geonuc's profile picture

geonuc 's review for:

A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
3.0

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Some of the story-lines and aspects of the universe are great, even brilliant. The Tine's pack persona concept and execution is wonderfully creative. Less so were the Riders - I never got a good sense of who they were. The concept of the Transcend, Beyond and Slow Zone is similarly brilliant.

But the books suffers from being a bit tedious and drawn out. And well into the book, I was getting quite annoyed by the lack of explanations for the various regions (Transcend, Beyond, Slow) as well as what exactly the Powers were (I still don't have a good idea of the Powers). All that could have been made clearer much earlier so you could better grasp what and the characters were doing, and why.