Andrew
I don't get the hype. I liked the writing and found it to be an entertaining book but I didn't find that it fully expanded on any of the ideas it's discussing. The pacing feels off too and the ending felt abrupt and unsatisfying.
Starts off interesting but doesn't hold up.
The Piggy plotline feels poorly thought out and characters actions don't seem logical under scrutiny.
Ender is more obnoxious than the first book, bordering on insufferable as he Mary Sue's his way through every situation with every other character fawning over him.
The main focus ends up becoming all the relationships between the characters, which is unfortunate considering Orson doesn't seem to be very good at writing believable characters or dialogue.
If you really enjoyed the first book I'd say it's worth a try.
As others have said, incredibly dry. Nothing about the characters or dialogue is interesting. The plot is essentially explained from a distance by characters talking very dryly. I did not find the conflict interesting in the slightest and it was not easy to suspend my disbelief.
The main sci-fi aspect being psyco-whatever its called, the idea that you can predict far distant events by knowing the present very well. I cannot accept this as a plot point because of my knowledge of chaos theory. There is a reason the weather is incredibly hard to predict further past ~10 days, even with thousands upon thousands of sensors and sophisticated simulations.
I can imagine the relevance this book once had, but I got no joy or stimulation from my attempt at reading it.
An interesting read, but fails to fully expand on it's ideas.
The opening of the book was difficult to follow. Usually I enjoy a story that respects its readers intelligence, a book that isn't afraid to have the reader be temporarily confused as they slowly take in the details of the universe. However, A Fire Upon the Deep pushes this too far. We are introduced to multiple different characters of different species, in different locations of the universe. All the while, a universe level cataclysm is brewing - involving a complicated tiered universe that must be understood to fully appreciate the intensity of the conflict. This all happens in basically the opening chapters of the book. It's simultaneously very interesting and very frustrating because of how quickly we are forced to accept all this information.
Further aggravating this frustration is that, as the book continues past the opening it has seemingly run out of ideas. Vernor seems to have spent all his ideas creating the universe and saved nothing to keep readers interested as the book progresses. What we are left with is a mostly shallow, and quite frankly boring “race against time” that reads like a police chase taking place on an escalator, in which both parties are unable to move their feet. There are few compelling characters and very little story development. The book just meanders slowly towards it's inevitable conclusion at a painstakingly slow pace.
Among the interesting ideas that Vernor fails to satisfyingly elaborate on is the Tines - a race of dog like creatures who must combine into groups of multiple individuals to form single entity. I found it an very compelling idea, but the book fails to satisfyingly explore the idea. Aside from a few core differences, the Tines form a civilization essentially the same as humankind. They develop castles, bows and arrows, and boats all in basically the exact same form as humans have. Perhaps Vernor is exploring the idea that all invention must converge on a few core concepts - if so that belief was not adequately explored. And so the compelling idea of a multi-minded race become essentially packs of intelligent dogs imitating humans. It's frustrating and ultimately gets worse in the book that follows A Fire Upon the Deep.
If you crave Sci-fi in all it's forms, by all means give the book a shot. There are enough interesting ideas to make the book readable.
If you crave storytelling, interesting characters and philosophical ideas explored in interesting ways - stay away.
Fantastic read.
Sex, religion, poetry, philosophy and more are present and handled well. The sci-fi aspects are well done and without distracting miss-predictions that plague sci-fi novels that try too hard to guess the future.
I really enjoyed the format the book was written in and the styling choices that came along with that. Specifically how each individual story was written with a very distinct style. The characters were pretty well fleshed out and interesting, however if I had to nitpick I would say they fall a little bit too cleanly into stereotypes. Despite that minor nitpick I liked all the characters and the way in which we get to know them.
I know it's pointless to say, because I've so often read these words and completely disagreed with them, but it's a must read sci-fi novel in my eyes. Looking forward to diving into the next book in the series.
Context: The movie based on the book is one of my favourites, and that definitely coloured my perspective and set my expectations high.
