I loved this book from beginning to end and found that the spider aliens here were so much more compelling than in Children of Time. Events build toward a climax similar to A Fire Upon the Deep, with numerous groups’ plots and sub-plot converging in a complex ballet of space battles, nuclear weapons, and various individual betrayals and twists. Kirkus Reviews described it as a "chilling, spellbinding dramatization of the horrors of slavery and mind control", [11] while Publishers Weekly noted that it would "fully engage" readers' sense of wonder, and correctly predicted that it would be nominated for the Hugo Award.

Two human groups launch expeditions to the Spider world: the Qeng Ho (pronounced Chung Ho and named after the explorer Zheng He), traders who have developed a common interstellar culture for humanity; and the Emergents, a civilization that enslaves selected human minds and has only recently re-emerged from a Dark Age. The first are Qeng Ho, wandering traders, who try to keep the human civilization (light years apart) the whole. I would guess that this novel is a good pick for readers who like Cherryh's Alliance books or Corey's The Expanse series. Cu mii de ani înainte ca omenirea să descopere existența Zonelor Gânditoare, Qeng Ho, o organizație interplanetară a comercianților, a recepționat o serie de semnale ce ar indica prezența unei specii inteligente în apropierea straniei Stelei Fluctuante.I picked up A Fire Upon the Deep as a Hugo winner, with a kind of grim determination to trudge through it, come what may. This "Counter Lurk" was devised by Spider uber-genius Sherkaner Underhill, but it seemed cinematic and implausible to me. The premise is definitely fantastic, and I'm not sure I've ever read a book with such a wonderful set-up. When the Qeng Ho and the Emergents arrive, the Spiders are dormant, frozen in their deepnesses, but when the star flares to life, they are poised to enter a modern technological age in the next generation.

The book is extremely strong, but it is hard to read it in one go; it clearly benefits from a reread.

Nevertheless, like other good science fiction authors, he still develops the society in an organic, natural manner. I won't reveal the reason for Vinge's strange anthropomorphism, but it all makes perfect sense as you read on, and read on you must. Focus is a tamed virus that increases the neurological connections in its victims' brains, causing them to become very competent in one area, like linguistics, at the expense of most of their social and interpersonal skills. Still though, all in all--this book does catapult Vinge to be one of my favorite authors, and I can't wait to read the "sequel" (written before this one)--"A Fire Upon the Deep. The frame corrections were incredibly complex - and down at the very bottom of it was a little program that ran a counter.

I don't know about you, but I spend an inordinate amount of time meditating upon the far future of humanity. Vinge never falls into the all-too-common trap of becoming lost in his own world of gobly-gook highly theoretical science (While I recognize that many genre fans live for that stuff, I get very tired of science fiction books that essentially become a platform for the author to share his (really, it's usually his) ideas on futuristic technology). The OnOff star lights for about 50 years and during that time it is a normal G star (like Earth's), but then switches 'off' for 200 years or so like clockwork. In the elite group of authors of speculative fiction that truly understand the power of story and are masters of it, we must include such names as J.My favorite "sf notion" from this book is Focus, a more elaborate type of mind control with no element of hypnotism. Pham also helped create a broadcasting center where the Quen Ho send tech notes and such to the stars. cele din urmă, folosindu-se de virusul minții un virus mental care eliberează o neurotoxină ce permite controlul persoanei infectate, inducându-i acesteia obsesia unei singure specializări, "focalizând-o" pe o singură idee, emergenții obțin controlul flotei și hotărăsc să supravegheze evoluția tehnologică a păianjenilor până când dezvoltarea acestora va permite repararea flotei și a habitatelor distruse în conflict.

I can't help but wonder if the book would have been better without it, or with adding yet another viewpoint (in addition to the two groups of humans and the Spiders) throughout the book. The bad guys of the human characters are terrible and evil but evil in an intricate way which makes it seem plausible and therefore even more terrible.It involves the most memorable and vibrant of the human characters, Pham Nuwen and his time among the trading fleet, the Qeng Ho. So coming into A Deepness in the Sky I had a kind of hopeful trepidation - would it be another smash hit, or another dreadful miss? Once I understood why they were described in this way, the story made more sense, but it’s a major spoiler to say much more, and even after the truth emerged, I wasn’t really comfortable with how Vinge handled this part of the story. In retrospect, I'm furious with Vinge for his treatment of women, and I think it's one reason I found this book so triggery.