A Deepness in the Sky

I first read this book 18 months ago, and although I have read many, many books since then, I could answer questions about A Deepness In The Sky better than I could about the middling-to-average book I read just this week.

Vinge is a master at painting a huge universe in astonishing clarity while never losing sight of the story he is trying to tell in it. You read the book and enjoy the story, but the sense that there are so many more stories to tell is powerful.

The Qeng Ho were broadly outlined in a couple of pages in the preceding book A Fire Upon the Deep but here the entire meta-civilisation the character Pham Nuwen was instrumental in creating really comes alive. With surprisingly little information an image is created of a vibrant, exotic trading culture which deals with light-years at speeds lower than that of light.

I have heard it said that science fiction is the only truly mind-expanding drug, and never has it been more true (for me at least) than here. There is nothing quite so exhilarating as the slightly vertiginous feeling that accompanies a new worldview opening up before you, and that is what this book offers.