A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
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A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
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Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#2TIL archive.org has a lending library. This is a great book.
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#3I had to google what "ENCRYPTED DAISY download. For print-disabled users" means.
""Print disabled" books are those that have been specially formatted in the DAISY format for users who can not read regular print books. These titles are only accessible on a specialized device to patrons having a key issued by the Library of Congress."
"The Digital Accessible Information SYstem (DAISY) format is a means of creating digital talking books for people who wish to hear--and to navigate--written material presented in an audible format. DAISY helps those with "print disabilities," including blindness, impaired vision, and dyslexia, to read electronic texts that have been converted into its format. The DAISY consortium was formed in 1996 by talking book libraries around the world to lead the transition from analog talking books into digital format."
Imagine; machine readable, content separated from presentation, no mandatory awful UI, no DRM; dreadful. Good thing it's restricted to special Library issued keyholders only. /s
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#4The first intelligent life from earth to meet extraterestial intelligent life will be a dog, and it will speak mandrin.
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#5A fantastic book. It will really make you ache for more information, though. Why do ascended beings only hang around for a few years and where do they go? What fraction of living beings survived the Blight and the Countermeasure? What is the present-day status of Earth?
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#6Easily one of my favorite books of all time. It’s also always thoroughly enjoyable to reread, there’s lots of little details and foreshadowings you catch each time.
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#7If anyone's purchasing this as an ebook, note that there is (unusually) a DRM-free version available [0]. I'm not sure if this is the publisher (Tor Books) or the author's decision -- the publisher's DRM philosophy been discussed on HN [1][2] but I don't know what the current information is.
[0] for example (.epub), https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/a-fire-upon-the-deep-1
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5630104 ("One Year Later, the Results of Tor Books UK Going DRM-Free")
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3885513 ("More on DRM and ebooks")
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#8Great book. I put Vinge in the same small group of criminally-underappreciated scifi authors who can really think and really write as Adrian Tchaikovsky and Nick Harkaway. Highly recommended.
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#9A fantastic book. It will really make you ache for more information, though. Why do ascended beings only hang around for a few years and where do they go? What fraction of living beings survived the Blight and the Countermeasure? What is the present-day status of Earth?
I think looking at things like Stargate SG-1 seasons 9/10 show why it's better to be left with such questions than answers. And I think that no author would be able to satisfyingly describe concepts like that anyway, just the way that their "mortal" characters perceive such concepts.
Re: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
#10This is in my list of top 10 (ish) books I've 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.