bedwinnjamin 's review for:

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

4.25

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

---

What an interesting take on science fiction. Just flat out adding one layer to the world and saying "This is how the world works in this book". The Zones of Thought are layers of the galaxy that have different speeds of light, or something to that extent. You can't make super natural AI systems when your computers can never be stronger than the basics. The story takes place in this universe and revolves around two plots. One where humans have crashed on a alien world, and secondly where people in space are trying to stop an evil AI from taking over the known universe. I think these stories could have been separate books, or divided a bit cleaner. The ideas were good and the story was interesting, but it had its quirks. It felt old school science fiction at times.