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A Fire Upon the Deep
- Narrated by: Peter Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's Summary
A Fire Upon the Deep is the big, breakout book that fulfills the promise of Vinge's career to date: a gripping tale of galactic war told on a cosmic scale. Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function.
Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought", but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.
Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization.
A Fire upon the Deep, which began the Zones of Thought series, is the winner of the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
What the critics say
- Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1993
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What listeners say about A Fire Upon the Deep
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kaylee M.
- 2023-07-24
OK story but not sure what the hype is about
the overall story was interesting but not like the best hard science fiction I've ever heard. I really hated the narration of the new stories, very monotone and hard to listen to. had to skip through most of it.
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- howard sangster
- 2023-09-18
I understand why this won the Hugo
I’ve never read a Vernon Vinge book that failed to impress me. This book impressed me. My only complaint is it is part of a series and is slightly less satisfying when you finish than a stand alone novel, because you know you are not done yet.
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- Karla Doell
- 2023-08-07
Words fail to express: Exellence
Some minds won't understand why this book has the power to shape minds, our models of reality, languages, and our relationships for the better. It is a part of how to recover our own civilization from it's current unraveling (2023).
It's hope. A guide. A masterpiece.
I will attempt to teach some minds what it has to offer. You, dear reader, will likely never hear how this goes. What struggles, what power, what wisdom will be given birth?
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-12-02
Good story, bad performance
The voice act is not that good, Good story, bad performance , sometimes read too fast
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- clevrgrl
- 2021-09-23
Distracting Narration
This is a good six-go book with an engaging story, interesting and relatable characters and well thought out alien species. The narration is cartoonish, though, and I found that distracting.
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- kelsey palis
- 2022-12-23
A good read
Fantastic book. Loved the complexities of the "Tynes" creatures (sorry for spelling, it was an audiobook after all). Narration took some getting used to, but I find that with many of the audio books I listen to.
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- Jonathan Alexiou
- 2022-02-08
Must Read for Hard Scifi Fans
Interesting Aliens, weird physics, relatable characters. As long as your cool with alittle 80/90s style campy narrations, (which I actually really liked) then dive right in friend!
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-01-20
That was pretty cool.
Seemed a little complex at the start,, "part of audio book problem/experience. With a traditional book,, you can jump back and study, what you didn't get. But it was just getting up to speed with a truly creative writer's, vast and very unique vision. Going to be listening to this one again, in the future.
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- David
- 2020-03-07
Interesting story campy naration
Ideas in the story are interesting but the narrator uses voices that seem like satire. For me this really detracted from the story. The characters also seemed very cliche.
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