Pages : 579
Overall Mark : 6/10
Millennia hence, an unknown force has partitioned space into ‘zones of thought’, which dictate a mind’s potential – from superintelligence in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths. When an ancient Transcendent artefact is used as a weapon, an awesome destructive power is unleashed. Fleeing this threat, a family of scientists is captured by an alien race with a harsh medieval culture. A rescue party is assembled to retrieve them – and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.
VERNOR VINGE (1944-)
Vernor Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, a computer scientist and science fiction author. He is best known for his two epic space operas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) and A Deepness in the Sky (1999), both of which won the Hugo Award and were shortlisted for the Nebula. He is the winner of 5 Hugos, 4 Prometheus Awards and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, among many others.
VERDICT
Although I whizzed through this at a reasonable speed, and at no point was bored, I found it hard to understand what exactly was going on. I got the kidnapping parts and the dog creatures, and this was all fun and thoughtful, but the whole Blight attack felt like it went over my head and I didn’t really get to grips with it until close to the end of the book. Perhaps I hadn’t gotten into it at the beginning, and because of this I missed much of the important setup, but this didn’t stop me from enjoying the dramatic conclusion to an imaginative work.
