A Fire Upon the Deep
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| Author | Vernor Vinge |
|---|---|
| Original title | Among the Tines |
| Cover artist | Boris Vallejo |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Zones of Thought series |
| Genre | Hard science fiction |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
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Publication date
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April 1992 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 391 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 24671893 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3572.I534 F57 1992 |
| Followed by | A Deepness in the Sky |
A Fire Upon the Deep is a science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge, a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a conversation medium resembling Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993 that tied with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.
Besides the normal print book editions, the novel was also included on a CD-ROM sold by ClariNet Communications along with the other nominees for the 1993 Hugo awards. The CD-ROM edition included numerous annotations by Vinge on his thoughts and intentions about different parts of the book, and was later released as a standalone e-book (no longer available).
The novel is set in various locations in the Milky Way. The galaxy is divided into four concentric volumes called the "Zones of Thought"; it is not clear to the novel's characters whether this is a natural phenomenon or an artificially-produced one, but it seems to roughly correspond with galactic-scale stellar density and a Beyond region is mentioned in the Sculptor Galaxy as well. The Zones reflect fundamental differences in basic physical laws, and one of the main consequences is their effect on intelligence, both biological and artificial. Artificial intelligence and automation is most directly affected, in that advanced hardware and software from the Beyond or the Transcend will work less and less well as a ship "descends" towards the Unthinking Depths. But even biological intelligence is affected to a lesser degree. The four zones are spoken of in terms of "low" to "high" as follows:
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