Take a photo of a barcode or cover
havespacesuitwilltravel 's review for:
A Fire Upon the Deep
by Vernor Vinge
What if your puny space civilization were next door neighbors to an ancient alien race that had technology beyond your wildest dreams? What if you could trade for that technology or steal it? What if it was so advanced you could be endangering your entire species without even knowing?
This is what makes Vernor Vinge’s zones of thought universe so interesting. Basically the galaxy has different “zones” where technology works differently. There’s a zone where nothing works at all, a middle zone where there are spaceships and whatnot but take decades to get anywhere, and there is the “beyond” where super technology abounds and thousands of civilizations interact.
The basic plot is that humans accidentally create a near omnipotent monster that begins destroying the beyond, and the only hope to defeat it is on a crashed ship on a medieval planet with a very interesting alien species.
Honestly the setting wasn’t really my cup of tea. The technology is so advanced it was hard to picture and much of it is sort of vague. However, it is a fascinating and unique idea and is definitely someone’s cup of tea.
The highlight for me were the aliens. I don’t want to give any spoilers about them because there are some truly fascinating species in this that I loved discovering.
This is a long book with an epic scope. In the course of the book billions if not trillions of people die. If you are into sci fi on a massive scale with a unique world and lore, you’ll love this. If you prefer a more grounded and recognizable universe you probably won’t be into it. That being said Vinge is a talented writer with interesting ideas and definitely deserved the Hugo award for this.
This is what makes Vernor Vinge’s zones of thought universe so interesting. Basically the galaxy has different “zones” where technology works differently. There’s a zone where nothing works at all, a middle zone where there are spaceships and whatnot but take decades to get anywhere, and there is the “beyond” where super technology abounds and thousands of civilizations interact.
The basic plot is that humans accidentally create a near omnipotent monster that begins destroying the beyond, and the only hope to defeat it is on a crashed ship on a medieval planet with a very interesting alien species.
Honestly the setting wasn’t really my cup of tea. The technology is so advanced it was hard to picture and much of it is sort of vague. However, it is a fascinating and unique idea and is definitely someone’s cup of tea.
The highlight for me were the aliens. I don’t want to give any spoilers about them because there are some truly fascinating species in this that I loved discovering.
This is a long book with an epic scope. In the course of the book billions if not trillions of people die. If you are into sci fi on a massive scale with a unique world and lore, you’ll love this. If you prefer a more grounded and recognizable universe you probably won’t be into it. That being said Vinge is a talented writer with interesting ideas and definitely deserved the Hugo award for this.