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30 Sci-Fi Books To Read Before You Die
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Sign up todayA Fire Upon The Deep
Zones of Thought: Book #1
Narrator
Peter Larkin
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Length
21 hours 37 minutes
Language
English
A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale.
Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit 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 the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.
A Fire Upon The Deep, which began the Zones of Thought series, is the winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Vernor Vinge has won five Hugo Awards, two of them for novels in the Zones of Thought series, A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Known for his rigorous hard-science approach to science fiction, he became an iconic figure among cybernetic scientists with the publication in 1981 of his novella “True Names,” which is considered a seminal, visionary work of Internet fiction. His many novels also include Marooned in Realtime, Rainbows End and The Peace War.
Peter Larkin has lent his voice to over a dozen audiobooks, including works by Michael Savage and Neil Gaiman. He has won AudioFile Earphones awards for many of his narrations, including Life Among Giants by Bill Roorbach and Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook. Larkin has worked as a DJ, as a host of both a radio and a television show, and as a producer of many industrial films for many of the country's top companies, corporations, and governmental agencies.
Reviews
“Fleeing a menace of galactic proportions, a spaceship crashes on an unfamiliar world, leaving the survivors--a pair of children--to the not-so-tender mercies of a medieval, lupine race. Responding to the crippled ship's distress signal, a rescue mission races against time to retrieve the children and recover the weapon they need to prevent the universe from being changed forever. Against a background depicting a space-time continuum stratified into 'zones of thought,' the author has created a rarity--a unique blend of hard science, high drama, and superb storytelling.” —Library Journal
“A tale that burns with the brazen energy of the best space operas of the golden age. Vinge has created a galaxy for the readers of the '90s to believe in...immense, ancient, athrum with data webs, dotted with wonders.” —John Clute, Interzone
“Vernor Vinge's best novel yet.” —Greg Bear, author of Moving Mars
“Vast, riveting, far-future saga.... The overall concept astonishes; the aliens are developed with memorable skill and insight, the plot twists and turns with unputdownable tension. A masterpiece of universe building.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The first grand SF I've read in ages...Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.” —David Brin, author of Earth
“Fiercely original...Compelling ideas in the book include problems and advantages of group mind, galactic communications turbidity, and the prospect of civilizations aspiring to godhood.” —Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog
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