A Fire Upon the Deep (Book Review)
Stories with the depth to suck you right in are few and far between. As novels go, only three immediately pop into my head—The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee’s Rama series, and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. These are the kind of story that so hold you that they make breaking free of a black hole look like a piece of cake. It’s been quite a while since I read anything of this kind. But things change.
Earlier this year, I received an announcement that Vernor Vinge’s 1999 novel, A Deepness in the Sky had been released in paperback. This book is a prequel to his Hugo Award-winning novel A Fire Upon the Deep, a story that falls firmly into the aforementioned category of captivating tales. I was really excited to hear this news, and in anticipation of getting a copy, I decided to reread and review the first book.
At 613 pages, A Fire Upon the Deep isn’t what you’d call a quick read; it’s a nice thick block that’s a handful to carry on the train. But when you consider what Vinge does in those 613 pages, it’s amazing that it isn’t thicker.
The Milky Way galaxy as Vinge sees it is a magical place, arranged in one of the most creative ways ever set down in a work of science fiction. Lying somewhere between soft and hard sci-fi, Vinge’s universe is one where the laws of nature as we know them are not consistent at all points in space. Rather, his galaxy is one that is divided into zones. The farther you are from the galactic core, the more magical the technology you can create. This is a galaxy full of wonders.
And it’s old. Really old. There is a history here that, while Vinge never really lets you in on many of the details, makes you feel that that the events you
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