A Fire Upon the Deep: 1 (Zones of Thought)

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Space Is Magic: The laws of physics as we know them only hold in the local Zone; farther out, the laws of physics change and things become commonplace that would be impossible marvels on Earth. A Form You Are Comfortable With: A justified, and more or less unintentional, instance of this trope in audio format. Since everything in the Tines' Starfish Language is Unpronounceable (but at least partially intelligible) to humans, they can't technically speak human languages. However, their tympana are also capable of reproducing just about any sound in the audible range (and many outside of it). They take advantage of this to communicate with humans by reproducing specific human voices, which occasionally gets a little disturbing. Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.

A Fire Upon the Deep is the first book in the Zone of Thought science fiction series by Vernor Vinge. Published in 1993, it was named the Hugo Award for best novel of the year because of its complex, detailed, and thought-provoking dramatic plot about a galactic war taking place thousands of years in the future. Vinge published a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep called A Deepness in the Sky in 1999, and then a third book, The Children of the Sky, which ended the three-book series in 2011. Fantasy World Map: A Fire Upon the Deep has a map of the galaxy done in fantasy style. It includes a delineation of the "Zones of Thought", which regulate FTL travel, as well as the path the protagonists' ship takes. Enforced Technology Levels: Within the lower Zones. Earth is located in the "slow zone", where physics works as we currently understand it (i.e. faster-than-light travel is impossible, no such thing as anti-gravity, etc). Further out is called "The Beyond", where things like FTL travel and Artificial Intelligence become possible. Farthest is "The Transcend", a zone where magic and science lose any distinction and you have things like powerful A.I.s becoming akin to gods. A Fire Upon the Deep is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. It is a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a communication medium resembling Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993, sharing it with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. [1] It's not shown in A Fire Upon the Deep, but in The Children of the Sky, Tines are shown to have such sharp hearing, and such precise control over the sounds that they can emit from their tympana, that they can use surprisingly fine echolocation as long as the surroundings are sufficiently quiet. This makes up for their poor low-light vision.

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Vinge’s treatment of Homo sapiens as special-case victims of Arrested Development builds from predecessor tales like Poul Anderson’s Brain Wave (1954), in which our solar system finally exits a vast region of space where “electromagnetic and electrochemical processes” had been hampered from time immemorial, making morons of us all, and preventing our escape into the larger universe. In A Fire upon the Deep, this slightly arbitrary escape is reconfigured into a three-dimensional geography of the galaxy itself, which Vinge divides into four zones. The inner galaxy, a region containing almost all its mass and star systems, is known as the Unthinking Depths; here, Andersonian impediments are so profoundly crippling that sentience is almost impossible, and escape inconceivable. Surrounding the Depths is the Slow Zone, where atomic interactions are faster, though faster-than-light travel is still impossible, and self-conscious AI’s deeply unlikely; it is here that Homo sapiens had very slowly evolved, finally escaping some millions (or maybe billions) of years before the era of A Fire upon the Deep. The region of space that became our home is known as the Beyond, which circumambulates the Slow Zone. AIs can gain consciousness here, and faster-than-light speeds are possible. The Beyond is the vast heart of the Vingean playground. It has served as a home for millions of species for billions of years, where they are born, thrive, grow senescent, die ( Homo sapiens is an ageing species in this immense arena, and humans do not dominate the action of the novel). Beyond the Beyond lies the Transcend, a region so free of the dirt of the galaxy that gods—or creatures we easily confuse with gods—can be born there, and thrive. The aspirational thrust of the Vinge universe theoretically impels an outward and upward urge (though the plot of A Fire upon the Deep moves, dangerously, in the other direction; in one chapter a spaceship carrying Cargo from the Transcend deep into the Beyond is caught terrifyingly in the Slow Zone, but escapes), and whole civilizations from the upper Beyond have a habit of transcending, disappearing from the realms of story beneath them. (Banks made use more than once of the same topos, which he saw more negatively than Vinge does.) Benevolent Alien Invasion: Inverted in A Fire Upon the Deep, where humans are the aliens invading the medieval Tines planet and changing its culture to benefit both species. Granted, the invasion wasn't intentional (a cargo ship carrying children in stasis crash-landed on the planet and the humans only expected to stay long enough for rescuers to find them, but things got much more complicated), but by the end of the book, the humans have upset the political balance of a large part of the planet. By the start of The Children of the Sky, the sole adult human has become co-ruler of the most powerful nation on the planet, is working to advance the Tines' technology beyond Space Age levels within a century, and the human children are intermingling with the native Tines and creating a social revolution almost unintentionally. The Hugo judges that is. Why is this book still so popular? I just finished part one, and I'm honestly considering calling it quits. I read maybe 20 or so new (to me) SF books a year and I haven't given up on one in about 2 years, and that was the second ringworld book. The language is repetitive, the characters have all the depth and complexity of a bowl of oatmeal, and the dispatches sound as childish as the dialogue featuring literal children. Meat Moss: A rare benevolent example occurs in A Fire Upon the Deep; the Old One filled one of the rooms of the Skroderider's ship with this. It turns out to be a complex biotech weapon used to combat the Blight.

