Vernor VingeReviews

Ordinarily, I am a strong proponent of reading fiction series in publication order, even when that sequence differs from the narrative chronology of the books. Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought series is a rare exception to the rule. I did read it in publication order, but the second book is a distant prequel to the first, and the third is a very near sequel to the first. I think the best reading order would perhaps be neither publication nor chronology, but to read the third book after the first, and save the second for last. (I really think A Deepness in the Sky is the best of the three and could be fully appreciated as a standalone novel.)

Although this third book The Children of the Sky is nearly as long and complex as either of the others, it doesn't have their level of innovation in character or world vision, largely carrying forth some key cast and the setting of A Fire Upon the Deep. As a result, and especially in contrast to A Deepness in the Sky, it often feels like a mere epilogue to Fire. The ending of Children leaves many of its largest dilemmas and conflicts unresolved, and it pretty clearly implies that Vinge was hoping to eventually write at least one more book to further the story. So this third and sadly final book of Zones of Thought is vexed by some of the weaknesses typical of the second book of a trilogy.

I had planned to defer reading The Children of the Sky for a little longer after reading the second book, but I was prompted to pick it up sooner due to the recent death of its author. My memories of A Fire Upon the Deep were fuzzier than I would have liked, but Vinge was very artful with providing the right amount of indirect exposition so that I felt like I was on top of the story anyhow. I did enjoy the book, even though it was slighter than the other two: perhaps 50% of the readerly illumination for 70% of the reading effort, as compared to one of the others. Vinge kept me caring about his characters and he did surprise me with a couple of major plot twists. I don't want to pan a book that was in many ways admirable, but it was definitely the least of its series.

In the closing pages of the book, Vinge incidentally plays the trick that had so impressed Samuel Delany in Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The presumptively "white" humans of the story with their Nordic-sounding names all turn out to be phenotypically black.

Children of the Sky (2011), the third volume of Vernor Vinge’s Zones of Thought series, is a direct sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep (1992). Set a couple of years after the Battle on Starship Hill, the story moves back and forth between human characters and the Tines, telepathic dog-like pack animals whose intelligence depends on the number and proximity of pack members. Each pack seems to have a specialty—Tycoon is an entrepreneur, Pilgrim is a scout, and Vendacious is a perfectly named villain.
The world-building is complex, original, and internally consistent. I think it must have inspired writers such as Adrian Tchaikovsky, Peter F. Hamilton, and Alistair Reynolds. The story is not so much a space opera as a planetary adventure set at the edge of the slow zone where changes in the laws of physics degrade artificial intelligence. It is a tribute to Vinge’s skill as a storyteller that we care about several of these packs as much as we do the several human characters with whom they interact.
Caveat: Vinge is not a writer who spoon-feeds the exposition, and readers are well-advised to reacquaint themselves with the slow-zone universe before diving in.½

Oooh boy.
I went into this one with a lot of expectations. It came highly recommended by one of my favorite booktubers and it sat in my to-read shortlist for a few months, during which I probably built it up in my head.
First of all, Vernor Vinge is certainly an accomplished sci-fi author, and he deserves all the praise bestowed upon him by the sci-fi community. I heard that he passed away 3 days ago. RIP.
The author exhibits incredible capabilities when it comes to worldbuilding, describing the fascinating inner workings of alien societies and physiology, coming up with concepts and rules of the world, and all the other things that make or break a good hard sci-fi novel.
There are concepts in this book that I've never come across anywhere else in my long journey through the genre, like the best-ever description of the hive mind, the idea of the Zones that regulate the natural laws in the Galaxy, etc.
However, despite all these positives, I didn't enjoy the read all that much. It is usually a given that the sci-fi novel doesn't have to feature high-quality prose or character-driven stories, but even with that in mind, this book was hard to read. I didn't relate to any of the characters and didn't care about them because none of them felt real. The Tine creatures were written especially cartoonishly. You have your "evil villain", "loyal brave friend", "adventurous hero" and "wise mentor".
The author likes using ellipses a lot, to the point that it gets annoying. Another thing I didn't like was one-word sentences to describe actions or emotions, like, instead of saying "She laughed", it's "Laughter."; "It confused him" - "Confusion."
There is a lot of repetition. For instance, we read how character A learns about X. Then character A tells character B about X. And we read the full description of X again. Then we are in character B's perspective and we read something like, "B thought about the conversation with A. A told him that X works in this and that way..." and there is another full description of X.
In short, the story is grand and epic and all, but the writing is not on a level to support such a great ambitious vision. I won't be reading the sequel.

Not Vinge's best work, but a fun read with a compelling protagonist.

I loved the first 4 or 500 pages of this book, especially the big ideas: zones of thought, transcendence, FTL travel, AI, etc. Unlike some, I was somewhat disappointed in the conclusion. Part of it was that the whole dog race thing just didn't work for me, not sure why. I also had a hard time rooting for Jefri. I loved the skroderiders.

I'm still wanting to read the sequel because the book felt very unfinished to me, as I suppose it was meant to do. However, next on the pile is the conclusion to the Hyperion series, which is in my view a better written series.

