Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the science fiction novel...


A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
(1993 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel.)

Note: A Fire Upon the Deep a stand-alone novel. There are sequels set in the same universe, but the story here is self-contained. (In fact, A Deepness in the Sky is a distant prequel.)

One of the more interesting features of Vinge's universe is the concept of "Zones of Thought", which Vinge diagrams around the core of the Milk Way Galaxy (as if the Zones were dictated by matter density.)


(this map previously appeared as #18 in our Imaginary Geography Quiz. :)

The laws of physics vary by Zone... notably speed limitations, which also limits levels of intelligence.

We're in the Slow Zone; Light's speed is an absolute limit, and thought can only be so deep.

Below (closer to the galactic core) is the "Unthinking Depths", where everything is even slower and intelligence is impossible. Above is the "Beyond", where faster-than-light speeds are possible and superintelligence dwells. Outside that is "The Transcend", which is incomprehensible to mere humans, so there's no sense in my trying to explain it to you :)

I was hooked from the very start. It takes a special kind of author to take a very alien intelligence and make it convincing and avoid making it seem too human.

I think the blurb gives away the nature of the Tines, but I enjoyed how Vinge did a wonderful "show not tell", letting the reader figure out through hints and some confusing behaviours of these canine aliens until you figure out their true nature.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through so far. Must admit at the start, the time spent with Ravna seemed to be an annoying distraction from what was going on the Tine world (even though I was aware of the connection), but that quickly changed too and now I'm enjoying both threads equally.

And wow...even thousands of years in the future we still have the equivalent of Facebook and Twitter and though Vinge wrote this before the current US president was elected, there is also "fake news" and "alternate facts" :) I guess some things will never change, nor is it limited to the human race!

Like you Andrea, I am about 2/3 the way through and I also was hooked from the start. The prologue - WOW! Great start. When the pacing slowed down (a lot) I got worried that it was going to be a repeat of Foreigner but the story has picked up a lot in the 2nd half. The book is just jammed with cool ideas, spilling out all over the pages. I should wrap this up in the next 2 weeks, maybe sooner.

Speaking of Foreigner, it's ironic that Cherryh set out to write a sort of anthropologic Sci-Fi about human-alien relations but ended up with a mildly Sci-Fi version of Shōgun, whereas Vinge set out to write a space opera and outdid Cherryh at her own game.

Andrea wrote: "I think the blurb gives away the nature of the Tines, but I enjoyed how Vinge did a wonderful "show not tell", letting the reader figure out through hints and some confusing behaviours of these canine aliens until you figure out their true nature...."

The Tines are definitely one of the hilites of the novel. An imaginative approach to intelligence for sure. (I listed them 2nd in our fascinating aliens topic a few years ago.) The way they create a larger (and more knowledgeable) intelligence is a unique concept.

On re-reading, though, I do notice that the collective entities have a more human-like behavior and thought process than I had remembered.

The Tines were interesting, the "zones of thought" concept is absurd but sets up entertaining scenarios, and the best part of the book is probably the Usenet parody.

I hated the protagonist, though. Something (his Randian arrogance, maybe?) was very repellent to me, and is part of the reason why I still haven't read A Deepness in the Sky yet.

Overall: ★★★★☆

Brendan wrote: "(his Randian arrogance, maybe?)..."

Randy is arrogant? ;)

edit: added ;)

Randian as in Ayn Rand, not Randy.

Brendan wrote: "Randian as in Ayn Rand, not Randy."

Yeah, sorry, I was going for humor there.

I thought you might but I wanted to clear it up in case you weren't. Need a winky face in there for joking posts.

Please don't hold off on A Deepness in the Sky for that reason - it is only tangentially related - and those aliens are REALLY alien! It's the better of the two I think.

What a great reading experience! I loved the space opera aspects and the plotting. The aliens felt really genuinely alien. The "Zones of Thought" idea, as Brandon says, is kind of wacky, but I'll take it if it sets up a good story.

The usenet parody is kind of predictive and kind of dated.

