A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky.

The Short of It

Plot: The Qeng Ho embark on a mission to establish trade with the Spiders, who are on the cusp of an industrial revolution, but run into the Emergent Fleet - a competing human faction.

Page Count: 775

Award: 2000 Hugo

Worth a read: Yes!
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass
Technobabble: High
Review: Take that sweet sweet sci fi and shoot it into my veins. An extremely ambitious book that sticks the landing. Parallel human and alien stories keep things interesting. Plot stays engaging throughout, though some beats feel like forced obstacles. Semi-omnipotent narration works a charm to ratchet up tension. Interesting societal structures that flow logically from unique physical characteristics of the Spider world. A wide array of great characters, both human and Spider. 

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

There are going to be mild spoilers for A Fire Upon the Deep, to which this is a loose prequel. 

It is a challenge here to give a spoiler free review because there is just so much that happens over the course of the nearly 800 pages of this literary doorstop. There are at least a half dozen major storylines and another dozen minor ones:

1. Human exploration of the OnOff planet.
2. Industrialization of the Spiders.
3. Founding of the Qeng Ho (via flashback)
4. Pham Nuwen's life (relevant in A Fire Upon the Deep)
5. Interaction of the Qeng Ho and Emergents
6. Spider internal politics.

These are only the vaguest outlines, of course. And there are plenty of other things that could be considered major plotlines but have some spoilers. 

Overall a superb demonstration of building upon the framework established in the previous book. The vaguest of plot outlines - galactic stakes back the collision of human and alien collision on one seemingly unimportant world - apply just as well to both. But this is the Assassin's Creed II of sequels: it takes a strong foundation and improves almost every aspect of it. You liked odd societal structures? Boom, take some more! And throw in a wacky geology too! You were a big fan of the medieval technology of the previous book? Let's get to the Industrial Revolution! Enjoyed the tantalizing history teased in A Fire Upon the Deep? While here's more! And it's got its own history! Wanted more human factions? Sure, take them. It's just a ton of great SF. 

As to why it makes sense to read after A Fire Upon the Deep, despite being a prequel:

This answers a lot of questions about Pham Nuwen which were raised as possibilities in the original. The mystery surrounding what is and is not real about his reconstructed personality is an important aspect of A Fire which is undercut by knowing more about him. Plus, (everything here is opinion, but this is extra-opinion) this one is better. It'd be hard to read the sequel after the prequel.

In almost any respect this is a masterpiece. The world-building is top-notch: the details of the OnOff star and the planet around it, the evolution of humanity, how the Spiders live and act. Characters are plentiful and varied: each is driven by personal motivations, each has their own speech pattern, and even characters we hate are compelling. There are a whole slew of plots that all tie together beautifully. One of the only frustrating choices is one that plagues plenty of fiction: the number of issues that would be solved if two people just had a decent conversation. Happens a bit too frequently here.

It's great. That's what I've got to say about it, you should read it. It's a rare sequel that exceeds its (already good) predecessor in every respect.

If you want to give it a read, consider using the link below! I'll get a few cents at no extra cost to you!

A Linkness in the Link

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

No good way to bring up Focus in a non-spoiler fashion. Focus: the use of a virus to effectively reprogram a mind to obsessively pursue a single task with savant-like diligence. Take a mathematician and focus them, get a perfect calculator that forgets to eat. Take a linguist, they'll solve an alien language but won't sleep. 

It's obvious from the drop that the Emergents are going to be evil. They're competing humans, and we like ours, so these need to be the bad guys. Yet they seem fine. It's Trixia, one of the linguists, who comments:

"...I heard a dozen authoritarian turns of speech—and they didn’t seem to be fossil usages. The Emergents are accustomed to owning people, Ezr.”

“You mean slaves? This is a high-tech civilization, Trixia. Technical people don’t make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.”

She squeezed his hand abruptly, not angry, not playful, but intense in a way he’d never seen with her before. “Yes, yes. But we don’t know all their kinks. We do know they play rough. I had a whole evening of listening to that reddish-blond fellow sitting beside you, and the pair that were on my right. The word ‘trade’ does not come easily to them. Exploitation is the only relationship they can imagine with the Spiders."

This is the first hint of Focus. How do you create and exploit slaves while still maintaining expertise? You make them so wed to their task that it is the only thing about which they care. Focus serves a few other purposes as well. First, the Qeng Ho are not exactly good people either. They're mercenary capitalists who are willing to let things get worse for others if it increases profit margins. Pitted against destroying and enslaving minds, they become a clear force for good. Second, Ezr, who should have an A at the end of his name, is driven by as desire to un-Focus the woman he loves. This anger keeps him going. Third, Focus is the solution to Pham Nuwen's issue of expanding the Qeng Ho.

Yes, the price was high. Pham remembered the rows of zombies up in Hammerfest’s Attic. He could see a dozen ways to make the system gentler, but in the end, to use Focused tools, there would have to be some sacrifice.
Was final success, a true Qeng Ho empire, worth that price? Could he pay it?
Yes and yes!

Pham Nuwen's desire to take over the use of the Focused for his own imperial aims suddenly makes him a villain and fragments our support of the Qeng Ho. Ezr wants nothing more than to end Focus; Pham seems it is a new opportunity. It's a conflict that makes sense for both of them: Ezr born into the Qeng Ho as a lose trade empire, Pham born as (basically) a medieval prince. Of course they want to extend those ideologies - free market and free people vs a clear top-down power structure.

Surprises! are nice sometimes. First nice surprise: the first few chapters from the perspective of a Spider do not have any notes to say that this is not a human. It's a great way of having the reader view them as people first and foremost, and aliens as a secondary characteristic. Second surprise: that ending! It's an actual curveball. The human translators and Spiders were secretly communicating to take down the Emergents. Well written, well executed, and very tense.

I like this one a lot, obviously.

Maybe let the spider in your shower live another day, Stranger.
And don't forget to read a book!