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seanquistador 's review for:
A Fire Upon the Deep
by Vernor Vinge
A Fire Upon the Deep rocks back and forth between complacency and sudden, shocking obliteration. The Blight is released, prompting a hurried, near-failed escape with the undefined countermeasure that can defeat it. Against all odds, safety is achieved, followed immediately by the near destruction of a family and the ship's payload by telepathic, medieval dog(gish thing)s. Nearer the center of the Blight's activity, its behavior is disregarded as something that will pass, as it has many times before, until it strikes, violently and unexpectedly.
This pattern of tension and relaxation continues for two thirds of the book until settling into a permanent state of high anxiety.
What makes the story of particular interest are the many (novel-to-me) ideas present in the story, and likely what earned it the Hugo award in 1993. The Regions of Thought are the most prevalent, in which different levels of technology are allowed to function. From the High Beyond, far from the core of the galaxy, where automation and higher functions make faster-than-light (FTL) travel possible, to the Low Beyond, where it begins to break down, into The Slowness (from which humanity escaped hundreds of thousands, or millions, of years before), where it does not function at all, and down into The Unthinking Depths--a region unexplored in this book.
From these regions of thought a variety of races emerge and thrive. Some live for millions of years in the Beyond, while others move on to the Transcend, beyond the Beyond, and become new lifeforms altogether (think along the lines of extrapolated intelligence thought to occur after Ray Kurzweil's Singularity or the invention of fully autonomous Artificial Intelligence). Those that exist in the beyond become intelligent beyond the scope of human understanding, sometimes benign and sometimes hostile, but usually leaving contact before 10 years or so, having evolved beyond contact or interest. The Blight is believed to be one such evil Power that will eventually pass--this proves terrifyingly incorrect.
The telepath dogs are also fascinating, once one gets past your understanding of dogs and disdain for medieval technology compared to space-faring civilizations. The Tines, as they are named, possess extraordinary potential through natural selection and the makeup of their packs. Tines are not able to function on an intelligent level individually, but when pack members are selected for specific traits can be highly intellectual and specialized, reminiscent of Frank Herbert's Mentats and Bene Gesserit sisterhood.
Vinge also showed some foresight for 1993, early in the public internet era, and a distressing trend--the Net of The Beyond, through which creatures communicate, share ideas, and receive information, is just as divisive, obnoxious, and overstuffed as the internet of today. In the Beyond, as today, the Net serves as a refuge for seemingly highly influential radicals and a focal point for intolerance and blame with a familiar propensity for twisting events to shape a particular narrative—this has gone on for the extent of written human history, so while it’s no surprise here, it makes sense that it continues, though it’s a disappointing trend.
Like many good books, the threads of the story draw ever tighter as the reader progresses, but without this knowledge some may not persist far enough to make that discovery. Of the two main elements of the story, very early on one seems to resolve itself and the other turns to a disappointing anticlimax--but that's a false start.
Vinge manages crushingly bad fortune and dramatic irony extremely well; one wonders if the book prescribes inevitable doom for the "good guys" and triumph for the "bad guys". A sliver of hope prevails, however, that a trick up someone's sleeve may save them all or a crucial insight might defeat deception, and it's to these a reader clings and continues on, all while dreading yet another sour turn of events because the enemies are just too clever, the odds too high, and the nature of the universe too great an obstacle.
Without specifying how or why, for fear of spoiling it, it's worthwhile to see the book through to its conclusion to a gratifying end.
Issues with the book include the eventual resolution and characterization, as identified by Katie's review.
The epilogue has value for the same reasons as the final chapters of The Return of the King. After Frodo has thrown the ring into the fire, the story is essentially over. There's a few quibbling points to clarify, but the epilogue is essentially just that, letting everyone know how the protagonists are doing and where they're expected to get to from there. There remain unanswered questions, but they are so far removed that it's supposed they are essentially irrelevant for thousands of years--of course, in a universe that measures time in billions of years, that may seem all too soon.
This pattern of tension and relaxation continues for two thirds of the book until settling into a permanent state of high anxiety.
What makes the story of particular interest are the many (novel-to-me) ideas present in the story, and likely what earned it the Hugo award in 1993. The Regions of Thought are the most prevalent, in which different levels of technology are allowed to function. From the High Beyond, far from the core of the galaxy, where automation and higher functions make faster-than-light (FTL) travel possible, to the Low Beyond, where it begins to break down, into The Slowness (from which humanity escaped hundreds of thousands, or millions, of years before), where it does not function at all, and down into The Unthinking Depths--a region unexplored in this book.
From these regions of thought a variety of races emerge and thrive. Some live for millions of years in the Beyond, while others move on to the Transcend, beyond the Beyond, and become new lifeforms altogether (think along the lines of extrapolated intelligence thought to occur after Ray Kurzweil's Singularity or the invention of fully autonomous Artificial Intelligence). Those that exist in the beyond become intelligent beyond the scope of human understanding, sometimes benign and sometimes hostile, but usually leaving contact before 10 years or so, having evolved beyond contact or interest. The Blight is believed to be one such evil Power that will eventually pass--this proves terrifyingly incorrect.
The telepath dogs are also fascinating, once one gets past your understanding of dogs and disdain for medieval technology compared to space-faring civilizations. The Tines, as they are named, possess extraordinary potential through natural selection and the makeup of their packs. Tines are not able to function on an intelligent level individually, but when pack members are selected for specific traits can be highly intellectual and specialized, reminiscent of Frank Herbert's Mentats and Bene Gesserit sisterhood.
Vinge also showed some foresight for 1993, early in the public internet era, and a distressing trend--the Net of The Beyond, through which creatures communicate, share ideas, and receive information, is just as divisive, obnoxious, and overstuffed as the internet of today. In the Beyond, as today, the Net serves as a refuge for seemingly highly influential radicals and a focal point for intolerance and blame with a familiar propensity for twisting events to shape a particular narrative—this has gone on for the extent of written human history, so while it’s no surprise here, it makes sense that it continues, though it’s a disappointing trend.
Like many good books, the threads of the story draw ever tighter as the reader progresses, but without this knowledge some may not persist far enough to make that discovery. Of the two main elements of the story, very early on one seems to resolve itself and the other turns to a disappointing anticlimax--but that's a false start.
Vinge manages crushingly bad fortune and dramatic irony extremely well; one wonders if the book prescribes inevitable doom for the "good guys" and triumph for the "bad guys". A sliver of hope prevails, however, that a trick up someone's sleeve may save them all or a crucial insight might defeat deception, and it's to these a reader clings and continues on, all while dreading yet another sour turn of events because the enemies are just too clever, the odds too high, and the nature of the universe too great an obstacle.
Without specifying how or why, for fear of spoiling it, it's worthwhile to see the book through to its conclusion to a gratifying end.
Issues with the book include the eventual resolution and characterization, as identified by Katie's review.
The human characters are especially underdeveloped (I'm looking at you, Ravna and Pham) and this is especially damaging to the novel since quite a bit of its emotional heft (including the novel's climax) hinges on them.
...the ending is rather abrupt and relies really heavily on deus ex machina intervention.
The epilogue has value for the same reasons as the final chapters of The Return of the King. After Frodo has thrown the ring into the fire, the story is essentially over. There's a few quibbling points to clarify, but the epilogue is essentially just that, letting everyone know how the protagonists are doing and where they're expected to get to from there. There remain unanswered questions, but they are so far removed that it's supposed they are essentially irrelevant for thousands of years--of course, in a universe that measures time in billions of years, that may seem all too soon.