Review: A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

Published: 1999 (Tor Books)

Series: Book 2 of Zones of Thought

Awards Nominated: Arthur C. Clarke, Locus SF, and Nebula Awards

Awards Won: Campbell, Hugo, and Prometheus Awards

The Book:

“Representatives of two human civilizations have come to explore the system of the mysterious “OnOff star”, which rekindles for only 35 of every 250 years.  The first are the Qeng Ho, a far-flung and loose-knit starfaring society of traders. The second are the Emergents, an empire whose power rests on the backs of the “focused”, humans whose minds and bodies are enslaved to serve the higher castes.  They both see the planet orbiting the OnOff star as a source of potential wealth, so cooperation between two groups with such drastically different ideologies may be impossible.

The other players in this tale are the inhabitants of the planet--a sentient spider-like species that goes dormant for each long darkness of their sun.  Their society develops as the humans lurk out of sight, and what role they might play is the least predictable element in human schemes many decades in the making.” ~Allie

I chose to read this book because I generally like Vernor Vinge, it received many awards, and I also enjoyed A Shadow Upon the Deep (which I read before I began this blog).

My Thoughts:

It’s a really big coincidence that I ended up reading two books about sentient spider civilizations relatively close together (this one and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time), especially given my strong aversion to spiders. However, the two books take very different approaches to spider civilization.  Tchaikovsky developed his spider civilization based on non-sentient spider behavior and the strengths and limitations of their biology.  Vinge, on the other hand, heavily anthropomorphized his spiders (explicitly so, through the translation of the human characters). The first approach highlights the differences and natural revulsion between humans and spiders, while the second approach aims to make the spiders seem approachable and familiar.  The one way this backfired for me was just that the spiders didn’t initially feel very alien--and I like societies that feel alien--so it didn’t catch my interest right away.  On the other hand, it also made it a lot easier to build emotional attachment to the spider characters.

As the story progresses, the reader sees more of the spider culture and how it is shaped by their environment.  The activity of the OnOff star makes for an unusual planet, where every living thing has to go dormant for hundreds of years on each off-cycle.  It was interesting to see the significance their culture attached to the cycles, and to see how the particular challenges of their world would influence the direction of their scientific progress.  I really like seeing fictional societies develop science, so this part of the story was a lot of fun. On the other side, there are also two unusual spacefaring human societies to learn about. This part played more or less like horror for me, since we were seeing a clash between a society that valued human rights, and one that was built on a foundation of slavery and mind control.

The spiders’ story seemed to move at a pretty rapid pace, but the human story was a tense and claustrophobic game of intrigue that played out slowly.  Both groups had a lot to gain and a lot to lose, and both were planning to get their way through careful manipulation. This long game also allowed for time to develop and explore the main characters and their histories, and I enjoyed learning about them and seeing parts of Qeng Ho history they’d lived through. There were some bits of the story that were really disturbing to read (violence, sexual violence, the idea of focus), but these parts were always portrayed as horrific.  All in all, it was a story with very clear good guys and bad guys, and I was satisfied with how everything came out in the end.

My Rating: 4.5/5

A Deepness in the Sky is an exciting far-future story of space-faring human civilizations as well as an interesting arachnid-like alien culture.  The story involves the technological development of the arachnid society on a planet that revolves a star which mysteriously turns on and off within a regular 250 cycle.   The represented human societies include one that values free trade, and another that values mind control and slavery, so it is always obvious which side is the ‘bad guys’. The spiders’ story was one of scientific discovery and adventure, while the human story was one of fear, careful schemes, and long-term manipulation.  Everything comes together very well in the end, making this yet another Vinge novel that I have enjoyed reading.

Review: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Published: Tor, 2006

Awards Won: Hugo and Locus SF Awards

Awards Nominated: Campbell Memorial and Prometheus Awards

The Book:

“Advances in medicine have rescued the elderly Robert Gu, world-class poet, from death’s door.  While he’s admired by many, the people closest to him know him as an abusive and hateful SOB.  While recovering, he lives with his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter Miri, a sunny young teen whom he’d never had the opportunity to wound. He has lost his place in the world, and his sense of how he relates to the people in it.  It’s difficult for him to go back to poetry, so he begins the painful process of trying to learn a new generation of technology through adult remedial education.

One thing that particularly grates on Robert is the lack of physical books in this new age, since most information has been digitized into searchable information.  When he learns from others of his generation that a new technology is going to digitize the library of his old university, destroying the books in the process, he falls into their clandestine scheme to throw a spanner in the works. Things are never simple in an interconnected world, though, and Robert has no way to know how far his actions will reach.” ~Allie

I’m finally coming in on reading the last few Hugo winners!  I’m currently reading Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky, and then my only remaining unread winner is Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold.  I’ve also read A Shadow Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge years ago, and as far as I can recall, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

My Thoughts:

Rainbows End imagines a fascinating future world filled with new technology.  Connectivity has moved into articles of clothing, and young people can manipulate information and communication with gestures.  I especially enjoyed how technology allowed you to play with perception.  You can transform your surrounding into Middle Earth, but still keep the relevant cues so that you can interact normally in the shared physical reality.  The novel also takes into account the downsides of a highly connected world.  For instance, most work is now about synthesizing information, and non-searchable data structures (like physical books) are neglected.  When most people are interacting through digital avatars, a more literal form of identity theft is also a problem.  Despite the downsides, it’s a very cool world, and one that I was happy to explore.

On the other hand, I was not particularly interested in the abusive jerk of a protagonist, Robert Gu. I’m also not exactly sure why his body was miraculously cured to youth, because it was irrelevant to the story.  Anyway, he has a deeply unpleasant personality, and I sympathized with his family’s dislike of him.  Robert does have a small character arc throughout the book, where he becomes gradually slightly less of an abusive jerk.  This might be a realistic depiction of the extent to which people can actually change, but in fiction it can feel a little unsatisfying. Aside from Robert, though, there were some sympathetic side characters.  His cheerful and intelligent granddaughter Miri was a favorite of mine, as well as his earnest and struggling remedial classmate Juan.  Some of the other elderly also have interesting takes on how to re-integrate into the current society.  For me, there were interesting and likeable characters here, they just weren’t Robert Gu.

Regarding the plot, I think I could best describe it as fitting in the slice-of-life genre.  I’ve seen the novel described as a thriller, but I feel that’s a little misleading.  There is a global conspiracy that may be a threat to the human race, but it’s heavily backgrounded.  The main story is about Robert’s daily life, his work with the remedial education class, and his relationships with his family.  Robert’s big conspiracy is just a plot with his old frenemies to mildly inconvenience the book digitizing/shredding operation.  The implementation of this plot leads to the most action-packed part of the book (which includes a really neat technological riot), but there’s not much narrative payoff from all the chaos.  I enjoyed the page-by-page of seeing life in this interesting future, though, so ultimately I’m happy to have read it.  

My Rating: 3.5/5

Rainbows End is a slice-of-life story featuring a jerk protagonist in an interesting future world.  I enjoyed exploring how ubiquitous connectivity affected people’s lives, as well as seeing the clever things that can be accomplished with augmented reality.  The main character, an abusive old man named Robert Gu, has a slight redemption character arc, but it was never enough to really make him likeable for me.  I preferred reading about some of the side characters, such as his granddaughter and his classmates.  There is a big, worldwide conspiracy involved here, but it’s the little, local conspiracies that are the focus of the novel.  This is not my favorite Vinge novel, but I did enjoy exploring its hypothetical future.