Subject: Review: A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

From: "Aaron M. Renn" <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Jul 1999 14:36:42 -0400

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
		Review Copyright (c) 1999 Aaron M. Renn

Conclusion:  Highly Recommended

A Deepness in the Sky is billed as a prequel to Vinge's 1992 award winning
A Fire Upon the Deep.  But anyone who reads it just wanting to explore
more of the wonderful universe Vinge created in that earlier work will be
very disappointed.  Deepness is connected to Fire by only the most tenuous
of threads, that being the reminisces of Pham Nuwen about his life with
the Qeng Ho.

Deepness is different from Fire in all the ways I thought Fire was great.
Where Fire deals with plots and mysteries extending over billions of
years, Deepness covers a much shorter span of time.  Where Fire spans a
vast sweep of thousands of light years, Deepness takes place almost
exclusively in one solar system and, in what will surely infuriate some,
where Fire took place against the lush backdrop of the Zones of Thought
universe, Deepness does not.  While technically in the same milieu as
Fire, the entire story takes place in the Slow Zone and nothing of the
true order of affairs is known to the characters.

With much of the best of Fire stripped away, I should have been very
unhappy with Deepness.  Instead I liked it more, finding it superior to
Fire in almost every way.  The plot was better.  The characters were far
better.  Heck, there were even a few people I liked in there.  The evil is
more comprehensible.  The ending vastly more satisfactory.  I suspect
because it takes place in the Slowness, Vinge had mercy on us and actually
allows us to see and understand the technology used in the story.  Many of
the obnoxious plot weaknesses of Fire are absent in Deepness, though a few
do slip in.

As I said earlier, the plot draws on Pham Nuwen's tales of the Qeng Ho in
Fire.  On the edge of human space there is an anomalous star called OnOff,
so named because at regular intervals it switches between being a brown
dwarf and a star much like our own sun.  When a signal from an intelligent
alien race is detected coming from there, a Queg Ho trading fleet moves in
to investigate.  However, they were not the only ones who heard the
signal.  A group of humans called the Emergents is also on the way to
OnOff.  The Queg Ho have a bad feeling about these Emergents, and their
fears prove to be justified.  Soon after their arrival at OnOff, the two
fleets blow each other to bits leaving the Emergents in control of what's
left.  With no functioning starships left, the remains of the two fleets
bide their time in orbit waiting for the alien Spiders to reach a level of
technology high enough to build new ramscoop ships.

I won't give more detail about what happens, but there are plots and
counterplots among the Queg Ho and Emergents, cool technology, and Vinge's
trademark interesting aliens to make this a real page turner.  As with
Fire, some things are left unexplained or only hinted at, which should
keep the newsgroups buzzings with speculation for years to come.  I
particularly liked the ending.  I was groaning with dispair at first,
thinking Vinge was setting me up for a sequel, then he wrapped it all up
in a way that made any sequel moot, and tied up some loose ends from Fire
at the same time.  (This is the one place in the book where it really
helps to have read Fire first).

A Deepness in the Sky is the best book I have read this year and it will
be a definite Hugo contender.  I only fail to call it a masterpiece
because of a few mistakes repeated from Fire.  For example, the head
honchos of the bad guys are, like Flenser and Steel, generic Evil Overlord
types, though exceptionally competent ones.  They are cunning,
manipulative, suspicious of everything and everyone, and evil incarnate.
Also, the alien Spiders, like the Tines, behave almost exactly like human
beings when not involved in something directly related to their unique
physiology.  At least in Deepness he comes up with a real explanation for
this, though it takes until well into the second half of the book to learn
what it is, leaving the reader stuck believing the worst for most of it.
There are some more annoying kids to put with in there too.  Unlike in
Fire, however, these problems don't seriously compromise the work.

This one is a must read for all science fiction fans and comes with my
highest recommendation.

%A Vinge, Vernor
%T A Deepness in the Sky
%I Tor
%D 1999-03
%G ISBN 0-312-84683-0
%P 607 pp.
%O hardcover, US$27.95 C$38.95

-- 
Aaron M. Renn ([email-masked]) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/