go similarly to what is depicted in this book.
In addition to the characters/relationships not being a strong point, I also thought that certain plot points were resolved too quickly or neatly, specifically relating to people picking up on deceptions faster than I think they would have. And I do think the book could have been edited down to a more manageable length without losing critical plot. But I do think I will continue to think about this book well after putting it down.
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Epic.
adventurous
dark
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Vinge's singular imagination knows no bounds, and his ideas are so big, they reverberate off the page for days afterward, leaving your mind to run through them again and again, with ever more insight and wonder. There's only one thing that keeps me from recommending it to everyone I know -- and it's not necessarily a shortcoming: so much of this universe and this future civilization is founded on technical ideas that not everyone will be able to follow, which is too bad, because everyone should read this book.
A little more ornate than Fire Upon the Deep. Not as satisfying in its structure, but almost grander in scope. Three povs - emergents, the Qeng Ho, and the Spiders (aliens living on the on-off planet). Politics, war, power converge on the encounter between these three povs. Emergents enslave the qeng ho via "focus" - a neurovirus that enslaves them for heightened intellectual work.
Ending:
Anne Renault - a focus - is freed by Fan ??.
One of the spiders who turns upwards towards the deepness in the sky, while all others focus on the deepness of the earth, figures out how to take control of emergent tech as the invaders plan out a Friedmanesque attempt to use catastrophe to gain control over the spider species. He grounds the Invisible Hand, a huge warship. The wreckage becomes basis for new tech understanding and development.
My understanding is partial in all of this. The names, details were so ornate I found it hard to follow. Requires a second reading to take in the full scope.
Ending:
Anne Renault - a focus - is freed by Fan ??.
One of the spiders who turns upwards towards the deepness in the sky, while all others focus on the deepness of the earth, figures out how to take control of emergent tech as the invaders plan out a Friedmanesque attempt to use catastrophe to gain control over the spider species. He grounds the Invisible Hand, a huge warship. The wreckage becomes basis for new tech understanding and development.
My understanding is partial in all of this. The names, details were so ornate I found it hard to follow. Requires a second reading to take in the full scope.
Another top notch science fiction classic from Vernor Vinge. This book has a deep plot with a few things pulled from A Fire Upon the Deep, but it doesn't make use of the Zones of Thought - segmented galaxy where different zones have different technological capability and the laws of physics change - mechanism from the first novel. The Qeng Ho and Pham Nuwen feature, fighting against the Emergents, a group of humans from a space-faring planet that has just recovered from planetary disaster that nearly wiped out their civilisation. The action takes place around planet Arachna where a rising technological race of spider-like creatures live near a sun that inexplicably goes dark periodically. Humans are about to make first contact. There are so many things going on that the author needed 760 pages to tell the story, but don't let that deter you from reading. The book is both action-packed and thoughtful. The characters and plots are easy and worthwhile to follow.
The Spiders are memorable and unique, like all of Vinge's aliens. I especially liked the excitable genius inventor, Sherkaner Underhill.
"Focus" is a terrifying technology that allows the Emergents to use people like computers. It's a fascinating and clever form of slavery that the Emergent's society is completely dependent on.
The Spiders are memorable and unique, like all of Vinge's aliens. I especially liked the excitable genius inventor, Sherkaner Underhill.
"Focus" is a terrifying technology that allows the Emergents to use people like computers. It's a fascinating and clever form of slavery that the Emergent's society is completely dependent on.
Excellent, classic sci-fi! The worldbuilding is great, the detail in the space environment is rich without turning into a slog. So often in sci-fi alien races are just humans with forehead lumps tacked on, but Vinge takes his space spiders seriously and I really appreciated it. I also loved how seriously he takes mind control and its implications. The individual characters are well-developed. It's not easy to keep a page turner going for 700+ pages, but I couldn't put this space epic down. And the ending was so satisfying! Everyone gets just what they had coming.
Set in the same universe as "a fire upon the deep" but very much it's own story.
Following a group of Queng Ho, with our old friend Oham Nywen on an expedition to an anormaly, a star that turns on and off every 200 years, which might be the remnant of another space faring race.
At the star they encounter another fraction of humankind the Emergence, a totalitarian culture that runs human slaves by mind control, after a brief war and a cruel deception, the remaining Queng Ho are (literally) forced to work with the emergence, to survive at the stange star, awaiting that the culture on the one planet, which consist of intelligent spiders, reaches a technological state where they can support them in building a new fleet.
The world building is amazing and the structure of the story told from both the spiders and the human side keep the story flowing, it's space opera on a generation spanning scale and at the same time a very personal tale of a few characters.
Vinge manages to cramp more ideas and concepts into one story, than many other writers do in a whole series of books.