Rating: 
Summary: A good read for the beach this summer.
Review: Thank goodness Vinge isn't one of these annoying authors who has to plaster an epic across THREE five-hundred plus page volumes! A Deepness is a pretty good book, if not exactly taut. Basically this book is Space Opera toned down enough to make it attractive to modern audiences. Nonetheless, despite the a pretty well realized layer-upon-layer-of-betrayal plot and hokey anthromorphization of the aliens (behind which is a subtle betrayal by a human character which I won't give away here), this is a pretty thin gruel in several places. This book won the Hugo, which gives you an idea of the quality of the writing, which is quite good. However, the total lack of characterization for the "bad guys", flat characters, two or three extra (pointless) digressions and just endless explication would have made a much better 250 page novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Top notch hard science fiction. Great ideas, great story.
Review: If you're a fan of hard science fiction you've probably already read this. As with his earlier book "Fire Upon the Deep", the book to which this is a loosely attached prequel, Vinge tells a thick, rich story filled with mind-bending tech concepts and surprising plot twists. His descriptions (for example, characters struggling to get through a lake suddenly made weightless in zero G) are very well written. Mostly, he does a really great job of creating a sense of what alien minds might work like. Here, it's intelligent spiders. In Fire Upon the Deep, the aliens are packs of dogs with group minds. But instead of trying to rehash the previous story, he takes elements from the first book- protagonist Pham Nuwen, aliens, and cool science-- and lets them go their own way. You'd think that such a long, dense tome would have you skipping to the end. But he keeps you in there all the way through. In the world of hardcore sf, Vinge is an insider still at the top of his game.
Rating: 
Summary: Great science fiction
Review: This is great science fiction! I usually like Vinge's books, and this one was fully up to par. It intertwines two converging stories. One is about a group of (human) freedom loving space traders who travel and sell in many star systems, who are thrown together with (human) totalitarian exploiters. The other is about an intelligent race of spiders whose "on-off" star blinks with a century-long period -- thus they must endure a multi-decade deep freeze during their lifetimes (the "Deepness" in the title is a place where spiders can hibernate through a freeze). This is great science fiction. The plot is exciting, and Vinge invents and explores the ramifications of several interesting technologies plus the weird on-off star environment. He also explores social conflicts between the human societies and the spider societies. Both sets of societies appear to have intentional parallels with current societies here on earth. I believe Vinge intends those parallels to be an important part of the book, so I'm going to write a little more about them. Many of Vinge's books feature societies based around a libertarian ideal of little or no government, and privatization of government's traditional functions. For example, in a story called "The Ungoverned," a section of the former United States has no government at all, and people hire private companies with names like "Michigan State Police" and "Al's protection Racket" for traditional government services. One problem with a government-free society is the possibility that some people may completely trample the rights of others without fear of reprisal. In "Deepness," Vinge encapsulates that problem as the problem slavery. The totalitarians are not averse to slavery; the freedom-loving traders despise slavery. I see one flaw in the book, which doesn't affect the science fiction or the exciting plot; only the philosophy. The flaw is that Vinge doesn't adequately account for *why* the good guys' hate slavery. After all, one could consider slavery a form of contract, or slaves an article of trade (slavery was treated this way here on earth for thousands of years). Vinge's explanation of why the traders hate slavery is essentially social taboo -- it's part of the trader culture. But it's a taboo that has lasted a thousand years and holds everywhere in the many loose-knit trader communities. Why? We know societies change and upstarts challenge taboos, so the ones that remain must serve some very useful purpose. Vinge doesn't account for the constancy of the taboo. I think a libertarian philosophy that allowed slavery would be repugnant to many readers, so Vinge created one that prevented slavery, but his taboo mechanism is weak. I think this points up a flaw in libertarian philosophy that Vinge is struggling to deal with -- the flaw being that libertarianism may be a little to value-neutral to appeal to mainstream American readers raised on apple pie and the U.S. Constitution. I'll be interested to see how Vinge continues to deal with this issue in future writings. Never the less, as I mentioned above, the flaw doesn't affect the plot or the science fiction; only the philosophy of the book. It's still great SF, imaginative and thought provoking, and a very enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: aFutD is a tough act to follow - or to prequel
