Zones of Thought
Vinge's masterpieces together at last, in one epic volume The Hugo Award winning A FIRE UPON THE DEEP and its epic companion novel A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY, set in the same universe but 20,000 years earlier, were benchmarks for SF in the last decade of the 20th century. In FIRE '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 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.' Publisher's Weekly In DEEPNESS, 'the story has the same sense of epic vastness despite happening mostly in one isolated solar system. Here there's a world of intelligent spider creatures who traditionally hibernate through the "Deepest Darkness" of their strange variable sun's long "off" periods, when even the atmosphere freezes. Now, science offers them an alternative. Meanwhile, attracted by spider radio transmissions, two human starfleets come exploring - merchants hoping for customers and tyrants who want slaves.
Stats for nerds
11recommend
32mentions
26people
2011–2026years
41% recommend59% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Love the Culture books, wish I could wipe my brain and discover them again.
It's not too much like Banks' stuff, but I must recommend Glasshouse by Charles Stross. Far-future humanity, really interesting ideas re: war, identity, memory and infohazards.
Also if you've not already read Vinge's "Zones of Thought" books, absolutely get on that.
- This totally misses Vernor Vinge, who ended up concocting "Zones of Thought". See his classic "A Fire Upon the Deep" for another work of fiction were something weird has to be in place to keep singularities from happening.
- Might be time to reread Vinge's Zones of Thought books.
Sub in chiplets for motes. Also antennae are not the only side channel attack out there.
- I think most hard sci-fi readers don’t give two hoots if their literature of choice is written by a western white man, Māori non-binary person or even an AI.
On topic, I deeply disagree with the original commenter, these books can easily stand shoulder to shoulder with series like The Expanse or the Zones of Thought trilogy (by Vernor Vinge).
- I acknowledge that I'm digressing into general Vinge talk here instead of Zones of Thought, but Rainbow's End was good, too, as more of a near-future vision that, these days, would barely be considered sci-fi. It's also got some elements that are scarily analogous to current trends in government/social media/political dialogue.
- Vinge already cemented himself with the peace war books, but his ability to present otherness in the Zones of Thought books is probably his most impressive accomplishment.
Spiders you both can and can’t understand, and then hive mind mammals… The facile approach would be to cut out the middleman and make hive insects, and he did not. The speed of sound aspect of his hive mind was a brilliant stroke, the intergenerational element was the cherry on top.
Related
2013–2026
The Zones of Thought Series
17 recommend · 27
A Deepness in the Sky
202 recommend · 551
The Peace War
24 recommend · 51
A Fire upon the Deep
227 recommend · 563
Rainbows End
112 recommend · 337
The children of the sky
11 recommend · 38
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
123 recommend · 540
