A Fire Upon the Deep

Vernor Vinge
A Fire Upon the Deep Cover

A Fire Upon the Deep

spectru
4/14/2014
Email

Not a bad story, really, but so much time and effort is spent on gratuitous ersatz techno-mysticism. The Slowness, the Beyond, the Blight (especially the Blight), the Old One, the Surge, the Transcendence, etc. etc. etc. yadda yadda yadda. The story could have been well told in half its 600 and some odd pages. (actually, I heard its almost 22 hours of audio.) The story of the warring Tine packs and Jeffry and Joanna and long-coming rescue by Phan and Ravna, is a good story but one has to wade through so much science fiction fictional science clutter.