Review: After reading A Fire upon the Deep, I thought Vinge could not top himself. After reading A Deepness in the Sky, I knew I was right. The book does not have the vastness of aFutD, it is unnecessarily long and its characters are much less interesting in comparison. On the upside, the book is entertaining at times and introduces some very interesting concepts like Focus, whose terrible implications are explored in detail. Also, Vinge does a good job presenting the alien spiders as normal characters and then presenting them again as really alien to humans. Overall, the book was not entertaining enough to me to recommend it. What spoiled most of the fun was reading every review like I do with other books. This time it was a mistake, since each review gives away a tiny but different part of the plot. I knew in advance about Focus, Anne Reynoldts' history and current situation, Pham Nuwen's cover, the Emergents' plan for spider world domination, etc. If it is not too late, try not to spoil your own fun and do not read every review. It works for other books but not this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Deeper Symmetry than Some Realize
Review: Some have questioned the relation between A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep, complaining that, aside from being in the same universe and sharing one character, that they have nothing in common. I beg to differ. A Deepness in the Sky is a Fire Upon the Deep turned inside out. There is a brilliant symmetry between the two novels and I definitely believe that either novel is enhanced by the reading of the other. AFUtD was grand space opera. It was also representative of what Mr. Vinge hopes the future can be: unlimited vistas and boundless advances in technology. As a consequence, the book had a tendency to focus on its grand vision to the detriment of its characters, who ended up feeling flattened by comparison (read some of the Amazon customer reviews for AFUtD to see what I mean). ADitS, by contrast, represents Mr. Vinge's fear of what the future may hold for us. If technology does, in fact, plateau at some level and if the technological singularity is never achieved, Mr. Vinge predicts that humanity will be doomed to an endless sequence of technological rises and falls. ADitS makes, in my opinion, some very good cases for this. As a consequence, even though the book is chock full of high technology, with respect to our civilization, and even though it imagines humanity spread among the stars, it manages to convey a sense of claustrophobia - especially for those who have read AFUtD. Because the universe is so "cramped", the focus of the novel is directed (with almost painful intensity) upon the characters of the novel. This novel is long and it has more than its fair share of depressing aspects. I can not, however, think of anything that ought to have been subtracted from it. As for the sense of pessimism, I think that it is absolutely critical to read this in context of the largert universe presented in AFUtD. Yes, the characters, and their cultures, are trapped within a cosmological box, but it's a box that DOES have an open end. An opening that will, more importantly, be found by Pham Nguwen... just not yet. In sum, I think that this is a true tour de force and an entirely apt sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep.
Rating:
Summary: A truly great book deserving 6 stars!!
Review: The Alien. A beautiful, strange world thriving in a uniquely alien climate. A totally alien sentient race, described in an evolving, and fantastically evocative, thoughtful manner. Problems of first contact language and societal issues are crucial to the story, and handled amazingly well. The Human. Terribly cruel despotic rule, involving slavery, rape, bigotry, and "state-of-the-art" diplomacy and duplicity. Millennia spanning civilizations, hemmed in by extremely well-chosen scientific, economic, ecological and societal barriers. Love is crushed, lost, rampaged and explosively rediscovered. Dreams are buried and reawakened. Deepness in the Sky is one of those very, very few novels that encompasses all of the above, in a beautifully interwoven story. A civilization of millennium spanning space traders races to an astronomical anomaly, a newly discovered planet in an on/off-star galaxy. They are met there by another group of space travelers whom they had not previously encountered. Both groups are hoping to harvest huge profits from being the first to interact with the new non-human civilization just discovered on the planet. We learn about all three civilizations in detail, via big picture views/histories, and through many, many personal characterizations. This book manages to get us involved with, and caring about at least 12 major characters. Vinge's amazing story is beautifully, tragically, magically, heartrendingly emotional, and at the same time mind-bendingly thoughtful on many levels. I cannot overstate how great this book is. The way he evolves our understanding of the alien civilization, until we can still care (strongly!!) about these beings as they are described not in translated human-conditioned terms, but rather in a true first-contact, "eye-to-eye" manner, is only one of the rare, and beautiful, back-shivering moments Vinge brings us to. Absolutely, read and enjoy this book!! I do wish a sixth star could be found to rate books like this!! 5 stars are given for lesser books, because these are such rare finds.
