Rating: 
Summary: Deepness in the book
Review: Very good read of what star faring society would be like. At the same time a good reverse first contact yarn.
Rating:
Summary: In focus, out of phase
Review: The Vinges, Vernor ("Fire Upon the Deep") and Joan D. ("The Snow Queen") have written some of the best science fiction around and Vernor's "Deepness in the Sky" is another gem. It's billed as a "prequel" to "Fire," but with its clashing human cultures and a fascinating alien culture,"Deepness" stands alone, and sustains its pace through 774 pages.An ambush between the two human factions, The Emergents and the Traders, leaves them both crippled in orbit around an isolated planet that revolves around a variable star that alternates long periods of dark with shorter periods of light. Nevertheless, an intelligent arachnid-like race that is developing technology rapidly, and that the two cultures have come to exploit in one case and trade with in the other, has evolved on the planet, and both factions wait for them to reach the a point that will enable the humans to "get out of Dodge." The author's treatment of the alien "Spiders" is especially clever: we see them first through the eyes of the human translator Trixia Bonsol, and they seem quite human. It's only at the end, when the aliens and humans meet, that Vinge fully reveals their differences. Vinge's characters, human and alien alike, are all obsessed in various ways (some forcibly) and the author introduces you to quite a number of them. But you won't have trouble keeping the cast of characters straight, even though Vinge writes from multiple pov's. Things get tied together neatly at the end, although the door certainly stands open for several more tales, should Vinge wish to tell them. The book isn't perfect--the human villains virtually twirl their capes while going "bwaa haa haa," and a long series of flashbacks involving the trader leader, Pham Nuwen, could have been revealed in a page and a half--but that shouldn't stop you from staying on to the finish. It's a superior effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Is there an editor in the house?
Review: Referring to the works of Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote once commented, "That's not writing, it's typing." The same could be said of Vernor Vinge's sprawling, bloated novel, *A Deepness in the Sky*. I am guessing the novel won the Hugo Award on the basis of its grandiose plot structure and the sometimes fascinating application of certain scientific subthemes related to "mind focus" enslavement, microtransmitters, suspended animation, etc. It's hard to imagine that the literary qualities of this book were considered strong points. The sloppiness of the writing suggests that the author simply pounded out this work without a lot of concern about its internal cohesiveness or readability. Historical digressions churn on and on; characters that the reader should reasonably have forgotten about suddenly reappear in confusing fashion. Were Mr. Vinge working with a good editor, the book could easily have been two hundred or more pages shorter, while still delivering a lot more impact to its readers. As for the story itself, it's certainly ambitious and interesting in its interweaving of three distinct civilizations, two human and one arachnid. There are marked differences between these cultures, and I applaud Vinge for his imaginative creation of a culture related to the improbable pulsations of an "onoff star." Overall, however, the book suffers from the usual pitfall of science fiction, i.e., that all of the cultures and characters are pretty much "contemporary white western folk" with the technological and cultural *similarities* between the cultures ultimately far outweighing their differences. The Emergents and Qeng Ho are supposed to be very different, but the alleged differences are actually quite minor. Then there is the culture of "spiders," but these creatures drive sports cars, feature a civilization dominated by "corporations," and are remarkably "just like us." It is assumed from the start that the spiders' civilization will develop in linearly predictable fashion to resemble those of (all?) other previously developed technological civilizations. This seems very narrow-minded to me, especially in light of the occasional scifi writers like Ursula LeGuin who have explored differences in basic cultural orientation, gender identity, and other anthropological factors as the bases for their thematic content. I applaud Mr. Vinge for his literary industry and for certain aspects of his thematic imagination. But if this really represents the *best* science fiction novel of the year in which it was published, I despair of the current state of this literary genre.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent SF epic.An excellent SF epic.
Review: An excellent SF epic.An excellent SF epic. Although a little weighty at 774 pages, I found it a real page turner. Like with Dune, Vernor has created an entire civilization that is completely real and very compelling. The story revolves around human contact with the first intelligent alien race ever discovered with the humans trapped in their own world of treachery and slavery. My only complaint is that it was a little slow at times; Vinge probably should have shed 150 pages or so.
Rating:
Summary: Good concept doesn't live up to press
Review: The concept was quite good. However, the execution of the story fell down in the following ways: (1) The 'Spiders' seem too much (unrealistically) like humans to be thought of as alien to our human consciousness and sensibilities. Only the physical differences from humans were given any attention. (2) The Emergents seemed too similar to the Qeng Ho even though they had just had direct contact for the first time. Given their very different backgrounds, I would have expected more differences (E.g. ancient Macedonia during the conquest of Persia - both human cultures but very different). (3) The story unnecessarily depicted numerous human-like trivialities about the Spiders. This novel could have easily finished comfortably in 400-500 pages instead of the 800++ pages published. No way does this novel merit an award.
