Customer Reviews

The Children of the Sky (Zones of Thought)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I consider Fire Upon the Deep & Deepness of the Sky to be among the greatest sci fi books ever written. So it was disappointing for me to see how inferior this book was. It is simply not in the same league.

Positives:
Hard Sci Fi: The world is interesting as always, and Vinge expands on the Tines by giving a variation of their species. That was well done. He further expands on the technology, its limitations in the Slow Zone and all the impossible technology the "Children" (survivors of the crash) miss so much. Also interesting. His creation of the alien Tines is thorough and mostly well done, although I felt their civilization bears far too much similarity to our own considering how very different they are from us. Still, I enjoyed them.

Plot: Plot was actually both positive and negative. Sometimes, the plot would race forward and you would hang on the edge of your seat. But other times - most times - it was a chore to read; all in all, very haphazard and amateurish. Many parts dragged, or were highly repetitive. It felt like a case of a lazy or indulgent editor. With top editing, Vinge would have been told to re-write much of it and scrap other parts. Many sections were utterly unnecessary - the same thing would be said later, or the conflict presented was repeated later - and this was especially frustrating given that IT DOESN'T HAVE AN ENDING!

Negatives:
The main negative was what I just said: No ending. I mean exactly what I say, not "no ending for some major points" I mean "no ending." It just ends in the middle of the major conflicts. Really this is just inexcusable, particularly since so much of the book could have been removed with zero difference in plot or conflict. I really, really, really resent books that end without resolution. It is supremely self-indulgent of the author - sorry, guys, I was just too lazy to finish this! - and it is dishonest to present the thing as a discrete book.

Rainbows End ALSO lacked an ending - no resolution of ANY of the main plot questions - and we still haven't seen a sequel. So it's especially annoying given that this is the SECOND book Vinge disappoints.

Characterizations: His villains are preposterous. They are just Evil in a silly, cartoonish bad guy way. As in, 'Bwa ha ha, I vill take over ze planet!' One of the humans is supposed to be some political genius simply because his parents were -- this was another very silly thing Vinge kept insisting that if your parents are x, you are x. He did this with every Child character. For instance, another child's parents were the equivalent of janitors, with practical hands on skills, so therefore, ipso facto, his son was exactly the same. I don't know where Vinge learned genetics, but he needs to go back to school for this one. Anyway, the character that was supposed to be this political genius plotted on a cartoonish level so that you could see his machinations a mile away. Actually, in some ways he exhibited the same foolish hubris the Straumli folks were supposed to have, but rather than pursue that angle, Vinge just kept asserting - via other characters - that he was a genius and also 'evil.'

Most other characters are the same level of shallowness, particularly the humans. (I was reminded of Asimov, whose robots often seemed to have greater depth than his humans. Here, the Tines were more complex than the humans. Back to the preposterous 'genetics,' Vinge makes this big deal that the Children's parents were supposed 'geniuses' so therefore the children are 'geniuses' too. This was cloying and not believable. Yes, if your parents are very intelligent, you stand a higher change of being smart too-but not a guarantee by any means. If you have a large enough sample, you should find a range of intelligence in the "Children" even if we accept the parents were all supposed geniuses. But even that assertion was just annoying. Who CARES if the parents or "Children" are all 'geniuses"? How does this forward the plot in ANY way? According to the previous book, they let loose the Blight due to Hubris. This has very little to do with "genius" and indeed the 'genius' part makes it less interesting as it is not universal (and anyway, their whole society funded their Lab so the hubris was in their civilization.)

Ravna was also really annoying to me. After Ravna does a series of stupid, passive things, another character tells her she's not a 'fool' but rather a pure heart. Um, where did this Ravna come from? She certainly wasn't like this in Fire. I felt like Vinge wanted her to act in such a way that would further the plot he wanted to write, so he changed her character. In other words, characters (also Jeff & Amdi) arose from plot necessity rather than the other way around as a pro should write.

I'd recommend the book but with the caveats that a) it has no ending b) large parts are very slow and weak c) some characters are really silly. You will need accept that this is not up to Vinge's usually brilliant standards. You can still extract an mildly interesting read, with some very good parts, and a few great parts.

I wish Vinge would get a better, more honest and brutal editor, someone who is willing to tell him the truth rather than merely flattering him. He has the potential to be an absolutely brilliant sci fi writer. It's painful to see his gifts so squandered.

