#92 in Science fiction
A Fire Upon the Deep
- 605
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
- Premio Gigamesh
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
“A Fire upon the Deep” is space opera of rare inventiveness that trusts readers to work things out for themselves. Vinge explains little, so some people miss key concepts until late and suspect a second pass would give more. Under the ideas runs a simple engine: two stranded children and a rescue against the clock. Six hundred pages for the patient, who enjoy being a step behind the author.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A Fire Upon the Deep is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. It is a space opera involving superhuman intelligences, aliens, variable physics, space battles, love, betrayal, genocide, and a communication medium resembling Usenet. A Fire Upon the Deep won the Hugo Award in 1993, sharing it with Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.
Reading order · Zones of Thought
Full order & progress →- A Fire Upon the DeepThis book
8.28.2 / 10 - A Deepness in the SkyA Deepness in the Sky–Not ranked yet
- The Children of the SkyThe Children of the Sky–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 635 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 81% of the weight and the score stays at 8.2 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 72 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 563 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is A Fire Upon the Deep?
It has 605 pages — longer than 80% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 8.2 and 8.3, closest to this book.
