Rating: 
Summary: Not one of Vinge's best.
Review: After Vernon Vinge's terrific last novel, A Fire Upon the Deep, I picked a A Deepness in the Sky with high hopes. However, I was disappointed. Although advertised as a prequel, this book's story has very little to do with his Hugo award-winning tale. There is no hint of the galaxy-wide civilization teeming with gods and monsters that made A Fire Upon the Deep such imaginative fun. The story is of a trading expedition to an alien solar system, enlivened with flash-backs and tales of treachery, with lengthy sequencies based on the alien's home world. Vinge "humanizes" his race of alien spiders in what at first seems an outrageous example of anthropomorphism, but which is neatly explained later on. Although the explanation is clever, the "human" face of the aliens is maintained virtually throughout the entire book and makes their chapters dull reading. In fact, by far the most memorable characters in the book are the villians - the Emergents - a sinister human culture that has developed a high-tech form of slavery. This triumph of evil gives the book a vaguely depressing quality as it runs through its unjustifiable length of over 600 pages. The happy ending does little to change the overall mood of pessimism. Vernon Vinge's two most successful works, A Fire Upon the Deep and Across Real Time, used huge canvases of space and time to bring out the best in this talented writer's imagination. I hope he returns to these wide-open spaces for his next novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Tour de Force!
Review: Sequels to award winning novels are always somewhat of a disappointment, especially when those novels are of the scope and vision of Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep" and prequels to award winning novels are even harder to write since you know what is going to happen in the next novel. However Vernor Vinge has managed to write a prequel to "A Fire Upon the Deep" that is if anything better than that novel and which can be read independently of it without losing anything. The characterization in "A Deepness in the Sky" is far better than it was in A Fire Upon the Deep, the aliens are better characterized and the descriptions of the Qeng Ho interstellar trading empire are fascinating as is the lead character, Pham Nuwen. I got this book last week and read it straight through without being able to put it down, even when I was going through passport control at the Munich airport.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking. Nice tension, but...
Review: Vinge is one of my favorite authors and I ordered this book before it was published. I highly recommend his previous novel FIRE UPON THE DEEP, and maybe it was high expectations that left me wanting more from this new novel. The story has a superb ending "twist" but sacrifices much to achieve it. The nice things is, you can read the book twice and glean much anew. But it makes for a tiring first read: e.g. why the heck don't the aliens meet the humans until so near the ending. Ahhh, that's why. Still, this plot device made some sections numbingly long. All that said, I really do treasure the vision this book puts forth. It doesn't get more real than this, and that is what makes it exciting: no warp speed or photon torpedos -- Vinge creates a window into our tomorrow, and there is much to learn from it. Also, I've read some cracks on the author that he doesn't do characterization -- not true. The characters in the book are richly textured. The action is taut, and captivating. Vinge deserves tremendous praise, fame, and fortune for this work.
Rating:
Summary: The technology of A Deepness in the Sky
Review: As many others have said, A Deepness in the Sky is an excellent prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep - indeed it stands alone quite well. One especially interesting aspect is the "solution" Vinge chooses to the SF writer's complaint that nanotechnology makes writing plausible AND interesting stories about the far future impossible. He simply refers to an "Age of Failed Dreams" early in mankind's history (and in our near future), when things like AI and nanotechnology are found to be impossible (at least in this area of the galaxy). In essence, he asks - "What if technological progress ends soon?" No human technology referenced in the book lies beyond what one can envision as technically possible within about 30 years. In all, a respectable piece of "science speculation", if rather pessimistic.
Rating:
Summary: Stellar, and an early Hugo favorite
Review: With "A Deepness in the Sky," Vernor Vinge returns to the universe of "A Fire Upon the Deep" with effectiveness and success. "Deepness" is a sort-of prequel to aFUtD, set tens (if not hundreds) of millenia earlier. Deepness takes us on a strange expedition to the On/Off Star, which turns on and off in some unexplained fashion, and introduces us to the Emergent and Qeng Ho cultures, two of the civilizations in Human space, as well as that of the Spiders, who've evolved a novel strategy for surviving the long periods when On/Off is "off" and their world is a frozen vacuum (the title is a reference to that). Forced to cooperate while hiding their existence from the Spiders, the Emergents and Qeng Ho play a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse, even as the Spiders down below rush into a future that holds something entirely different than they've ever dreamed of... The writing in Deepness is superior to its predecessor...background information is woven into the story, shown in a way that you don't notice it until later on. And while aFUtD blew me away with the vision and breadth of the story, Deepness just overwhelmed me. It's hard to imagine that this won't be the runaway winner of the Hugo for Best SF Novel Here's to hoping we won't have to wait another 7 years to read Dr. Vinge's next book!
Rating:
Summary: Stupendous
Review: One of the perhaps five best SF novels I've ever read, and I've read many. I liked Vinge's "Fire Upon the Deep" (which won the Hugo in 1993) tremendously, and I actually bought this book -- a prequel, though a very different work set in a very different melieu -- in hardcover, which I do only rarely. These two books put together convince me that Vinge is the best SF writer working today, better even than greats like Larry Niven and Lois McMaster Bujold, whom I love to pieces. The book has it all: A tremendously imaginative world, beautiful writing, and complex and interesting characters. An absolutely splendid read.
Rating:
Summary: a masterpiece, ranking among the best sf has to offer
Review: Mr. Vinge is without a doubt one of the best science fiction writers around, and this novel equals and surpasses even Dan Simmon's Hyperion novels in their grand scope and imagination. His depiction of Qeng Ho society is fascinating stuff--- here is a society vaguely modeled on the vast Chinese armadas commanded by Zheng Ho in the 15th century (indeed, nearly all the characters in the novel, including Mr. Pham, are seemingly of Asian descent). In those days, the Chinese battleships and treasure ships represented the most advanced and awesome displays of technology then seen in the high seas. In the same way, the Qeng Ho society in Vinge's future is represented by the most advanced technologies, including embedded and distributed software that guard immense starships, and biotechnological wonders that can produce miniature ecologies. Buy the book, it is a masterpiece. Buy the book, this is what sf is all about. This is writing that will open your eyes and fill your mind with wonder.
Rating:
Summary: Hugo award for 1999 (at least, so far)
Review: I enjoyed "A Deepness in the Sky", and consider it nearly equal to "A Fire Upon the Deep". (I'd have to re-read AFUD to decide which is better.)
Rating:
Summary: This prequel outshines the original
Review: Rarely is an author's second book in a scifi universe as good as the first, particularly when the first was as good as "A Fire Upon the Deep". "A Deepness in the Sky" is better, which makes it both a rarity and the hands down choice for this year's Hugo. It has masterfully drawn characters, both human-Pham Trinli, the ancient Queng Ho trader who is more than he seems, and Tomas Nau, the superficially pleasant but utterly evil Podmaster of the Emergents-and alien-Sherkaner Underhill, a combination Einstein, Von Neuman, and Edison from the "Spider" civilization on a planet circling the On-Off star that the Queng Ho and Emergent fleets come to investigate, and where they nearly destroy each other. The reader identifies so well with the Spider characters that through their eyes we see how we might react if we discovered members of an alien starfaring civilization "lurking" in our solar system. But most importantly, this book has the Vinge sense of wonder that sneaks up on you throughout the story. It's a lot like flying in a small plane over the lip of the Grand Canyon-one instant, roads, cars, and scrub; the next, an expanse that takes your breath away.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible!!
Review: Vinge has done it again! Exciting, moving and somewhat sad. You'll want more. This book can stand on its own, but reading A Fire Upon The Deep will give insight into some unspoken background. (The zones of Thought)
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