owlmoose | SpecFicChallenge #1: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I've gotten out of the habit of reading hard sci-fi. I read a lot of it in high school and college (as much as I read a lot of anything in college) because my dad and then my friends were fans of the genre, and although I enjoy reading it, I'm really more of a fantasy girl. But then, a few weeks ago R was talking about this book as though it were something that he assumed that I'd read, and when I admitted I hadn't, he recommended it highly. I bought a copy, and then I gave it to T because I was reading something else and he was complaining about not having anything to read. Then he finished it, and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity to read something he'd read recently and picked it up.

I liked it, quite a lot, and would easily recommend it to science fiction fans, a little more cautiously to eveyone else. Vinge throws you into the story without a whole lot of preamble or even exposition -- the reader is left to figure out the universe's technology and backstory on their own, which I found an intriguing exercise for the most part but occasionally it was a little frustrating; there are things about the science that I still don't understand. But it's a compelling story, both on the "universe in peril" level and on the "what will happen to these characters I've come to know and love?" level. It's a thoughtful look at what an interstellar society might look like several hundred thousand years from now, and it presents one of the most fascinating alien races that I've ever encountered in science fiction; I hesitate to say too much, because figuring out what was up with them was an excellent "A-ha!" moment, but if anyone else has read it and would like to discuss in comments, I'm more than game.

Threaded | Flat

I'm glad you liked it - I'm very fond of the book. I found a lot of the technology and backstory sort of like the fascinating alien race. It was clear early on that strange things were going on, and quite satisfying when I finally knew enough to see how it fit together. After reading it a couple of times, I think there are some inconsistencies in the logic of the background science which might explain why you feel you didn't understand it.

- R