This image actually has nothing to do with the book. I just want to remind you that robots will probably kill you someday.
This image actually has nothing to do with the book. I just want to remind you that robots will probably kill you someday.
So anyway, Star Wars books are rather lightweight science fiction books that usually do not stretch the imagination much, and I was wanting to read something heavier. Well, A Fire Upon The Deep is certainly far from lightweight SF. According to The Illustrated Science Fiction Encyclopedia, Vernor Vinge established a multi-tiered view of our galaxy in A Fire Upon The Deep based on the ancient Greek thought that the further you get away from the center of the universe (which was Earth, according to them), you come closer to attaining godhood. In this book, the galaxy is not just some "final frontier" to be explored, nor is the center of the galaxy the hub of all interstellar civilizations. No, the closer you get to the center of the galaxy, your IQ drops. The middle part of the galaxy is known as "The Unthinking Depths," and ships that dare to sail into this were never seen or heard from again as the crews digress into mental retardation and eventually a comatose state. The next layer is "The Slow Zone," in which planet Earth is located. In the Slow Zone, superluminal starflight is impossible. Interstellar travel can take centuries, with ship crews in coldsleep during the journey. The next layer out is "The Beyond," in which much of A Fire Upon the Deep takes place. It is here where superluminal travel is possible, and high technology proliferates. Some humans have established colonies in The Beyond, mainly Straumli Realm and Sjandra Kei. Beyond this, where the very edge of the galaxy lies, is "The Transcend," inhabited by those who have transcended beyond corporeal existence, and are basically gods, or "Powers," among the galaxy. When this story supposedly takes place does not matter, but is most likely counted in the millions of years in the future. In this universe, civilizations rise to the stars and fall into medieval times over and over again, as if this is a commonly occurring phenomenon. This universe is just so vast.
It is just beyond this, in The Transcend, where archaeologists from Straumli Realm discover an ancient archive on an airless rock of a planet which they come to name the High Lab. But akin to eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge or opening Pandora's Box, these researchers at the High Lab inadvertently unleash upon the galaxy an old terror from countless millennia ago---something that was hidden away long, long ago, and intended to never be found again. Unfortunately, the humans revive an evil blight upon the galaxy, a "perversion" that can spread like a virus, both biological and computer, which takes command of technology and Free Will alike. Realizing what evil they had awoken, the scientists attempt to escape in two ships: a frigate and a cargo ship that contains the children, sealed away in coldsleep capsules. The Blight destroys the warship, but the freighter escapes, and flees all the way to the bottom of the Beyond, taking with it the key to thwart this re-awoken evil Power. At the helm is a single family, with over a hundred of the children stored in coldsleep... and some sort of strange fungus growing along one interior wall of the ship. The ship is eventually forced to land on a planet; a medieval planet inhabited by dog-like creatures with snake-like necks called Tines.
However, these are beyond mere dogs, as these are sentient beings in which individuals are comprised of small packs of at least four or more, and thought is relayed between the pack members through ultrasonic brainwave frequencies transmitted by special tympanic organs. The idea of a single entity being spread across several living beings is rather fascinating, and the concept took some time to get used to, especially since the narrative does not really explain this from the beginning. It was my initial understanding that these dogs would "form Voltron" of sorts and combine into one physical body, but it is actually one being split up among several bodies.
The narrative of this story is what makes this SF novel a bit difficult to grasp, which makes at least the first third of the book difficult to understand. The narrative only really describes the visuals as it pertains to the vantage point of the story, and reading this book gives you litttle intuition as it does not take the time to explain what is common knowledge from the point of view of the Tines or whomever the narrative is focusing on. You'll need to wait for the narrative to switch to see the situation from a different point of view to understand. This is certainly not SF with training wheels, and it requires patience.
After landing near the arctic circle, the cargo ship is immediately attacked by a fanatical army of Tines, and the two adult pilots are killed. Their two children are separated in the chaos, and end up on either side of two warring nations: Johanna with the Woodcarvers in the south and her little brother Jefri with the Flenserists in the north, the nation of fanatics that attacked the ship.
Meanwhile, the distress call has been received. Here enters Ravna Bergsndot, an intern from Sjandra Kei at a place called Relay, a major hub of galactic Net traffic far above the galactic plane. Her employers at Vrinimi Org select her to join the rescue operation being staged. A ship called the Out of Band II, piloted by the potted, fern-like Skroderiders Blueshell and Greenstalk, is commissioned for the rescue operation. Dummy fleets are constructed to confuse the Blight. The Vrimini Org introduces Ravna to Pham Nuwen, an ancient, swashbuckling free-trader from the Slow Zone, who was resurrected and reconstructed to act as an emissary for a Power known simply as Old One, an ally with a passing interest in helping the humans overthrow the Blight. The OOBII required a refit, because it would be traveling dangerously close to the Slow Zone, and the invisible border between zones ebb and flow like an ocean in a storm. Technology begins to fail the closer a ship travels to the Slow Zone, and so it takes a real "bottom lugger" ship that is specially designed for skimming the surface of the Slow Zone to travel successfully that far in the bottom of the Beyond.
Suddenly, Relay is attacked by the mind-controlled minions of the Blight, and suddenly there is no more time for a carefully planned rescue operation. Narrowly escaping death, it is a race against time for Ravna, Pham, and the Skroderiders to rescue the two siblings who are unknowingly pitted against each other between warring nations on a backwater planet on the brink of the Slow Zone---without really knowing what to do when they get there. All they know is that somehow, that stranded cargo ship holds the key to stopping the Blight and saving the galaxy.
The story is full of action, suspense, betrayal, genocide, and massive space fleet battles. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to any serious SF fan wanting to read a really imaginative SF story. Without spoiling the ending of the book, the story obviously leads to an epic finale that is, as you can guess, is certainly a deus ex machina, but it is an ending that is not one that can be easily second-guessed. A typical space opera story will have the characters hopping from one planet to the next, and I always find it refreshing to see science fiction that places restrictions and limitations on space travel in a clever way. The universe set forth in A Fire Upon The Deep is really unlike anything I've seen before, in which science and theology go hand-in-hand.
The sequel, A Deepness In The Sky, is actually a prequel, telling the exploits of Pham when he was a trader in the Slow Zone for the Qeng Ho Dynasty. I already own this book and look forward to reading it, but I have already begun The January Dancer by Michael Flynn. Last year, Vernor Vinge released a direct sequel to Fire, called Children Of The Sky. I am glad that I was introduced to Vernor Vinge through The Illustrated Science Fiction Encyclopedia. I bought the book from the bargain table at either Barnes & Noble or the sadly defunct Borders in the mid- to late-90s. While it is a bit outdated and of course does not include more recent SF authors like Jack McDevitt, Alastaire Reynolds, or Michael Flynn, it is a very excellent guide to many great SF books as well as movies.
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