Rating:
Summary: Great Prequel
Review: After reading A Fire Upon the Deep, I was eager to get my hands on this prequel. Vinge delivered again...in fact, this book is even slightly better than its predecessor. The spidery aliens in this book, who are on the verge of a technical and social revolution, are brilliantly drawn. The humans and their futuristic ships and corollary technologies are highly believable. I thoroughly believe that Pham Nuwen was brought back in Deepness in the Sky because he was the strongest human character in the previous book...Vinge enhanced the Nuwen character beautifully, highlighting his strengths and elaborating on his weaknesses. Also, I thought the unusual phenomenon of a planet whose day/night cycle is decades long was a rather clever plot device that Vinge used quite well and to his full advantage. Overall, if you enjoyed its predecessor this book is certainly worth the read and highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Deepness of the book
Review: Vernor Vinge successfully juggles about a couple dozen characters with very rich personalities with out losing track of the story. He also shows his skill by weaving many sub-plots in and out of the main plot which eventually converge into one story line. There are few authors who can take you to a wholly different world like Vernor Vinge does in this story. I read this book about two years ago and the images are still clear to this day. I often daydream what it would be like to live in a solar system where our sun turns on and off. I think of the waning years before the sun goes out and the brutal time of the new sun. I would agree with other reviewers that this book should not be properly called a prequel to A Fire Upon Deep. I have read every thing from Vernor Vinge and loved it all, but A Deepness In The Sky is by far my favorite.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Sci-fi Intrigue for the Hardy Reader
Review: Aging space trader Pham Newem has to save the newly-discovered Arachnid civilization from the brutal Emergents, who have learned how to incorporate the minds of human slaves into their powerful computer networks. But how can he help the Spiders when he can't even help himself? This book bears even less relationship to Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep than one might imagine, and really doesn't deserve to be called a prequel - they're two totally independent novels separated by thousands of years, that happen to share one major character, and even that character is really a pretty generic sci-fi hero. And since Pham Newem is the real star of this book, it's hard to see why so many pages are devoted to the hapless Ezr and his uncomfortable love triangle with Trixia and Qiwi, for example. Even less pertinent are the seemingly interminable chapters about the Spiders, and one Spider family (does it even make sense for Spiders to have families?) in particular. Although this is in many ways an excellent book, and certainly worth the effort for ardent sci-fi readers, one could hardly blame you if you found yourself skimming through some sections that don't seem to move things forward. Younger readers in particular should steer clear, not so much because of a couple of inappropriate scenes (Vinge wants us to see what monsters the Emergents really are, and occasionally crosses the line) as because the plot's glacial slowness may be too much for their attention spans. As with FUtD, there's a growing horror at work in this book as the helplessness of the Qeng Ho (read capitalist good guys) seems to reach a totality that smacks too much of melodrama. It might actually have been better to break this ungainly tome up into a series of shorter novels, and try to work some hopeful note into the conclusion of each, without giving away the final resolution. An excellent piece of sci-fi intrigue that could have been a little more tightly focused, but still ranks as top-notch escapism.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreadable
Review: This is an overlong book made worse by sloppy writing. The same distant, cold style is used for both technical descriptions and supposedly ardent human interactions. It's like reading one of those pseudo-English user manuals that come with overseas audio equipment. The reader is left clueless as to which characters/ideas are important and which aren't. Everything is painted with the same brush. Combine that with less substance than can sustain a long novel and tedium sets in very soon. I admit I gave up on the book after 300 pages.
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