G33z3r wrote: "Randy is arrogant?"

Absolutely (edited to add winky face) ;)

Brendan wrote: "The Tines were interesting, the "zones of thought" concept is absurd but sets up entertaining scenarios, and the best part of the book is probably the Usenet parody.

I hated the protagonist, thoug..."

I'll probably end up at the same 4 star rating. The Zones of Thought are ludicrous but I enjoyed the idea just the same, kind of like The Force I guess. Hmmm, are mitochloridians involved?

Pham's not my favorite. Neither is Ravna. I kind of like the dogs/Tines better than the people in this book. The kids were OK. I was sort of pulling for Amdijeffri to hit Steele with water balloons at some point.

This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for years. Luckily, the group read has pushed it to the to of my TBR list! Can't wait to get into this one.

It's interesting that two people referred to a "parody of UseNet", because I don't think Vinge thought he was parodying UseNet. He was just thinking of an intergalactic news service, and at the time UseNet was the main network for newsgroup dissemination and discussion. Maybe a bit un-visionary to assume it would still be text based.

I did notice he cannily never mentioned specific bandwidth figures on Relay. Everything, including complaints by users about Powers hogging everything, was based on percentages. So at least he avoided his "640k is all the memory anyone will every need" moment :)

Brendan wrote: "The Tines were interesting,..."

Vinge gives considerable thought to the distributed intelligence / pack world. I liked the Tine art gallery featuring "multiptychs" that viewed a scene from the pint of view of each member of the pack. Clever touch.

And of course there's the idea of the pack "soul", what makes it the same pack even as its members change, a sort of Ship of Theseus dilemma.

OTOH, it took the Tines longer than I would have expected to speculate on Johanna as a singleton.

Brendan wrote: " the "zones of thought" concept is absurd but sets up entertaining scenarios..."

While it's clearly absurd as presented here within a single Galaxy, there are cosmological theories that suggest some fundamental constants can vary. Dirac thought C might have changed as the universe aged. (More modern speculation is on changes in the fine-structure constant.) One can see how a small variation in C would increase or decrease the speed of travel as well as the limit of possible intelligence. I think Vinge has just collapsed Dirac's idea into a single galaxy, because it makes an interesting universe (no more absurd than any space opera that allows FTL travel or communication.)

Finished it! Liked it a lot and gave it 4 starts even though it had some pacing problems. So many fun ideas jammed into one book.

I struggled a bit at first but once I passed the 1/3 mark it was awesome. Probably my favorite pick of the group reads so far.

The aliens are amazing - I love the Tines! Well, the cuteness factor plays a role but the characterization of Pilgrim, Steel etc was excellent. I also found the Riders to be endearing. Great worldbuilding and great aliens.

I do agree the human POV is not as good as the aliens's. Pham and Ravna annoyed me, but at least the kids's were fine.

Definitely will continue to the next book.

And the Net of Million Lies thing just cracked me up.

I thought the Zones were kind of a ridiculous concept, but then I read something that suggested that the Zones were not natural but "created" and that kind of twisted some things around for me. Like, what if the Zones were created by the Powers long ago? Wow. It's like in Animal House, when Tom Hulse gets stoned with Kiefer Sutherland's dad...

"OK, so that means that our whole solar system could be like one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being (giggle). This is nuts! That means that one tiny atom in my fingernail could be... "

I was actually under the impression that it is both created but could still be changed by other factors, just like our own climate.

On the finger nail analogy, it reminds me of the Men in Black ending scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTOBx...

I missed that bit, helps with accepting with what is otherwise a ridiculous premise. Reminded me of a discussion we had about Pern (fantasy or SF) because while McCaffrey intended the series to be SF and came up with SF based explanations of the dragons, because the science was a little bit hand-waving (natural teleportation), many still considered it fantasy. I felt that applied here too, in that the science was so silly, that just because it had spaceships it didn't automatically mean science fiction any more than dragons automatically meant fantasy.

But that's a whole other can of worms. No matter how you categorize this book, it was a fun read and that's all I really care about.