A Deepness in the Sky

By: Vernor Vinge

Narrated by: Peter Larkin

Length: 28 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds. The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as it does every 250 years

Then, following terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by the Qeng Ho and Emergents alike.

More than just a great science-fiction adventure, A Deepness in the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love.

Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, the second installment of the Zones of Thought series, is a 1999 Nebula Award nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

©1999 Vernor Vinge (P)2009 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

• Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2000

"This prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep demonstrates Vinge's capacity for meticulously detailed culture-building and grand-scale sf drama." ( Library Journal)
"Major revelations, ironies, and payoffs.... A powerful story in the grandest SF tradition." (Amazon.com review)

Great Story, Poor Performance

What did you like best about A Deepness in the Sky? What did you like least?

The story is great. The performance was inappropriate. The voice is not without talent, but he has a matter-of-fact quality that is very wrong for certain parts of the story, especially the sex scenes which he makes very creepy and unlistenable, I ended up putting this down before finishing because the reader gave me the creeps. Not recommended. Maybe I will read this one soon.

Would you be willing to try another one of Peter Larkin’s performances?

Nope.

Better than expected

The other reviews are right: You have to stick with this book. It seems at first to be a standard space opera, but the plot gets more complicated as it evolves. The description of a sub-light speed space faring community is well thought out and believable. And the author knows his science.

Less believable are the aliens, who seem very human in their reactions. Given the cultural differences among earthlings, it is hard to believe that an alien world would have such similar psychologies to Americans. And the plot's pacing is somewhat erratic, sometimes slow and sometimes fast. I didn't mind it, but others may. And, yes, the author repeats things, but more as a reminder of where you are in the plot and where the character is at that moment. There are a number of leading characters to keep track of.

The story has its share of unexpected twists and turns, which kept me engaged. I look forward to more stories about the deep space traders.

Deep stuff.

I've read a fair amount of sci-fi in my day, including the greats like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Herbert. And yet, here in this story, my first introduction to Vernor Vinge, were profound and interesting concepts I have never seen expressed.

Most of the story took place with no clear heroes, where a group of sympathetic characters were stuck in a seemingly hopeless situation. There was slavery, treachery, tyranny, and exploitation on all sides. The story was tedious at times, and I kept checking the time remaining, even speeding up the playback just to get through it.

But I'm glad I did. There's nothing I hate more in a story than a bad ending. If you're like me and you're reading this, take my advice: Pick this one up, stick with it, and you'll be okay. It's a good book, ultimately hopeful and optimistic. There's even love, and redemption, along with excellent narration, world building, and cool little details that help you lose yourself in the scenes as they play out.

takes a while to get going

this story is ambitious. there are many groups and characters, all which need development. it takes a while before you feel any sort of connection

slow start

the book was a slow start but built into a solid enjoyable story. I look forward to continuing Vernor Vinge's series

Highly conflicted about this one

This one took me over two months to finish, a record in over 10 years of audible listening (normally I am done weeks before my next credit comes due, this book made me pile up two credits!) This is a good story, complex and involved, with multiple groups and amazing detail and scope. The problem was that the evil in this story was too overpowering (this was a problem in the previous book, and I suspect in all Vinge books. He does not give us villains with obvious weaknesses). In this case he also did not give us really good characters as a counter, (or hid them) The oppressive, overwhelming evil of the villains really made the first half of this book depressing. And it is a long book, so that is a long time. Perhaps it is the times we live in now as opposed to when the book came out. When the villains drowned the truth in a flood of lies and conspiracy theories near the end it was almost too much. I resisted turning the book in for a refund only because I knew there had to be a payoff at the end. There was. So I suppose this would be a four or five star review in someone who wasn't such a snowflake. Just be warned, It takes a long time before things start looking less bleak.

Seriously good science fiction

I absolutely love how Vinge creates actually alien aliens in truly creative situations. The technology aspect of his science fiction is creative while remaining more relevant than a lot of classic sci-fi. And all of it combines into a well structured story with sufficient depth to really let the reader get engulfed in the world with the characters, no matter how bizarre or frightening the descriptions may seem at first.

Slow start, but hang in there for a great read!

I think this is my favorite Vernor Vinge book to date (though I should listen to Rainbow's End again). The beginning was slow, but the second half of the book made it all worthwhile. A great cast of likable characters, two parallel worlds that eventually come together, lots of cool SF gadgets and surprises, interesting back stories, and more. I hope there is another book that takes place between this one and a "Fire Upon the Deep".

Mostly Boring

SciFi is my favorite genre but I almost quit this story a dozen times. If I explain all the problems and the lazy research effort made by the author, I'd end up with too many spoilers so I'll just touch on some of the obvious issues. First, it is annoying and impossible to follow the time statements. Here we are talking about interstellar travel with longer time issues than anything known today yet whenever a time period is mentioned, it is in hundreds or thousands or millions of seconds. Seconds? Why? First, it is virtually impossible to know how long an "Msec" is (not to mention that short for multiple seconds is "secs" which is pronounced the same as "sex" so at times it is confusing.) But if you are interested in knowing a length of time, you need to divide by 60 to get minutes and then by 60 again to get hours and then by 24 to get days and then by 365 to get years. Through the entire book you will end up just totally ignoring any reference to time periods. Then there are the aliens on the Arachnid planet who hibernate for 200 years when the sun goes dark and then come out for 40 years after it lights up into a star like Earth's sun which transforms the planet into a Goldilocks zone. It would be hard to believe such a situation could exist, even if it were a magical fantasy but as SciFi, it is ridiculous. But the spider culture is even more beyond belief. Not only do they have culture, language, idioms and phrasing (and a capital city called "Princeton") that is absolutely human (not even remotely alien) but in the 40 years of awake time they evolve from zero infrastructure to a spacefaring civilization including nuclear weapons. Although the story is interesting and has some elements that are worth experiencing, it is about four times as long as it needed to be for the actual story line to be presented so major portions are both boring and hard to follow. I will give this 3 stars because of the narration and the positive story arcs but I would not recommend it.

God damned amazing at all scales

Vernor Vingeb is an absolute genius, you must read this book. I loved 'A Fire Upon the Deep' but this was so much better in almost every regard.