Very little Science in this Science Fiction novel. The plot is all political scheming on the tine world between the humans and tines. I had a hard time slogging through it, the characters and actions are not typically believable (and typically act very stupidly even though they are all supposed to be geniuses. Most of the time I didn't care about characters or the plotting. There were some decently paced sections but most of the book is overly verbose and honest fairly boring - I had to force myself to read it in hopes it would get better. Some of the ideas about the tines group intelligence/personality were semi interesting, but really there wasn't much there. There is no ending to the book, just sort of stops in a pause in political maneuvering. The natural assumption/hope I had for the book was that we would find out what happens with the blights ships trapped 30 ly from the tine world. There are few hints early on that this was going to be the case. Nope. It mostly seems like a set up for the real follow up to that plot - one that could have been a chapter long and just explained the current political setup if it was needed.

I wouldn't bother reading this one unless a sequel comes out that is good, otherwise there isn't much point.

A Fire Upon the Deep is one of my favorite SF books, so it was never really in question that I'd read this. Kindle delivery was instantaneous as usual, and I read it in one long sitting on my day off. If you like Vinge's work or the earlier books, it's a given that you'll enjoy it.

However, it's not of the same caliber as the earlier books in the series. The characterization in particular is just all over the place, and a lot of the motivations seem to be more of the "because the story needs it" than organic development. The Tines are as devious as you'd expect, but their machinations are haphazard and occasionally veer into the absurd. The big revelations about what was going on were obvious far in advance. Several times there was an inexplicable jump in sequence or point of view to create drama or uncertainty that just felt cheap. It would be expected of a younger author, but this is VV we're talking about, and it felt like this book needed to cook a little longer or be tended by a harsher editor.

Also as has been mentioned, the Blight threat is not resolved in this book and if that's what you were reading for, you'll have to wait for another book.

I am a huge fan of Vernor Vinge. I think 'Fire Upon the Deep' and 'Deepness in the Sky' are significant science fiction masterpieces, and I consider 'Rainbows End' to be important literature that everyone should read. Vinge's latest work, however, does not even aspire to reach those same heights. Be warned, this review will contain spoilers.

The story takes place, for the most part, ten years after Ravna's escape to the Tine's world. Realizing that the Blight's threat is mere thirty light years away, she sets to transform the pre-technical world to a modern civilization capable of defending itself against the coming crisis. As interesting as all of that sounds, it is not the heart of the story. Instead, we're forced into an implausible conflict between two factions of the surviving children, one that believes Ravna's story, and another that cannot accept it. One might wonder how can that be possible? Everything that transpired in Fire Upon the Deep is available to everyone through Ravna's ship, Oobii, and the events are hard to dispute. We are forced into the trivial melodrama with an explanation concerning how some of the children do not believe their parents could have made a mistake, and that the mastermind behind the Denier movement, Neville, is 'evil'. In order to kick start the contrived plotline, the characters initiate a series of illogical actions, along with several ad hoc additions to the plot to cover some of the holes. For example, we are told that Ravna had been spying on Woodcarver's nemesis, Flenser, and now she feels very guilty for hiding the fact from her friend. Her guilt compels her to tell the first person she encounters, who happened to have an evil agenda of his own. In response, Woodcarver out-crazies Ravna by plotting with the Neville to take down her good friend, and a pillar of her power. We are told that she is acting irrational due to a recent addition to her pack, but that things will eventually be okay once she stabilizes.

So the rest of the novel follows the plight of our heroes as they try to defeat the evil deniers and their tine backers. This fantastical adventure includes Ravna, Jefri, and Amdi creating a travelling circus to cover their expenses. Oh, Jefri is also one of the deniers(??).

While the story might be enjoyable enough if you're not into serious science fiction, I am dismayed that someone with the talent and thoughtfulness of Vernor Vinge would create such purely commercial fluff. But I suppose every great writer is entitled to a bad book every once in a while. I look forward for Vinge's next book.

Vernor Vinge is a long-time favorite of mine, and maybe that's the problem -- storytellers who keep telling stories after they've passed canonical retirement age often wind up telling the same story over and over, in more and more detail. That happened even to Heinlein and Clarke. Vernor Vinge seems to have peaked with "A Fire upon the Deep," which was a hard act to follow. This sequel doesn't come close to it.

"A Fire upon the Deep" was a saga, a quest full of shifting scenes, different situations and wonderful new characters. "Children," which will make little sense if you haven't read "A Fire," trots out the old actors and a few retreads. One of the very best characters of "A Fire" turns up in a cameo that embarrassed me -- it was like watching an elderly actress blow her lines onstage. I blushed for V.V.

