A Fire Upon the Deep
A space opera of superhuman minds and variable physics.
American author Vernor Vinge wrote the science fiction novel A Fire Upon the Deep, which was published in 1992.[1] The 1993 Hugo Award was given to both A Fire Upon the Deep and Connie Willis's Doomsday Book.[1]
Quick Facts
- Original title
- Among the Tines
- Author
- Vernor Vinge
- Cover artist
- Boris Vallejo
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Series
- Zones of Thought series
- Genre
- Hard science fiction
- Publisher
- Tor Books
Facts from the source article.
Making and release
The novel was published by Tor Books.[2] The annotated version was later released as a standalone e-book.[3] The un-annotated A Fire Upon the Deep was one of the first titles offered by Palm Digital Media, then known as Peanut Press.[4] A loose prequel, A Deepness in the Sky, was published in 1999.[3]
A direct sequel, The Children of the Sky, was released in October 2011.[5] Vinge's initial choice for the novel's name was "Among the Tines".[6] Patrick Nielsen Hayden stated that the final title came from a brainstorming session where he suggested using elements from Shakespeare and the Old Testament, with "fire" and "the deep" among the contributions he made.[7] In 1993, Brad Templeton of ClariNet proposed putting the novel on a special Hugo/Nebula Award CD-ROM he was assembling, and it was included along with illustrations and a low-resolution movie.[4]
What the cited sources add
The Slashdot review states the novel is set 38,000 years in the future on the outskirts of the galactic rim.[4] The story is told from multiple viewpoints, switching between Tines' World and Out of Band II.[4] The novel was one of the first to present a galactic network in terms of its resemblance to USENET.[4] Vinge wrote in a 1993 introduction that he believed hypertext fiction would become a new art form.[4]
The Norwescon interview notes that Vinge's zones of thought involve physics changing in different areas of the galaxy.[2]
References
- Wikipedia, "A Fire Upon the Deep" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "1993 Hugo Awards", The Hugo Awards (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Interview with Vernor Vinge", Norwescon, October 12, 2009. facts only, no text reused. norwescon.org
- Wikipedia, "A Fire Upon the Deep" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: No longer on sale but available at the Internet Archive; Review of the annotated ebook edition of A Fire Upon the Deep at Slashdot (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Review of the annotated ebook edition of A Fire Upon the Deep at Slashdot. facts only, no text reused. books.slashdot.org
- Wikipedia, "A Fire Upon the Deep" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Interview with Vernor Vinge", Norwescon, October 12, 2009 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "A Fire Upon the Deep" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lilley, "Interview: Patrick Nielsen Hayden", SFRevu, February 26, 2007 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Lilley, "Interview: Patrick Nielsen Hayden", SFRevu, February 26, 2007. facts only, no text reused. sfrevu.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article A Fire Upon the Deep (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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