Good pulpy hard sci-fi.

This is a very different book from [b:A Fire Upon the Deep|77711|A Fire Upon the Deep|Vernor Vinge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316727696s/77711.jpg|1253374]. The first book was a galaxy-spanning, epic space opera with the Best Aliens Ever. This one is about political intrigue amongst and between two different species and is confined to a single planet. As in the first, though, the characters, both humans and Tines, are fully realized and interesting. I find myself already missing them and the unfolding story, which for me is a pretty good sign I will re-read the book at some point. (If that happens, I'll be raising my rating to 5 stars.) There is also an implicit promise for yet another book set on Tines' World.

I would give this books four stars based on the ideas upon which it is based. But it really gets 3 stars because I found the plot less than engrossing and the main characters largely unsympathetic. This does not measure up to [b:A Fire Upon the Deep|77711|A Fire Upon The Deep (Zones of Thought)|Vernor Vinge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170900383s/77711.jpg|1253374] or [b:A Deepness in the Sky|226004|A Deepness in the Sky|Vernor Vinge|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1217218691s/226004.jpg|1270006].

I have now read/listened to this book three or four times. It actually gets better with each re-reading, as hints and details I previously missed become clear.
[Audiobook note: narrator is meh.]

I am reading Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought novels in publication order. This second book is set earlier than the first. It does not engage the "Zonological" ideas introduced in A Fire Upon the Deep. It is structured very similarly however, with two parallel and converging narratives, one of which is cutting-edge space drama featuring (the original, in this case) Pham Nuwen, and the other of which takes place in a radically non-human planet-bound society.

The space story involves grappling between two human spacefaring societies. The Qeng Ho are Nuwen's mature interstellar mercantile culture, while the Emergents are the totalitarian development of a more local society whose hypostasized Emergency has resulted in an innovative form of enslavement. Simultaneous missions to contact the nascently industrializing aliens of Arachna erupt into catastrophic conflict, leaving the two competitors in a lopsided symbiosis full of intrigue.

The business on the world of Arachna is translated for the reader using conventions later rationalized as the work of the humans surveilling the planet from space. Although the denizens are quasi-arthropod "Spiders," they are characterized with Hobbitsy sorts of English names and traits, such as Sherkaner Underhill and Victory Smith. Since their technological level and social challenges better match our own, these creatures actually come off as more "human" than the either of the human cultures, at least during the first three-quarters of the book before the first in-person meetings between humans and Spiders.

I found it interesting what a mature figure Pham Nuwen is in this book, "resurrected" at its start in a more figurative manner than in A Fire Upon the Deep, but still with an enormous prior history. Despite a serious developmental arc within the scope of the current story, and some significant retrospectives to flesh out his character and motivation, Vinge has left many centuries to play with if he should ever want to compose a pre-prequel using Nuwen as the connective thread.

Big ideas that are central to this book include the coercive management of human attention, and the epistemological weaponization of networked information technology. These both feel more topical now than they would have been when the book was first published in 1999. Vinge also seems to have put a new turn on Ibn Khaldūn's theories of civilizational growth and decay, and the practical superiority of organized merchants to wealthy despots. These notions become intrinsic to the premise that a sufficient "industrial ecology" is needed to support productive interaction with interstellar travelers, who cannot carry such an ecology themselves even at the scale of a fleet. But the industrialized civilizations are necessarily finite in duration, acquiring vulnerabilities with their efficiencies.

Like the previous Zones of Thought book, A Deepness in the Sky is long--eventful, characterful, and thoughtful--and it took all my reading attention for a couple of weeks in order to get through it. Looking back at my review of A Fire Upon the Deep, I find myself in the same position of being glad to have read it and being unwilling to charge on to the next one without a significant pause to recover. And I already own a copy of The Children of the Sky.

Story: 3 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 8
Prose: 6

Story: 6 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 7
Prose: 7

The "bobble" is a solid concept and "The Peace War" explores its implications fully in a clever, steampunk dystopia. The most important theme in the book is the balance between progress (science) and peace. However, the story is simply not sufficiently engaging.
Recommended only for anyone who has already read all of Vernor Vinge's others novels.

Though the weakest book in the series, Children still had some extremely strong points. For example, the Choir is explored in depth. Most of the trouble lies with the story structure. While some of the politics is clever and compelling, it does not provide enough depth or urgency to move the story along.
Still looking forward to reading more Vinge though.

Another fantastic book by Vinge. The main arc dragged on a bit, but the new species and cultures were superb: specifically, Arachna and The Emergent. Thankfully, nothing in the first book is required reading. Looking to finish the series soon.

Story: 8 / 10
Characters: 10
Setting: 10
Prose: 8.5

Original review from 2013:
Profound. Definitely one of the best scifi books I have come across. The real key is the character design of the Tines and the setting, namely the "Zones of Thought". A Tine is a small group of separate entities with a local-based collective intelligence. Never come across another character like it, though there are not really that many collective intellect characters around. The Zones is a theoretical universe framework addressing both technology and intelligence. Everyone about the book was strong, but these two elements are especially unique.
Looking forward to reading the rest.

enjoyed this, it was hard to follow at first but it starts to make more scene as you continue to read. great imagination.