Rating:
Summary: A shallowness in the book
Review: You have to feel for Mr. Vinge. He created a fantastic, exotic universe by mining the realms of possibility in "A Fire Upon the Deep, then tried the same formula on "A Deepness in the Sky." This prequel, though, never quite rises to the levels one expects. Some early clues of trouble include his having his protagonist Sherkaner Underhill, the main "spider-like" creature, driving a car around what sounds like highway 101 in California. The image does not strike one as realistic, even in this speculative setting. He also creates villians who remain just cardboard cutouts, never achieving the stature one expects. The only character---including the "good" and "bad" ones---whom I can still recall with much clarity a few months after reading this work, is Pham Nuwen, and I suspect we have not heard the last of him. The plot struggles against conflicting goals: Vinge wants to present an epic tale encompassing decades of time yet infuse the book with enough action to keep the reader engaged. Those among the legions of Vinge's fans will no doubt disagree with this assessment. Those new to his writing be warned: this book gets tedious and the payoff is not all that satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Very like a "Mission of Gravity"
Review: An odd planet or sun , insect or spider like intelligent species
and some real science: it means a good level headed sci fi book.
Vernor Vinge is a hard science sci fi writer in the Hal Clement
and Robert Forward school. Even their worst novels are worth reading for what science you can learn. The on-off star and it's dynamics gives that hard background. It reminds one of Forward's recent "Camelot 30K" and also of Clement's " Mission of Gravity".
Buy it for a good read!
Rating:
Summary: Not for you if you only want a 'prequel'
Review: This book is not a prequel. Everyone who expects it to be will be disappointed. Yes, it takes place in the same 'universe' as A Fire Upon The Deep, and it solves some of the mystery behind one of the major characters in that novel, but it has nothing to do with the storyline of that novel. It is a book unto itself; you can read it and enjoy it without knowing anything about A Fire Upon The Deep. It's a simply captivating tale of a First Contact. Two human cultures clashing in their race to contact an alien species - and profit from it! If you finish this and have no desire to join up with the Qeng Ho and trade between the stars, it's your loss!
Rating:
Summary: John B
Review: Purchased initially as a beach read, ADITS has mesmerized me for over two weeks now. What’s the biggest problem with the book? The hype about it being a 30,000 year prequel to Fire Upon the Deep. Everyone is expecting the same thing and then they feel let down when there is very little in common with that book. Sure, Pham Nuwen is still slugging around, and I now wonder if the Blight in FUTD might be some hybrid virus 30,000 years down the road from the Emergent mindrot… but those are about the only links between the two books. Hey, get over it! What you are left with are two extremely complex, elaborate, and unique worlds, one artificial, one that only exists for about 50 years out of every 200. Three separate cultures slamming into each other at freight train speed. Ramscoop starships, at least three wars, smart spiders with Uzis, flying cats, heroic peons plotting against psychopathic leaders, bonsai trees, nuclear exchanges, slave revolts, and whole lot of insects you start feeling sorry for. I mean c’mon, I stayed up till 4am reading the end of this book. ...
Rating:
Summary: Not exactly the spiders from Mars...
Review: Nearly a decade after his Hugo winning 'A Fire Upon The Deep', VV comes back with a prequel (!) to his masterpiece. ADITS plays a couple of thousands of years before AFUTD, when FTL travel has not been discovered yet.
The two books don't have too much in common, just play in the same Universe and share one character. The plot in itself is rather simple: humans have discovered the first alien civilization. Unfortunately, two rivaling fractions of humans both want to make first contact and hence a fortune. Also a disadvantage is the weird property of the aliens' star (called OnOff) to have alternatively periods of brightness and darkness.
The human societies in ADITS are on the one hand the Qeng Ho, a free market society full of innovations, and on the other hand the Emergents, a tyrannic society building its wealth on the enslavement of minds. Before making first contact, they both have to wait for the Re-Lightment of the On-Off Star, and while the aliens (that look like giant spiders) go through the Information Age, the Qeng Ho become victims of a vicious attack by the Emergents.
As in the prequel, the aliens are what makes the book great. VV has the unique power of describing convincing aliens for whom we care. You think spiders are creepy and disgusting? Read ADITS, and you'll come to see the cute side in spiders. As for the Humans, I can't say I care too much, because VV's libertarian political agenda puts his characters too much in extreme positions. Granted, the Qeng Ho characters Ezr Vinh and Pham Nuwen (weird names, by the way) also have conflicts of the mind, but in the end the good will prevail over the bad.
Still, this is near perfect space opera, modern enough not to seem antiquitated, and the structure of the chapters - happening alternating in the humans' temp in space and on the Spiders' planet - give you enough diversity and sub-plots. I would have given the novel 5 stars, were it not for the sometimes trailing plot, and nearly 800 pages is then somehow too much for this book, considering that most of the (human) action happens in temporary space houses.
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