The action happens on Tines' World, and some people are packs, but the same story could be set in medieval Europe or China, mutatis mutandis. It's a melodrama full of politics, sneaky villains, reluctant heroes, espionage, betrayal, fights; there's even some improbable romance. I re-blush.

V.V.'s stories were never notable for their plots or prose or character development; they've always depended on what Alfred Hitchcock called a "MacGuffin." The word's nicely defined in Wikipedia. A MacGuffin is something that drives the plot and motivates the characters. Alas, "Children" has no MacGuffin; it's a tale of intrigue that goes on too long, with no climax or conclusion. It's full of plots, but has no plot of its own. The issue that seems paramount at the outset, the MacGuffin of "A Fire," is forgotten and left unresolved at the end, as though the author had a Tines' World trilogy in mind. Let's hope not.

Vinge is one of my all time favorite authors and what I love about his writing are the ideas he explores. This book, Children of the Sky, doesn't explore any ideas other than politics and character interactions.

I found myself slogging through the book hoping for more. There wasn't anything more. It's just a nice, somewhat engaging, story about how the humans move forward on the Tines' world. It's the kind of sequel that pretty much any author could have just stepped in and written given the concepts and characters established on the Tines' world in A Fire Upon The Deep.

This book was a pretty boring four hundred page epilogue chapter to A Fire Upon The Deep. Sorry Vernor.

I am a huge Vinge fan so this book really stunned me. It is incredibly bad on so many levels.

It fails as a sequel by choosing to focus on the Tines storyline from a A Fire Upon the Deep. You learn nothing about the Blight, which is the central focus of the entire series.

Beyond that, it doesn't even do a good job of explaining how the humans on Tines' world plan to reboot civilization. This would have rescued the book and given it a purpose to exist. Instead all of the plot revolves around corny villains and naively simplistic and unnecessary political wrangling.

A guess the most serious disappointment is that this book really just fails the basics of good writing. The characters are atrociously written, one-dimensional, and uninteresting. The dialogue is unbelievable. Relationships between characters are predictable and boring. The plotting is poorly paced, illogical, and riddled with holes.

After finishing the book I really just can't figure out how Vinge, the same guy who wrote Rainbow's End and A Deepness in the Sky, was able to write this garbage. I'm giving it an extra star because Rainbow's end should have gotten 6.

As a great fan of Vernor Vinge, I have ALL of his previous books (including the Witling and Tatja Grimm's World) I was sad to see this book. My major problem is that, as others have pointed out, it is half a book (or maybe less than that if he follows Martin and Jordan's route of writing as many books as you can before readers wise up). You come to the end and there is a double take as you say WTH, where is the rest of it? Having waited more than a decade for a follow up to A Fire Upon the Deep one is less than overwhelmed by this. If the book had been well written there might still have been some pleasure in reading it but the characterisation and plotting are simply not up to his previous standard.

I am a very serious fan of Vinge Vernor's work. I've been anticipating this release eagerly. The series it continues is one of his best works, exploring the zones of thought, multi-being intelligences, and other key ideas.

The good news is that the book circles back to ideas Vernor raises in his other books, and he takes the time to really show them in detail. The most important are multi-being intelligence and boot-strapping from a fallen technology. The downside to this book is that it lacks enough epic suspense to keep readers engaged. I believe this is especially true as it becomes clear to the reader that the book will close with a main storyline wide open (the blighter threat). That will probably be addressed in a future book, but it makes this book less satisfying.

Overall, the book can and will be enjoyed by hardcore Vernor fans. But as a 1st read, it won't hook almost anyone else. And for hardcore fans, it is a little bit of a letdown after the amazing experiences of his earlier books in the series.

Publisher: Vernor, great book! But I have an idea. Instead of writing just one book that's as great as the two previous books, why don't we get with the times and make this into two books? This way your readers will get twice as much of what they love! Oh, and did I mention twice the book sales?
Vinge: But, Pub, this is really my masterpiece, I'd hate to blow it up into two books. What would I write about? I would lose my credibility.
Publisher: Twice the sales.
Vinge:Well, maybe I could expand the first three or four chapters into a whole book...

Folks, if you loved the first two (and who didn't), you're going to read this through, hate it, and then read the next one, which HAD BETTER be the full conclusion.

AT 25% through, I said to myself, "He's kidding me right?"
At 50% through, I said to myself, "Looks like Pham not coming to save the day"
at 75% through, I said to myself, "Son of a gun, he's setting up for the next book"
at 100% though, I was relieved and had really just scanned tha last 5% to make sure nothing good happens. Like the rest of the book, nothing did.