num_pages: 613
description: Alternate Cover Edition can be found here. 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.
language: English
title: A Fire Upon the Deep
titlecomplete: A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought, #1)
characters: Pham Nuwen, Peregrine Wickwrackrum, Blueshell, Johanna Olsndot, Greenstalk, Jefri Olsndot, Steel, Ravna Bergsndot, Tyrathect, Flenser, Scriber Jaqueramaphan
genres: Audiobook, Aliens, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Hugo Awards, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Space, Space Opera
ratings_count: 59132
series: Zones of Thought
awards: awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 694252800000
name: Nebula Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 725875200000
name: Locus Award
category: Best SF Novel, awardedAt: 820483200000
name: Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis
category: Bester ausländischer SF-Roman, awardedAt: 725875200000
name: John W. Campbell Memorial Award, awardedAt: 820483200000
name: Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire
category: Traduction, awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Premio Ignotus
category: Mejor novela extranjera, awardedAt: 725875200000
name: SF Chronicle Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Prix Cosmos 2000
publisher: Tor Science Fiction