Rating: 
Summary: fun
Review: I give this book five stars because I can overlook a few instances of unexplained ideas and beyond that the book is pretty cool. Vinge brings forth alien races that are at once wonderfully strange and yet still believable. His ideas of space and the barriers between are interesting. I don't want to give anything away about the plot, so this is hard, but lacking a descriptive explanation about his divisions of the universe does not deter from an invigorating plot that goes down to the wire and keeps you guessing. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a creative twist to science fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Apocalyptic Yarn
Review: I found A Fire Upon the Deep to be a fast paced page turner, though some parts dragged a bit. Vinge is telling essentially two separate stories for most of the novel, and I thought one of them got a bit slow paced at times.I've read a fair amount of Sci Fi. Much of the "hard" science fiction out there seems to be written by people with physics backgrounds. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's interesting to read cosmology fiction as written by a computer scientist, and Vinge does it well, providing information that keeps the reader wanting more. In general, I think this is one of Vinge's strengths - inserting ideas from network theory (I think) and other theoretical comp sci fields in a way that's only slightly noticeable, and without producing a story that reads like cyberpunk. Regarding the characters, there's only moderate development. To readers, like me, who read A Deepness in the Sky first, Pham Nuwen comes across as somewhat undeveloped. Even so, a number of alien species are introduced and Vinge has made them appropriately alien in their personality, and at the end of the story they seem believably familiar. To summarize, expect a story of apocalyptic proportions and fast action with good ideas thrown in. It's not literary, but it certainly was a fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: Yikes - this is Sci-Fi?
Review: Many years ago I gave up reading sci-fi because it's, well, goofy and embarassing. It's like poetry written by nobel prize winners - because the author is smart, he or she thinks they can write. But it takes more than brains. Good sci-fi is hard to find because it is a genre with no imposed limits. Authors write whatever they want, they have no editors, and other sci-fi geeks hand out the awards and the praise. That's why you end up with so many novels about "dark riders in a cloak of fog", or humans fleeing some remote planet to arrive on a "blue pearl" that turns out to be Earth (or in the popular, irritating sci-fi parlance, "Terra"). It is a niche market, which insulates it from the forces of the normal marketplace - the forces that ensure mainstream fiction is readable. This book is dreadful from the opening chapter, an artsy "prologue" which is written in some computer stream-of-consciousness that is more irritating to read than it sounds. We then move on to a family landing on a planet, and being attacked by some race of wolves who carry flamethrowers and bow and arrow sets. Sound ridiculous enough yet? If not, ask yourself how wolves with no thumbs string a bow and arrow, or construct the intricate inner workings of a flamethrower. Not to mention the stupidity of using a flamethrower on a spaceship. The thing survives re-entry heat! No portable incendiary device would set it on fire. And can anyone explain to me how any species would develop flamethrower technology BEFORE developing true projectile weaponry? It's poorly thought out and embarassing. Most painful is the fact that this story would have worked 100% better if the author had stayed with human-like characters. Instead we have to muddle through pages of faux wolf thought and wolf-speak, horrible made-up "names" for the wolf creatures that read like junior jumble creations, and endure a ridiculous battle scene where wolves defeat a human who has a laser gun. It's a drag to get through, and I can't imagine the type of person who enjoys this obtuse style of writing. I picked this book up after finishing a Philip K. Dick novel, which by contrast was well-written, fast-moving, and exciting. If you're a fringe sci-fi fan like me who can't stand the self-aggrandizing nonsense, I suggest you avoid Vinge and investigate the likes of Dick or Alfred Bester.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best...
Review: One of the best "hard" science fiction novels I've read. The plot is riveting, the concepts are original, and the characters are sympathetic and believable. The sequel (A Deepness in the Sky) is also quite good. Both make me wish for more from this author.
