Nevertheless, with the Emergents’ toasts of friendship to have divided the Trading Committee, worrying between the risk of their stay and the potential profit in their joint operations, and coming to an impasse, when their promises prove to be lies, and the very survival of the Qeng Ho depends solely on their willing cooperation, Ezr will find himself in a life he’d never have dreamed, putting him in a role among friends and enemies. Since Pham is in the fleet under an assumed name, Vinge milks the irony cow for all it's worth by having Tomas confess his admiration for the historical exploits of Pham Nuwen. It's notable though that in A Fire Upon the Deep, what got mentioned in my review and made the greatest impression were the alien characters, the dog-like Tines. Emergents εκμεταλλευτούν αυτή την ευκαιρία για να βάλουν σε κίνηση τα μακρά αναμενόμενα σχέδιά τους και να αρπάξουν την εξουσία, ο Ezr και ο Pham, ο Nau και η Qiwi, και ο Sherkaner, ο Hrunkner και η cele din urmă, folosindu-se de virusul minții un virus mental care eliberează o neurotoxină ce permite controlul persoanei infectate, inducându-i acesteia obsesia unei singure specializări, "focalizând-o" pe o singură idee, emergenții obțin controlul flotei și hotărăsc să supravegheze evoluția tehnologică a păianjenilor până când dezvoltarea acestora va permite repararea flotei și a habitatelor distruse în conflict.

As Apatt aluded to though, there's something about the book that doesn't ring 'right' to start with. The premise is definitely fantastic, and I'm not sure I've ever read a book with such a wonderful set-up.In a sense, they are human computers, something like the Mentats of Frank Herbert‘s Dune but far less independent. Vinge never falls into the all-too-common trap of becoming lost in his own world of gobly-gook highly theoretical science (While I recognize that many genre fans live for that stuff, I get very tired of science fiction books that essentially become a platform for the author to share his (really, it's usually his) ideas on futuristic technology). Any way, from the half way point onward this book is very involving and you may need a deFocus treatment afterward.

The first are Qeng Ho, wandering traders, who try to keep the human civilization (light years apart) the whole. The book discusses some of the problems of trying to maintain an interstellar trading culture without access to superluminal travel or to superluminal communication. When the spidey senses are tingling, better watch out for 8 legged surprises spinning towards your colonialists. So coming into A Deepness in the Sky I had a kind of hopeful trepidation - would it be another smash hit, or another dreadful miss?

Because that's the difference between Pham Nuwen and Tomas Nau, despite Tomas' own comparisons to the Pham Nuwen of Qeng Ho legend: Pham knows when to give up his dreams and embrace something new. Vinge also likes to do this thing where, not only is there dramatic irony because you know something the main characters don't, but he takes you inside the head of the villain. In this setting, then, with two warring groups orbiting around a planet hundreds of years from any advanced civilization and running short on resources, somehow these groups will have to become allies.

Unfortunately, it's a bad story, which Cole immediately picks up on, and comments, "You have to add some twists and stuff.Seven years later, he followed up with A Deepness in the Sky, set 20,000 years earlier in the same universe, and this captured the 2000 Hugo Award and John W. Just prior to its last turn-off there were radio messages from there – the first ever non-human industrial civilization and two expeditions are sent to make a contact.