Description

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Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

This new Tor Essentials edition of Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In the Sky includes an introduction by the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning Jo Walton, author of Among Others.

After thousands of years of searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free, innovative traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.

The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep, for their strange star to relight and for the alien planet to reawaken, as it does every two hundred and fifteen years...

Amidst terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by Qeng Ho and Emergents alike.

More than just a great science fiction adventure, A Deepness In the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love.

About the Author

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Vernor Vinge has won five Hugo Awards, two of them for novels in the Zones of Thought series, A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Known for his rigorous hard-science approach to science fiction, he became an iconic figure among cybernetic scientists with the publication in 1981 of his novella “True Names,” which is considered a seminal, visionary work of Internet fiction. His many novels also include Marooned in Realtime, Rainbows End and The Peace War.

Praise For…

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"A feast of imagination. As always, Vinge satisfies with richly imagined worlds and a full-flavored story.”—Greg Bear

"Every bit as much a mindblower, every bit as involving and innovative, as A Fire Upon the Deep.”—Larry Niven

“A brilliant book, one of the best, well worth reading again and again.” —Jo Walton

"With A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge adds another title to the canon of Big Picture space adventures that Gardner Dozois has called New Space Opera. A Deepness in the Sky, like A Fire Upon the Deep, presents a careful mix of the dire and the comfy--it confronts some dreadful evils.”—Locus