A Deepness in the Sky
Vernor Vinge's long-awaited prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep
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A Deepness in the Sky
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By Vernor Vinge
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Tor Books
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$27.95/$38.95 Canada
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Hardcover, Feb. 1998
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ISBN 0-312-85683-0
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 adio signals from an alien world draw two competing human civilizations to investigate: the interstellar merchants of the Qeng Ho fleet and the ruthless, authoritarian Emergents. An armed clash between the rival expeditions leaves the Qeng Ho at the mercy of the Emergents, and both sides without the resources to return home. They have no choice but to wait out the decades while the inhabitants of Arachna, who look like giant spiders, develop technology advanced enough to help the humans rebuild their starships.
Arachna is a strange world indeed: its su--called the On/Off stars--shines for only 35 years out of every 250. The rest of the time the planet is so cold even the atmosphere freezes. The Spiders spend the long dark hibernating in underground "deepnesses." But an ingenious Spider named Sherkaner Underhill has grand schemes to use nuclear power to heat subterranean cities during the dark, eliminating the need to hibernate. Unfortunately, the development of nuclear power also escalates the risk of global war.
The Emergents, poised to conquer the Spiders at their most vulnerable moment, believe they have the situation well in hand, but little do they realize that a boorish old programmer is in fact Pham Nuwen, a Qeng Ho legend, waiting patiently for the right moment to strike. Also, the Emergents' mind-control virus may be working too well on some of their Qeng Ho slaves. Their linguists are so obsessively dedicated to understanding the Spiders that they begin to identify with them. Psychologically, the linguists become more Spider than human.
Loathsome humans, lovable spiders
A Deepness in the Sky doesn't have the mind-boggling sweep of Vinge's Hugo Award-winning novel A Fire Upon the Deep, but on its own term the novel equals and in many respects surpasses its predecessor. The story itself takes place 30,000 years before the events in Fire. The pace is tighter, the writing smoother and the intricate storyline juggles an impressive array of characters, subplots, themes and concepts with almost superhuman skill. Vinge spins the main story across four decades without letting the suspense flag.
The villains are two-dimensional but enjoyably loathsome. The Emergents' smooth-talking "Podmaster" pretends to have everyone's best interests at heart while enforcing terror through his openly thuggish sidekick. Pham Nuwen, the brash galactic savior of A Fire Upon the Deep, is portrayed here as a darker, more conflicted figure. The Spiders are the most likable arachnids in American literature since Charlotte's Web.
Vinge has garnered acclaim and controversy for his radical speculations about the future of technology. In A Fire Upon the Deep, artificial intelligences attain godlike powers. In Deepness Vinge explores a human future in which technological progress has been stagnant for millennia. Faster-than-light travel, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology don't exist. Spaceships spend centuries traveling between the stars and computer systems are so old, buggy and complex that data retrieval is almost a branch of archaeology. Further progress is believed impossible until the Spiders stumble upon a discovery that topples human assumptions about the limits of technology.
Like the Spider civilization, Vinge's progress has shown no limits so far. Since his modest beginnings in the 1960s he has emerged as one of the most powerful voices in science fiction, and Deepness is one of his finest novels.
I hope I won't have to wait seven years for Vinge's next novel.
-- Curt
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Not of Woman Born
Explain again - where do babies come from?
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Not of Woman Born
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Edited by Constance Ash
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ROC
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$6.99/$8.99 Canada
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Paperback, March 1999
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ISBN 0-451-45681-5
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Review by Susan Dunman
 here's little doubt that the future will bring changes to the age-old process of human reproduction. Why will changes be made and what will be the result? These are the questions posed by editor Constance Ash, and answers are provided by authors as diverse as the 14 short stories that make up this collection. With the exception of Robert Silverberg's classic, "There was An Old Woman," all of the stories make their first appearance in this original anthology. A wide range of motivations and possibilities relating to the topic are creatively explored.
"A Gift To Be Simple" focuses on the plight of a religious order with no new converts. Patricia A McKillip envisions an aging Shaker community that embraces the future to insure the survival of the past. In "Remailer," Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald reveal a bizarre future infested with genetic mutations where, "all the pretties, male and female and not-reporting, dance and drink and search for the perfect other."
William F. Wu takes a new look at ancestor worship in "Island of the Ancestor." A wealthy Chinese family uses DNA from an ancient tomb to create a "living twin" of their common ancestor, but no one asks the creation if being a god is really what he wants to do. Living as long as a god is the subject of "Dead in the Water," by Jack McDevitt. Parents with enough money can genetically alter their newborns to dramatically slow the aging process, yet bestowing relative immortality is not an easy decision to make.
What hath man wrought?
In her introduction, Ash points out that the child's primal question of "Where did I come from?" is rapidly evolving into a multiple choice answer. The stories collected here examine extra-uterine, cloned, bio-engineered, and virtual human reproduction and development. The authors do not take a technical approach to their subject. Instead, they prefer to examine the questionable motives and genuine emotions that may drive both decisions and outcomes of humanity's ability to tinker with its own building blocks. In the process, readers are provided thought-provoking scenarios of future possibilities.
For example, what might happen if a dying mother's wish is for one of her grown daughters to bear and raise a child with the mother's genetic material? "Raising Jenny," by Janni Lee Simner takes on this question with keen insight into mother/daughter relationships. Similarly, the bonds between a father and son are stretched beyond normal limits in Walter Jon Williams' "Daddy's World." A well-meaning father scans his dying son's memory into a virtual home designed for the perfect family. But little boys aren't perfect, no matter how much daddy would like for them to be.
Human strivings for perfection, immortality, and love are themes found throughout this collection. A small percentage of the stories are slightly disappointing because they don't shed any new light on a subject familiar to most science fiction fans. Also, not every story deals specifically with human reproduction, but the common thread of future familial relationships is explored with intelligent writing and intriguing concepts.
A variety of interpretations makes this a good choice for those wondering how technology's impact on propagation may affect the future.
-- Susan
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