Rating:
Summary: Missed opportunities
Review: I enoyed this book quite a bit. The pacing was excellent, and I was rarely bored with the book, though the Ravna/Pham/Skoderiders storyline took a while to get off the ground. Vinge's universe has plenty of interesting concepts in it, and unlike so many "epics," this book actually has a conclusion to match what came before. If I had voted in the 1992 Hugos, though, I doubt it would have been for this book. We never actually find out much about what goes on in the galaxy outside of the protagonists, and the setting didn't really come alive. The Tines are one of the most original and well-thought-out alien species I've seen in a long time, but none of the other aliens were terribly interesting. The characterization is also spotty. The Tines, again, were excellently characterized, but the humans and Riders were less so. The Blight, the main antagonist, is just an intelligence that runs around and destroys things; we never really find out much about it, and it never really becomes appropriately horrifying. Fortunately, Vinge makes up for this with a pair of convincing and very effective other villains, namely Steel and Flenser. This book is better than the majority of the SF out there. Read it for the ideas, plotting, and the charcterization in the Tines/Jefri/Johanna storyline, but don't expect it to be the truly great SF novel I think it could have been. For an example of that, try Hyperion by Dan Simmons, which pulls off some of the things Vinge fails at.
Rating:
Summary: Great Stuff
Review: If you liked "A Deepness" you'll like this. Rich character studies, wonderful visualizations and complex plotting. It's not a book for young readers, and can get fairly technical (but I enjoy that).
Rating:
Summary: I actually felt guilty putting it down
Review: This is the only book I've ever read where the story and characters were so powerful to me, that when I was doing other things, I actually felt guilty not getting back to them and finishing. Giving this book only 5 stars makes me want to go back and devalue other books that I've given 5 to. It's a six at least. This one has it all -- powerful characterization (especially of REALLY WIERD aliens), stunning inventiveness (the galactic "zones of thought" as well as the nature of the aliens), and a story pace that draws you in and keeps you there. Maybe one in a hundred books I read go on the re-read shelf. This one goes on the "perennial re-read" section, of which there are maybe 20. What can I say -- if you like your SF inventive, well-written, with memorable characters and a strong storyline, buy this book right now.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not the "classic" it's cracked up to be
Review: I enjoyed this book, but wouldn't place it in the elite class that so many others seem to. There are many interesting concepts, but they are overly drawn out. The book reads very slowly at times. Vinge is an impressive intellect, but isn't nearly the writing craftsman that Dan Simmons, Gene Wolfe, or Iain M. Banks is. If you like pure "space opera", you'll have some fun with Vinge. But this isn't great literature.
Rating:
Summary: Points of Interest
Review: Concepts I found to be exceptionally interesting in Fire Upon the deep. 1. Vinge puts forth an explanation as to how Aliens might exist, without being evident here on Earth (Fermi's Paradox). Star Trek used the prime directive to explain why we do not routinely see Aliens. Vinge does not think a prime directive would be enough. Would all alien life forms obey this directive? Probably not. He has a cohesive, logical, explanation as to why this might be. His explanation, created for me the ability to imagine other theories as to why intelligent life might exist elsewhere, but have not come knocking. 2. The "net" and how it would work on an inter-stellar level. 3. Medieval vs. Technologically advanced culture. Is one less intelligent than the other? 4. Artificial Intelligence and divinity. Would something we can not understand, with powers we can not measure qualify as divinity? 5. Impermanence. Billions of lives are drastically impacted, yet events are as inconsequential as you and I mowing the grass. Mind boggling. The book is classic. If you are interested in any of the above points, you will enjoy this book. I did not give it a perfect score. There were very brief moments where I wanted to put the book down. It got just a tiny, tiny bit long at some points. Still classic, just not perfect.
Rating:
Summary: A good novel.
Review: Others have already given some great reviews of this book so let me just say that the only problem with it is that it is really really long. A good editor could have really cleaned up this book to 2/3 of its current size. I only mention this because I am a fan of short stories and smaller books that can be read in a couple of days and if I had known how enormouse this book is I might not have purchased it. Other than that it is a great book. Verner Vinge is a God.
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