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.
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