Science Fiction · EpicHuman traders and a ruthless rival civilization meet an alien species on a planet orbiting a star that goes dormant
A Deepness in the Sky
by Vernor Vinge
Traders, a rival civilization and a species that sleeps with its star
Tor Books published the hardback in 1999, with 606 pages, and the paperback in 2000, with 775. It is a loose prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, set about 20,000 years earlier in the Slow Zone. The Spiders are an alien species at a technological level roughly comparable to early 20th-century Earth. The Qeng Ho are a human interstellar trading culture named after the explorer Zheng He, and the Emergents are a human civilization that has re-emerged from a dark age and uses enslavement and mind control. Bob Eggleton painted the cover.
More about this book
Who
Pham Nuwen, founder of the Qeng Ho, and Ezr Vinh, a Qeng Ho fleet manager.
World
The Slow Zone, with a planet whose star goes dormant for long periods.
What makes it different
The title is coined by a character and refers to his species' hibernation habits. It won the Hugo, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Prometheus Award.
Feel
Slow-building and large.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- A Deepness in the SkyWikipedia