A Deepness in the Sky
by Vernor Vinge · first published 1999
57% recommend41% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Idea-driven space opera on interstellar trade, an alien civilization with a cycling star, and far-future software work like programmer-archaeology. Suits programmers and fans of hard sci-fi.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From inside cover Tor First Edition March 1999: Thirty thousand years before the events of A Fire upon the Deep, Pham Nuwen is living in anonymity among the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet. In high orbit above the planet Arachna, they wait for the awakening of its dormant population, the Spiders, who have burrowed deep into the planet, awaiting the relighting of the On/Off star their planet orbits. For when light returns, Arachna will at long last explode into a Golden Age of technology and commerce. But the slumbering Spiders' vulnerability has attracted another lurking presence
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…I recommend reading "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, it's about the process of uplifting spiders and how humans re-establish contacts with them. Another great book about smart "spiders" is "A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge, my favorite in the "Zones of Thought" series.
on “Spiders are much smarter than you think” ↗I'd have to recommend 'A deepness in the sky' and 'A fire upon the deep' by Vernor Vinge. Both really good science fiction books where your initial perception is slowly shown to be incorrect as more details appear about the characters, and with…
on “Ask HN: Recommend one book I need to read this summer?” ↗Highly, highly recommend Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky [0], which won the Hugo in 2000. It's a hard-sci-fi story about how various societies, human and alien, attempt to assert control & hegemony over centuries of time (in many ways thinking of this as a…
on “A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)” ↗I'm fond of "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge, and its kind of prequel "A Deepness in the Sky", they both contain some great ideas and I love the fact they have some very alien aliens! Oh and if you haven't read any Douglas Adams "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is fantastic
on “Ask HN: What are the best Sci-Fi books you've ever read?” ↗…remains the most enjoyable books I've ever read. The Pillars of the Earth comes close though. Terrific sci-fi reads were Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Hyperion, Ringworld, and to a lesser extent A Deepness in the Sky. Also Excession, whose human characters are poorly developed and written but whose world-building and AI characters are amazing. Terrific fantasy reads were The Time-Traveler's Wife, as well as The Name…
on “Ask HN: What are some must read books?” ↗Vaguely on topic - the novel A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge touches on this subject a fair bit. potential spoilers follow Essentially, no spacefaring civilization is stable over long time scales, a culture (the Qeng Ho) get by through predicting…
on “The Theory of Interstellar Trade” ↗I never truly enjoyed that book, but Vinge’s A Deepness In The Sky is the most beloved sci-fi book for both me and the wife.
on “The Hypertext annotated version of “A Fire Upon the Deep” (1993)” ↗…torture, graphic violence and emotional abuse as an end unto itself. If you want an example of science fiction as high art, personally I would suggest Vernor Vinge (specifically A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky) and Ursula Le Guin.
on “Gene Wolfe Turned Science Fiction into High Art (2019)” ↗Kirill is a character in Vadim Panov's Enclaves. To the greater conversation, my relationship with sci-fi is on-and-off but I really enjoyed A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. This one got me back into it. I recently finished the Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space trilogy which was amazing except for the third novel which was a little tiresome and ultimately…
on “The Culture War: Iain M. Banks’s Billionaire Fans” ↗…the book would be made worse for removing it, but the first time through it doesn't feel that way. I like it better on re-reads, but this is a lot to ask of a reader. (Another one I feel this way is A Deepness in the Sky by Vinge. It's packed with goodness and I love it, but in the first read the middle half of the book can really drag since the goodness isn't in the "A plot".) Finally, if you make it this far, Chapterhouse…
on “Dune Genesis (1980)” ↗Those two are fantastic, and if you like Vernor Vinge check out "A Deepness in the Sky" -- I think it's his best work, and is much more plausible (centered around slower-than-light travel). I have a few more recommendations in that vein here: http://compellingsciencefiction.com/blog/2016-12-18.html
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗In a hard SF rather than contemporary context, A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge, is an absolute delight (and a Hugo winner for best novel). Vinge was a mathematics and computer science professor, and very much knows what he's talking about. Part of the fun is that,…
on “Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?” ↗…trilogy by Liu Cixin Great Reads: - Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - Glasshouse, Neptunes Brood & Saturns Children by Charles Stross - Rendezvous with Rama by Isaac Asimov - Hyperion by Dan Simmons - A Deepness in the Sky by Verner Vinge The two categories are pretty subjective, due to personal taste but also the fact that all of the concepts in the more recent books were new to me (whereas they may be quite familiar…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗Vernor Vinge does a great job with this in A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. I do wish that he had written more about Pham Numen and the Qeng Ho, back in their Slow Zone heyday. Alastair Reynolds also does a great job with this in his Revelation Space trilogy, with his lighthuggers.
on “Ways to travel at nearly the speed of light” ↗…Woken Furies). Closest in tone. For god's sake don't watch the Amazon series for plot. Effinger comes up on a lot of lists, although I haven't read it myself yet. Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky, The Children of the Sky). Space opera instead of cyberpunk, but shares early Gibson's "incremental exposition," where you figure things out gradually vs all at once. Tbh, I think the best cyberpunk…
on “William Gibson is a literary genius” ↗