I have never taken the time to write a review before this one. I know we all have different tastes and many have reviewed this book in a positive light (that is why I bought this in the first place). This is the first audio book where my mind would wander. My own thoughts about what to eat for dinner or which route to take home from work were more engaging than the story. Very disappointing. I have about 9 hours left and just can't finish it.

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Last-Minute Hookup: A Deepness in the Sky has two mild examples. There is some foreshadowing of the relationships involved, but it's still pretty sudden. Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels A Fire Upon The Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999) and Rainbows End (2006), his Hugo Award-winning novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences. Androcles' Lion: In Children of the Sky, what saves Johanna from being torn apart by the Tropicals when she escapes into them. Their hive mind remembers her kind treatment of their singletons, and her work at the Fragmetarium. Cute Is Evil: A Fire Upon the Deep has the Aprahanti species. They are humanoid with soft features, big round eyes, butterfly wings, soft downy fur, and cute sing-song voices. They are also militaristic fascists who make their first appearance pushing around a shopkeeper and later take a flimsy pretext to attempt genocide on humanity.

In A Deepness in the Sky, Tomas Nau is done in by Qiwi, remembering for one final time her mother's rape and murder. Nothing Left to Do but Die: Civilizations that move from the Beyond to the Transcend routinely go through The Singularity into incomprehensible digital forms (Powers) whose interaction with the Beyond rarely lasts more than ten years; it is unknown whether they die of boredom, burn out or wind down, or merely lose interest in the limited people of the Beyond and move further out. However, a Transcendent Power can in one month evolve more than humans in ten thousand years, so that comes out to something like a million years subjective time, if such a comparison has any meaning. Yes, they get very bored, judging by the actions of a Power called The Old One in A Fire Upon the Deep. An ancient, malevolent super-intelligent entity which strives to constantly expand and can easily manipulate electronics and even organic beings.Ravna: Literally, bureaucratic control over the Oobii's automation. The thing that Nevil didn't understand is that Oobii is a ship. It must have a captain, and the captain's command must exist independent of administration. Insignificant Little Blue Planet: In A Fire Upon the Deep, humans have been out in the galaxy so long that Earth is merely a legend; the origin planet most humans feel emotionally attached to is called Nyjora — meaning New Earth. Intro-Only Point of View: The prologue of A Fire Upon the Deep is mostly told from the viewpoint of the nascent Straumli Perversion as it rapidly gains sentience, though a small portion of it is also told from the viewpoint of several other nascent AIs in the same network. Batman Gambit: A Deepness in the Sky has a rare example of competing protagonist Batman Gambits. Sherkaner Underhill invaded the Focus system and manipulated it to defend against Nau's genocidal plans, while Pham Nuwen used the localizers to invade the system and manipulate it against Nau. They both almost squash each other by accident, buying Nau valuable time when executing his Evil Plan and leading to the probable death of both Sherkaner and his wife.

The next Zone beyond the Slow Zone is called the Beyond, and this is where artificial intelligence dominates. Travel and communication both happen here faster than the speed of light. There are some human beings in this zone, but all originate from a single Norwegian ethnic group that managed to arrive from the Slow Zone.Deceptive Disciple: Flenser was Woodcarver's offspring/creation and most brilliant disciple, until the nature of his experiments was revealed. Some characters including Flenser!Tyrathect even call out Woodcarver for creating such a monster and then just letting him go. The Blight expands, taking over races and "rewriting" their people to become its agents, murdering several other Powers, and seizing other archives in the Beyond, looking for what was taken. It finally realizes where the danger truly lies and sends a hastily assembled fleet in pursuit of the Out of Band II.