KAMN Show #28: A Fire Upon the Deep
Welcome to Show #28!
Summer, David and Tim gather together to discuss Vernor Vinge’s Hugo Award-winning “A Fire Upon the Deep”, but first give an update on Joe Murphy.
Voicemail: CQ from OK on the pop culture impact of “Highlander” in regards to sword-fighting and collecting, and throws out “War of the Worlds” as a future topic; Bill in The Bronx with a Clancy Brown update; Yvonne shares the depths of her love for “Buckaroo Banzai”, and sends hugs to Joe. Dave and Summer then run off onto a “Dresden Files” tangent that leads into an “I-Man” tangent…
Summer, Dave and Tim give an overview of the story, and discuss some of the more interesting aspects of the book: varying zones of thought dividing up the galaxy, a sentient evil entity and its sentient countermeasure, and a quasi-lupine civilization whose packs are formed from hive minds.
Much about the story to talk about, and figuring out how to pronounce most of the character names is near the top of the list.
Listener Feedback: Give us some! You can leave comments here for the show, or at the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas Forum. If you want to leave a voicemail comment on anything we’ve discussed, you can call us at 206-666-5266.
Books mentioned:
Promo: ADPOV: Support TD-0013 in the Arizona MS Walk, April 14, 2007
Promo: The Dragon Page Cover to Cover
Wikipedia: A Fire Upon the Deep
Link: Strange Horizons: An Interstellar Geography of Mind: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
If you guys do do War of the Worlds, you should also coer the TV series (hey, the 1st year was good at least), and the musical version. No, seriously. The WOTW musical is one of my all time favorite albums, and it angers me that the live show isn’t coming to the U.S. anytime soon. You can learn more about that musical at http://www.thewaroftheworlds.com/
Great show, guys. As you say, there are many aspects to this book to comment on, but here is one that popped up straight away as soon as Tim and David mentioned the Tines and the fact that the way in which they come together is so cool and well thought out as a sci-fi concept; I was reminded of the anthropologists Marilyn Strathern and Roy Wagner and their concepts of “dividual” and “fractal person” for describing the manner in which people from Melanesia (in the South Pacific) conceptualise the multiple nature of the person. I realise this is a bit off-topic seeming, and won’t necessarily be directly analogous to the Tines, but the point is that I found it really interesting to realise that often even the most alien-sounding notions and concepts are sometimes a refleciton of real-life phenomena.
hey ninjas,
i just want to express my appreciation for your episode on fire upon the deep by victor vinge. by coincidence, i had just finished it when your podcast came out. the science and ideas about singularity were especially helpful in my understanding. i picked up the concept of the layers, but not the overall reason for them. i also appreciate the pronunciation tips, i was pronouncing vinge, ving-geh, german style.
one correction, ravna was not from straumli realm, she had been warned against it by her folks.
i also want to recommend the prequel. i read a deepness in the sky first and i have to say i like it better, although i definately enjoyed fire upon the deep. pham is an important character again, although he is still in his first incarnation. you get his full background story, which is helpful for fire upon the deep, but deepness in the sky is also a more hopeful book, centering on a planet of aliens that have just entered their industrial age and resemble spiders, and two different human civilizations competing to gain access to them first. one of these civilizations has developed a horrific new technology that enables immense human concentration and chaos ensues when the other side discovers it. this book is every bit as deep and rich as fire upon the deep, but it isn’t such a sad story.
thanks, great pod-casting,
heather
Going through the archives, so this is a bit behind…
The CD-ROM that came out in 1993 did contain all the nominated books, etc., for the year, but the only book that was “annotated” was “Fire”. And this was not the same as the annotations that you’d find in the nifty versions of Sherlock Holmes or Frankenstein or the Alice books, etc.
What these annotations were was instead a series of notes by Vinge and his “first readers”, talking about awkward sentences, information that needed to be expanded, etc. They were not really for “public consumption” so there is a lot of short-hand, abbreviations, etc. They do give you some insight, but you really have to have your (ahem) “deep geeking” hat on.
As of a few years ago you could still buy this as a (DRM-locked) eBook. Try the Fictionwise site. It was in the format for Peanut Press which then was Palm Press and is now eReader, but as you read the book there are hyperlinks that lead you to the notes.
I have the CD-ROM as well (no, not for sale).