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Title details for A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge - Available

A Fire Upon the Deep

#1 in series

by Vernor Vinge
Peter Larkin
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.
Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.
Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.
A Fire Upon The Deep, which began the Zones of Thought series, is the winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Zones of Thought

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    February 2, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781427209344
      • File size: 623070 KB
      • Duration: 21:38:03

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 30, 1992
      It has been six years since Vinge's last book ( Marooned in Realtime ), but the wait proves worthwhile in this stimulating tale filled with ideas, action and likable, believable characters, both alien and human. Vinge presents a galaxy divided into Zones--regions where different physical constraints allow very different technological and mental possibilities. Earth remains in the ``Slowness'' zone, where nothing can travel faster than light and minds are fairly limited. The action of the book is in the ``Beyond,'' where translight travel and other marvels exist, and humans are one of many intelligent species. One human colony has been experimenting with ancient technology in order to find a path to the ``Transcend,'' where intelligence and power are so great as to seem godlike. Instead they release the Blight, an evil power, from a billion-year captivity. As the Blight begins to spread, a few humans flee with a secret that might destroy it, but they are stranded in a primitive low-tech world barely in the Beyond. While the Blight destroys whole races and star systems, a team of two humans and two aliens races to rescue the others, pursued by the Blight's agents and other enemies. With uninterrupted pacing, suspense without contrivance, and deftly drawn aliens who can be pleasantly comical without becoming cute, Vinge offers heart-pounding, mind-expanding science fiction at its best.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In a story that is both deep and wide, an artificial intelligence gains sentience, turns malevolent, and becomes a danger to all living things. This is a gross oversimplification of the plot, which involves love, physics, social networks, genocide, and alien civilizations. Peter Larkin reads at a quick pace and performs amazing feats of acting. His narration is authoritative, and his character voices are charming and layered. He even makes different races of aliens sound easily identifiable. But this labyrinthine tale may be too complex for most listening situations. Much of the story is revealed obliquely through characters' back stories, and being able to "flip back a couple pages" would be helpful. G.D. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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