Vernor Vinge - Fire upon the Deep

Pros: Original and intriguing plot, interesting concepts, unusual characters.
Cons: No major cons for sci-fi fans. Some abstract concepts hard to grasp at first.

Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge is a fairly involved read, definitely not a book you can polish off during a few hours at the beach. The beginning of the book, especially, introduces some highly complex and unusual ideas that take a little...

Pros: Beautifully written, compelling and interesting characters, multi-plot storyline
Cons: Thrown into story, very little explanation given initially, complex concepts in writing

This book has been sitting in my house for several years now, and with it being science fiction, it amazes me that I have not picked it up and read it before now. Vernor Vinge writes a kind of sci-fi that I love: it throws you into a new world and d ...

Pros: Fascinating concepts and alien races; thought-provoking; interesting characters; suspenseful
Cons: Takes a long time to read; some ideas underdeveloped

Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep features some of the most interesting concepts I have ever seen in science fiction. The extraordinarily creative alien beings and the ideas of entities residing in networks of information, and "gods" living...

Pros: One of the best SF novels you'll encounter
Cons: Don't plan on sleeping till you're done

With "A Fire Upon the Deep," Vernor Vinge joins the short list of authors capable of creating an alternate reality with believable civilizations, technology, and characters both human and alien (some suspension of disbelief is, of course,...

Pros: top-notch science fiction, great alien species, tremendous scope
Cons: Probably too mind-bending for beginners

I want to pile on with everybody else saying how good this book is. Vernor Vinge writes slowly, so his reputation doesn't build up as fast as faster workers (and until very recently he's kept his day job), but the time he puts into his books really pays...

Pros: amazing concepts, entertaining story
Cons: zone concept a little fuzzy and hard to understand

10 pages in, I knew Fire Upon the Deep was going to be a classic of science fiction. On those 10 pages, Vinge sneakily introduces us to the concept of what I call "pack consciousness"(as in a pack of wolves or a pack of dogs). I was wondering...

Pros: solid science fiction, especially for Internet folks
Cons: wish it had been longer

When people lend me books, most of the time I accept them and then they sit in my bedroom for a few weeks. I always have two or three books in progress, and I am loath to begin reading another. Plus, I find it hard to trust other people's tastes.
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Pros: imaginative and well-characterized aliens, good plot
Cons: nice and long--don't expect to finish it in one evening

A Fire Upon The Deep is set in an extremely distant future; the author's basic "what-if" is that the galaxy is divided into zones. Near the core, thought is almost impossible. Further out is a region where the speed of light barrier applies and...

Pros: Very well done alien race, terrific plot, good technology ideas
Cons: Characters sometimes get annoying

A Fire upon the Deep won the Hugo award in 1993 and after only the first 20 pages or so it is obvious why. Vinge creates an alien race the is amazingly complete as far as culture, personalities and politics. The truly impressive part is that the race is...

Pros: WOW! This is the best science fiction book I have read
Cons: I can't think of one.

What can I say about this book? How about this is the best science fiction book that I have ever read. At 612 pages, it reads like 200 pages. I found this book entirely by accident the year it came out and decided to read it on a whim. I got 40 pages...