A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Jul. 24th, 2014 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe scientists in the High Lab, an expedition into the part of space known as the Transcend, have uncovered something very old, very powerful, and very dangerous. A glorified librarian, an unfrozen space pirate, and a pair of sentient seaweeds go on a desperate mission to a medieval world to try to stop it.
I think it’s a fairly standard sci-fi twist that if everyone believes something to be created by a god, it turns out to be naturally-occurring, and if everyone believes something (particularly something different from the universe we know) to be naturally-occurring, a god or sufficiently-advanced alien made it. Which, I mean, in retrospect, with the Zones, there were plenty of clues. It was foreshadowed in the Net messages, obviously, disguised as inane chatter. But also, given the details provided about it (that the Zones could be fairly effectively mapped and tracked like the weather), if the Zones were a natural phenomenon, there would have be more theory to how they formed and how they could be controlled. Maybe just at the level of “cloud seeding” to cause rain, but in effect, if a sensible system defined the Zones, somebody in the High Beyond would be futzing with them. The idea that they are unfutzable, not directly related to stellar phenomenon, but manipulable by something greater than any known Power, implies (to me) they were put there by someone with a plan that they didn’t want messed up.
It of course also makes me wonder what’s in the “unthinking depths” that they really didn’t want to get out.
I think any issues I have with this book spring from it being too long, because there are several fairly solid story ideas that don’t necessarily need to be run into each other, and several characters whose viewpoints we see but don’t really need to. Don’t get me wrong, individually the ideas are really strong (the way the galaxy works, the threat of the Blight, the idea of Pham and the godshatter, the hive-minded Tines and the impact of certain technologies on their society, the net of a thousand lies, the skroderiders, etc etc) but they didn’t all need to necessarily be in the same novel. I’m reminded of some of Grant Morrison’s work, where he’ll spend three pages giving you the lovingly-crafted in-depth backstory of the evil haunted kites made of human skin and bones and all of the terror they’ve inflicted on mankind…and then Robotman punches one in a single panel and that’s the last we ever see of them.
There are also a couple of “show, don’t tell” failures that the constant-changing viewpoints just make inexcusable. We’re told about a lot of the fighting in the last few chapters in hindsight, for example.
And upon reflection, I think this has the highest body count of any book I’ve ever read. Even if those taken by the Blight aren’t “dead” after the Countermeasure takes effect, between the military actions and the zone shifts, billions upon billions of sentients end up dead. Entire civilizations take the place of casualty numbers. A bookshelf worth of complex worlds dies every few chapters. It’s crazy.
Overall: This is a very good, very inventive book full of interesting ideas. It’s also damn long and occasionally confusing in its density. Recommended if you like sci-fi.
I think it’s a fairly standard sci-fi twist that if everyone believes something to be created by a god, it turns out to be naturally-occurring, and if everyone believes something (particularly something different from the universe we know) to be naturally-occurring, a god or sufficiently-advanced alien made it. Which, I mean, in retrospect, with the Zones, there were plenty of clues. It was foreshadowed in the Net messages, obviously, disguised as inane chatter. But also, given the details provided about it (that the Zones could be fairly effectively mapped and tracked like the weather), if the Zones were a natural phenomenon, there would have be more theory to how they formed and how they could be controlled. Maybe just at the level of “cloud seeding” to cause rain, but in effect, if a sensible system defined the Zones, somebody in the High Beyond would be futzing with them. The idea that they are unfutzable, not directly related to stellar phenomenon, but manipulable by something greater than any known Power, implies (to me) they were put there by someone with a plan that they didn’t want messed up.
It of course also makes me wonder what’s in the “unthinking depths” that they really didn’t want to get out.
I think any issues I have with this book spring from it being too long, because there are several fairly solid story ideas that don’t necessarily need to be run into each other, and several characters whose viewpoints we see but don’t really need to. Don’t get me wrong, individually the ideas are really strong (the way the galaxy works, the threat of the Blight, the idea of Pham and the godshatter, the hive-minded Tines and the impact of certain technologies on their society, the net of a thousand lies, the skroderiders, etc etc) but they didn’t all need to necessarily be in the same novel. I’m reminded of some of Grant Morrison’s work, where he’ll spend three pages giving you the lovingly-crafted in-depth backstory of the evil haunted kites made of human skin and bones and all of the terror they’ve inflicted on mankind…and then Robotman punches one in a single panel and that’s the last we ever see of them.
There are also a couple of “show, don’t tell” failures that the constant-changing viewpoints just make inexcusable. We’re told about a lot of the fighting in the last few chapters in hindsight, for example.
And upon reflection, I think this has the highest body count of any book I’ve ever read. Even if those taken by the Blight aren’t “dead” after the Countermeasure takes effect, between the military actions and the zone shifts, billions upon billions of sentients end up dead. Entire civilizations take the place of casualty numbers. A bookshelf worth of complex worlds dies every few chapters. It’s crazy.
Overall: This is a very good, very inventive book full of interesting ideas. It’s also damn long and occasionally confusing in its density. Recommended if you like sci-fi.
