Tatja Grimm's World (Paperback)

~ Vernor Vinge (Author) "Fair Haven at South Cape was a squalid little town..." (more)
Key Phrases: night wake period, algae pots, print deck, Tatja Grimm, Rey Guille, Crown's Men (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An excellent and intricate story that provides further evidence that Vinge has become one of the major voices in modern SF."
--Science Fiction Chronicle on A Deepness in the Sky

"This is top-drawer hard SF--fast-paced, packed with action, intellectually
challenging and, above all, capable of invoking SF's grail: a genuine sense
of wonder."
--Publishers Weekly "Top 10 of 1999" on A Deepness in the Sky

"This new epic shares the breadth of imagination and vivid storytelling which made the earlier book so justly popular."
--The Denver Post on A Deepness in the Sky

"Sporting enough action for a dozen Star Wars sequels, A Deepness in the Sky is filled with unsettling images of mind control and slavery."
--The Dallas Morning News

"An ingenious and engaging tale of epic proportions, the kind of feast that fans of true science fiction have been hungry for for a long time."
--SFSite on A Deepness in the Sky

"A masterful novel. Breathtaking, one of the premier science fiction novels of the past few years. Vinge is truly an original writer."
--NOVA Express on A Deepness in the Sky

"Wow! A Deepness in the Sky is his best book yet and is a damn good example of what first-rate SF can be. Besides a good story with good characters, Vinge has enough throwaway ideas in the background for any three books."
--Aboriginal SF

“Vast, riveting far-future saga involving evil gods, interstellar war, and manipulative aliens. No summary can do justice to the depth and conviction of Vinge's ideas. The overall concept astonishes; the aliens are developed with memorable skill and insight; the plot twists and turns with unputdownable tension.”
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on A Fire Upon the Deep

“With uninterrupted pacing, suspense without contrivance, and deftly drawn aliens who can be pleasantly comical without becoming cute, Vinge offers heart-pounding, mind-expanding science fiction at its best.”
--Publishers Weekly (Starred review) on A Fire Upon the Deep

"A wide-screen science fiction epic of the type few writers attempt any more, probably because nobody until Vinge has ever done it well. Has Hugo Winner written all over it."
--Washington Post Book World on A Fire Upon the Deep

Product Description

Tatja Grimm grew up among stone-age primitives, but she always knew that she was destined for something greater. When she starts working on the fabulous barge that circles her world publishing magazines, she begins to discover how very much she never knew. Exposed to new technology, to reading, to people who have experienced the wider world, she finds wonder in all of it. Rising through the ranks she proves far more special than anyone could have known. Before she is done, the world will know that her intelligence is matched only by her insatiable appetite for more, which makes conquering her world less an end than a beginning . . . .Unavailable for more than fifteen years, this exciting science fiction adventure is filled with colorful action and the unique ideas that have made Vinge one of the acknowledged masters of the field, and will delight his many fans.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (January 24, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765308851
• ISBN-13: 978-0765308856
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #325,746 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Evolutionary Tale, October 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Tatja Grimm's World (Paperback)

This will never be regarded as one of Vinge's hard core stories, such as "Fire Upon the Deep", it is rather a diversionary exercise from Vernor, that explores in classic SF style a delightfully created ocean world, populated with numerous divergent and isolated cultures, but loosely tied together by nomadic traders. One group stumbles upon and shelters a young woman, an apparently feral child, but who reveals through a series of well-written episodes, a precocious capacity to learn. Soon she far surpasses those who protected her, indeed she come to reverse the roles, and yet her true motives are often hidden, even from those who have come to love, and sometimes fear her most. In a sequence of six well-paced episodes, her influence in this early industrial metal-scarce world grows, until the climatic crisis, set in an extreme altitude mountain-top observatory, finally unravels the entire plot. A likeable, and moving tale, less techo-oriented than his other works, but one that reveals another aspect to Vinge, well worth tracking down if you are a fan.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Character-Based Fantasy That Works, November 26, 2006

By	Charles G. Fry "cgfry" (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Vernor Vinge is one of my favorite authors, but Tatja Grimm's World is not typical Vinge. What I most enjoy in his other novels is the outpouring of novel science ideas played out on realistic tableaus. Vinge manages to populate his sci-fi stories with great characters that we can relate to--even those almost completely alien--and places them into solid societal (often completely alien) foundations. "A Fire Upon the Deep" and "A Deepness in the Sky" are his primary recent efforts, extremely futuristic and alien, but with human connections rarely found elsewhere.

Tatja Grimm's World lacks the science ideas so unique to those novels: it is fantasy, not science fiction. This book combines two novellas Vinge wrote in the 60s, with a prequel written in the 80s; they fit seamlessly together into a very readable, interesting novel. The book centers on the titled character, a possible alien stranded on a world with almost no metals, and an island-based society. Is Tatja an android, or a future being stranded in the past? Maybe she's simply an evolutionary jump in the existing people, or perhaps she's another life-form altogether. The mystery about her past is combined with an ambiguity about her intentions. Is she evil or good, or is she beyond either in terms the islanders (and possibly we) can understand? The mystery and tension that builds up about Tatja is the key to the novel. Other than her, the stories are fairly pedestrian. Vinge doesn't do much with the lack of metals on the world, but does serve up a couple neat ideas (in the newer prequel) about the island-based societies.

Vinge makes the novel work based almost completely on Tatja Grimm's characterization. Even so, the novel feels incomplete. Vinge leaves a teaser that another story was (is? Tatja would be great character for a new Vinge novel!) in the offing. Although I was disappointed with the lack of hard sci-fi typical of Vinge, I did enjoy this book.

If you are new to Vernor Vinge, and are looking for great science fiction, try his two novels mentioned above; you won't be disappointed. If you are a Vinge or fantasy fan, I recommend Tatja Grimm's World as a quick and interesting read.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Compelling reading... up to a point, May 10, 2006

By	Avi Greengart (Teaneck, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm a big Vernor Vinge fan, and bought this book on the strength of the first section (which was reprinted in a compendium. This book may appear to be new, but is actually also a reprint, too). This is a good way to read "early" Vernor Vinge, and the story/characters/locations make for compelling reading in the first parts of the book. But the last section just doesn't hold together, as it involves the murky motives of [spoiler warning] off-worlders who are never fully developed as characters, and their motives are based on really silly sci-fi. So while it didn't live up to my expectations, it did make for decent plane-reading on a transcon trip.

-avi