The children of the sky
by Vernor Vinge · first published 2011
33% recommend39% neutral27% critical
Why HN recommends it
Continues the Zones of Thought space opera with Ravna and the Tines, focusing on the group minds of the Tines world; fans of the series find it rich in worldbuilding and a good companion to A Fire Upon the Deep.
Common criticism: Many find it a middle book that leaves plot threads unresolved and moves slower.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Ten years have passed on Tines World, where Ravna Bergnsdot and a number of human children ended up after a disaster that nearly obliterated humankind throughout the galaxy. Ravna and the pack animals for which the planet is named have survived a war, and Ravna has saved more than one hundred children who were in cold-sleep aboard the vessel that brought them. While there is peace among the Tines, there are those among them--and among the humans--who seek power...and no matter the cost, these malcontents are determined to overturn the fledgling civilization that has taken root since the human
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…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 was always in short story…
on “William Gibson is a literary genius” ↗One of the best Space Opera books ever. A direct sequel The Children of the Sky is due to be released October 21st. To say I am super excited for its release is an understatement!
…Body Problem, though the third book went a little crazy at the end for me :-) I've also been really enjoying reading some Verner Vinge novels: - A fire upon the deep - A deepness in the sky - The Children of the Sky
on “Ask HN: Recent sci-fi recommendations” ↗I just finished reading Children of the Sky and re-reading A Deepness in the Sky. I've been finding with Vinge's work, along with Iain Bank's works, a lot of it is better the second time around. There's just so much to take in.
on “Vernor Vinge has died” ↗…read. If you've enjoyed it, He's got two more books in the Zones of Thought universe: A Deepness In The Sky, which follows Pham in his Queng Ho days before A Fire Upon The Deep (recommended!) as well as Children Of The Sky, which follows Ravna and the children on the Tines world as a direct sequel to Fire Upon The Deep.
on “A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)” ↗Or Fire, then The Peace War. Maybe dip into True Names, followed by Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. Many people didn't like Deepness much. But the sequel to Fire, Children of the Sky, was interesting.
on “The Unix timestamp will begin with 16 this Sunday” ↗I liked Children of The Sky, but in terms of plot it seems clearly meant to be a bridge to a next book, and seemed to suffer from the "middle book" syndrome of trilogies, losing a lot of the faster pace of the first book as it slowly…
on “A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)” ↗The whole trilogy was great, and I was sad when I finished The Children of the Sky because there weren't any more books set in that universe left to read. Another space opera I felt the same way about is Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga. There's also a trilogy and some other novels…
on “A Fire Upon The Deep By Vernor Vinge (1992)” ↗The third book, "The Children of the Sky" was actually really good. It spent a lot more time exploring the group minds of the Tines.
on “Do Portia Spiders Have a Mind? (2006)” ↗Coincidentally, I just finished reading "The Children of the Sky", which is a direct sequel to "A Fire Upon the Deep". It's pretty good, though IMO not as good as the original or the prequel "A Deepness in the Sky", which other commenters have mentioned. The Children…
on “A Fire Upon The Deep By Vernor Vinge (1992)” ↗:( Currently reading The children of the sky. And wow I had somewhat forgotten how good sci-fi can be. So much depth, such coherent and well thought out worlds.
on “Vernor Vinge has died” ↗Venor Vinge's The Children of the Sky is hard sci-fi touches on this issue of how to bootstrap a civilization to the point where the technology necessary to restore a highly advanced spaceship becomes available. Humanity will need this skill…
on “TSMC hikes chip prices up to 20% amid supply shortage” ↗…after they introduced the Kindle. Anyone interested in Vinge's annotation scheme can get a sense of it from this interview with Norwescon [1], which includes a screenshot of his working draft for The Children of the Sky. Short answer: he writes in Emacs, and uses a convention to incorporate reviewer comments, annotations, and his own tags intermingled with the actual text, and has a set of text processing tools for…
on “The Hypertext annotated version of “A Fire Upon the Deep” (1993)” ↗…substrates, etc) only working in certain parts of the galaxy was pretty unique. I read it before I knew what the Internet was, so when I first got access to Usenet after reading it, imagine my surprise. FYI, Children of the Sky (sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep) is planned for October, but I'm sure you probably know :)
on “The Economics of Science Fiction” ↗Yay! http://www.bestsfbooks.com/b/3119/The-Children-of-the-Sky The Children of the Sky Series: Zones of Thought #3 by Vernor Vinge (Tor, Oct-2011)
on “Show HN: BestSFBooks, Mashup of the Best SF/Fantasy Books” ↗