The writing is just ok. Michael does a good job bringing the characters to life, allowing the reader to more easily keep track of everyone involved. But he comes off a bit insensitive with Michael Berry's (MB) Aspergers. Towards the end of the book he spends a lot of time sort of teasing the reader and building suspense towards the reveal, but the reveal ends up being pretty much meaningless. Readers who are familiar with the autism spectrum will have already guessed/suspected the diagnosis and it serves little to no purpose to the reader aside from giving more context to MB's behaviour.
That being said, that complaint is pretty nit picky. It's an entertaining enough read and the events the book is based on are absolutely fascinating in a morbid way. If you've watched the movie there is little reason to read this book aside from getting a slightly better understanding of the nitty gritty details.
The book starts off far more interestingly than it's predecessor - however it takes a steep dive into monotony. The story develops at a painstaking pace and when interesting things do happen, they feel inconsequential - almost as if it was written in serial form.
Most egregious of all is the race the book centers around - a species of aliens in the form of giant spiders. The Spiders are so incredibly similar to human beings that it is hard not to start imagining them as bipedal humans. They drive automobiles (I'm not sure Vernor even bothered explaining how a spider controls a car) and build skyscrapers. Their culture is formed almost identical to ours, differing nation states, armies with generals and engineers, nuclear families with a mom and dad and kids. It's all so incredibly familiar that it's frustrating.
I made it halfway through the book before throwing in the towel and writing this review. Vernor created an interesting universe in A Fire Upon the Deep but he consistently fails to expand on his ideas or to write compelling... anything.
Filled with interesting ideas, but the execution was not to my liking.
Similarly to The Stand, the middle section of the book is a depressing slog and the ending does not make up for it. The main character goes through ordeal after ordeal and the reader is never adequately rewarded for sticking with the book.
The book is filled with cheeky pop-culture references that are neither funny nor clever and only serve to take the reader out of the book. Particularly the phrase “Can you give me hallelujah”. This phrase is drilled into the readers mind over and over, seemingly as a joke? I don't understand what the motivation for repeating this cheesy line over and over was, but it made the book that much more annoying to read for me.
Again, there are tons of interesting ideas, however none of them are really expanded on which makes the middle section of the book depressing and uninteresting.
I thought the book opened really well, very descriptive flavourful text and the beginnings of an interesting world.
It went downhill quick for me though. I found the dialogue overly stiff and formal, and the female characters are questionable. Early into the novel the main character seduces a travelling actor, strips and enters her bed while she's asleep (we don't hear her reaction we just know she approves because she compliments his sexual abilities in the next scene). Then, after a short back and forth where he tells her he's in love with her or whatever, she proceeds to recite her entire backstory to him complete with a murder of “insert loved one” that she is avenging long-con style. To top the scene off, we have a painfully on the nose discussion about how civilized people are the real barbarians.
If dialogue and engaging plot is unimportant to you then I might recommend this book. I was quite enjoying it until the dialogue & plot kicked in.
Got bored a third of the way through. It's schlock, not terrible but overall pretty silly.
The writing is a bit too flamboyant at times but is fairly engrossing. The plot is not structured very well and seems to rush from plot point to plot point without giving the reader much time to get settled. The “good” characters are written pretty well and are diverse (personality wise) and interesting, but the “villains” are one dimensional and boring.
*SPOILER
The first “villain” has moments where he seems like he might have some depth to him but in the end he's just a slimy git and he dies and the story moves on immediately with very minor consequenses. It feels like a total waste of time and is compressed into what is essentially the intro of the book. It's so confusing narratively.
Anyways, if you like sword fighting badasses, loud but noble kings, one dimensional baddies, and cheesy romance, you will probably like this book. It's ok.
Long and depressing. I found the beginning very entertaining, especially when Captain Trips really takes hold. The middle of the book seemed to drag on forever though, and given the dark tone of the book it became a depressing slog for me. I enjoyed it but I wish I had read the shorter version.