A Fire Upon the Deep

This one is by Vernor Vinge. I mentioned the book last week. I simply loved it. It seemed to be a combination of "Dune" and "Babylon V" with puppies ^_^ The "puppies" are actually the 'Tines", the indigenous inhabitants of one of the main planets in the book. Actually, it's the only planet that has any meaning. The action is split between the Tines' home world and deep, deep space. Eventually it culminates on the Tines' home world. The Tines are kind of like dogs or sea lions that evolved on land. They're a civilization of gestalt creatures. An individual consists of four to six "puppies".

The story starts out with a colony of human scientists awaking a super plague. They attempt to escape but all but one of the ships are destroyed. The remaining ship is piloted by a family of four: mom, dad, sister and brother. It's "cargo" is all the children of the colony in suspended animation. It also has an unknown cargo that the scientist thought to be extremely important that either could help the plague if it got hold of it or destroy it. Unfortunately, the ship was damaged and they were forced to crash land on the Tines home world, in the middle of a faction war. One faction gets to the ship first and slaughters the mother and father and half the sleeping kids and captures the brother. The sister is injured, but in the chaos after the slaughter is "rescued" by a couple of good samaritan Tines. They take the injured girl to some friends that happened to be the other faction. Neither the brother or sister know that the other is alive and each help the factions build weapons to beat the "evil" faction.

Mean while, the plague, known as the Blight is taking over entire civilizations. It isn't until a super being is destroyed by it that anyone really begins taking it seriously. Before this being was destroyed, it put together a rescue ship to find the missing scientists in hopes that they have might have the weapon to destroy the Blight.

The ending almost had an deus ex machina feel to it. But I found it acceptable since it didn't really distract from the story and was kind of expected. It was a good ending with only minor protagonists being killed off. The true "evil" faction is finally rooted out and squashed and the brother and sister are successfully reunited ^_^ I had already guessed that, but after the deaths in "The Hunger Games" series, I wasn't sure if it would end so happily.

Like I said in an earlier post, this isn't a fast read. But if you've read Frank Herbert's "Dune" then you already have a feel for this book.