Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab.…
"A Fire Upon the Deep is a classic example of a novel that uses a big idea to power and amplify its plot. This kind of book usually doesn’t work for me, but in this case, the big idea is so appealing and so very, very big that I bought into it, and really loved how Vinge works it through the plot. That it has to do with how quickly people and communication can travel in the galaxy is, for me, part of its great appeal, as I love transportation and communication networks as a subject of story. In addition, one of the alien species in the novel is loosely inspired by dogs, and as a dog-lover, I love their depiction so much. The story is, at its root, about preventing a great cataclysm. I don’t want to say more about the plot. It is an older book with a somewhat older sensibility, and I haven’t re-read it recently so I can’t say for sure how it holds up, but I still am dazzled by its big idea even after all these years, so that counts for a lot."
