A Deepness in the Sky

This one has been on my “to read” shelf for a long time. I read Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep decades ago and was planning to re-read it, but based on my “research” this book, though written after AFUtD is actually a chronological prequel, so I decided to start with this one.

Wow. Very very good book. Enjoyable characters. Intricate relationships and twists throughout the book.

This book concerns 2 separate groups of characters: Humans who have come to an unusual planet which orbits a variable start that is “lit” for 30ish years and then is dim for 200ish years. Humans in 2 separate groups arrive within months of each other just prior to the “re-lighting.” The other major group is the “spiders” who are the sentient species from the planet the humans have come to investigate.

Through the novel the narrative switches between the humans and the spiders. There is a ton of intrigue among both groups and I found myself really engaged with several of the characters from both sides.

I really found this one to be enjoyable, and you can tell why it won the Hugo award in 2000 (Vernor Vinge has won 3 Hugos). Vinge also wrote 2 other books (The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime) that I read back in the early 90's and enjoyed tremendously... to the degree that I wish he had continued with the characters and themes. Needless to say, I'm recommending all of his stuff at this point and will be following up with A Fire Upon the Deep in the not too distant future.