Really interesting conception of the cosmos plus a couple of really interesting non-human species with well-imagined implications of their biology. (I liked the Riders' psychology even though their origins were kinda ludicruous. Why can a plant see?).

I'm torn about this book.

On the one hand, the ideas presented about the cyberfuture and medical utopia are compelling, truly futuristic, solidly grounded in the present and completely developed. Mr. Vinge has extrapolated a networked near future full of technological miracles and complications. Anyone working or playing in the field of computers, gaming and networks, as I do, can easily start to believe in the inevitability of the vision. The reader loses track of the here and now, living entirely in that other world. Several main characters are full of life and motivation, I found myself yearning to learn what they would do next and why. They often surprised me.

On the other hand, getting there was somewhat laborious. The novelty and virtuality of the invented future, the mystery surrounding several characters and their motivations, and the obscure nature of many fantasies within the fantasy made some scenes difficult to wade through. Even at the end of the book, not everything or everyone is explained. On the one hand, I believe this is intentional. Hats off to Mr. Vinge for not spoon feeding the reader and allowing us to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations. On the other hand, I know there are potential readers that will be left completely at sea.

This is thought-provoking, challenging science fiction at its finest. If you want to know where our technology and entertainment choices are taking us, this might be it.

There are books that never go where you expect. And then there are books that never go where you want them to.

This book is both of those at different times.

First off the obvious - it's a sequel to a personal favourite story that's arguably one of the best sci fi novels ever. And no, it's not any where near as awesome. (They never are).

If you haven't read that book, this one probably won't make much sense, or even convey how wonderful the original was.

This book is a very different kind of story - the original draws the backdrop the new one plays in front of.

The contrast between the two is striking.

This book is so much smaller in scope. It encompasses only a small portion of a single planet rather than most of the Milky Way. There are only a handful of characters, not dozens of groups scattered all over, and instead of millions of civilizations of billions of people dropping like flies, tragedy here is very small scale and personal.

The biggest tragedy might be the weak ending trying desperately to segue into another (as yet unwritten) sequel.

Chunks of it are adventure tale, chunks of it naive politics, there's even a hint of romance here and there. But it's all one thing, then the next, changing jarringly from section to section. Just as I'd get into it, I'd have the rug yanked out again.

It has potential, and it's moments, but ends up falling short of what it could have been.

If you loved A Fire Upon The Deep, pick this up as a return visit to Tines World to fill in some local colour.

For me it's mostly a miss I had a hard time judging on its own merits.

A personal top ten all time favourite.

If possible, skip reading the reviews, it's better learning what's going on in the order the authour intended.

First rate backdrop, plot, characters....

Just read it.

Old science fiction authors like to write about rejuvenation technologies.

An ok sequel to "A For Upon The Deep". But just ok.

A good example of why sci-fi authors should stick to sci-fi. Sci-fi might be often gimmicky, but the world building it can address is unparalleled. Take that away, and you often and up with a weak novel. Well, I think that's what happened here.

I wanted to love this book. I really did. It does have some pieces of argument that were ahead of its time. Protagonists have to deal with conspiracy theories perpetrated by a foreign state; state-sponsored surveillance is everywhere; gun culture for "personal protection" is briefly introduced; xenophobia is rampant; shady but lucrative businesses with maniacs is totally ok, ... the list goes on. Sounds familiar? It's not 2020, it's Vernor Vinge writing in 2011.

And yet, the story feels like filler. Characters are mostly one-dimensional, there's plenty of deus ex machina (some completely unnecessary), and the cliffhanger argument from the previous title - impending invasion by alien A.I. - is only used for background noise, and never resolved.

A let down just because I liked the previous title so much, I suppose.

Fun world building, and some pretty novel sci-fi concepts. Can't believe I hadn't heard of this series before.

Great world building, so-so story.

Vernor Vinge proves once again that he's a master in thinking sci-fi concepts. This story has some very solid yet unique sci-fi ideas. Even if he ignores the (brilliant) main concept of "zones of thought" in this one, ideas like the "Focus" are equally powerful given how plausible they sound. This is a concept that will stay with me for a long time!

Unfortunately, he also shows once again he's just an ok storyteller, in my opinion. One-sided characters, goofy happy endings, and absolutely unnecessary loose ends marred this one a bit for me.

I hadn't come across this author before, and I was (probably) too young for True Names to show up on my radar when it was first published as a novella in 1981. This reissue is accompanied by several essays that were written 10 or more years later, still well before the current date.

The plotline of True Names is straightforward on the surface: a hacker is pressured into attempting to uncover the real-life identity of a more dangerous hacker, which (of course) isn't as straightforward as initially hoped. There are interesting themes of symbolism and trust, and perhaps a sense of assessing people by what they do rather than what they say. I'd say the story has aged rather well.

I dipped into the accompanying essays, and I'm sure I will again. The concepts were a bit "technical" for me to fully appreciate from my non-IT-specialised background, but even so, they were thought-provoking.

Worth a read, and then a re-read.