After the Battle on Starship Hill: Prologue to The Children of the Sky

By Vernor Vinge

"After the Battle on Starship Hill" is more than 12000 words of prologue from Vernor Vinge's forthcoming novel, The Children of the Sky. Taking place on Tines World, this mini e-book describes events of the years immediately following the conclusion of the predecessor novel, A Fire Upon the Deep.


At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Sep 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466800069

Vernor Vinge

Vernor Vinge is the author of such acclaimed novels as True Names , The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky, and has won four Hugo Awards. A mathematician and computer scientist, he lives in San Diego, California.

Book preview

Introduction

by James Frenkel

It has been nineteen years since the first publication of A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. When that novel was published, Vinge was considered a very capable writer of hard science fiction, best known for his seminal short novel True Names (1981) and more recently his novels The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime. However, the new novel took many people by surprise. A Fire Upon the Deep had enormous scope and scale, and was almost universally praised by critics and readers alike.

When it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel it was a great day for Vernor Vinge, and the start of a series of novels that includes the prequel A Deepness in the Sky and soon will include a sequel, The Children of the Sky.

Almost from the day A Fire… was first published, readers clamored for a sequel. And it must be confessed that his editor prevailed upon him to resist the temptation to write a sequel right away. Vinge obliged his cantankerous editor, instead writing the prequel, and then a totally unrelated novel, Rainbows End which is set not light years from Earth and thousands of years in the future but merely a couple decades from when it was published, in the year 2025. The fact that both novels won Hugo Awards was gratifying to the author, and to his editor. But readers have never stopped asking for a sequel. And when they asked for a sequel, many readers would specifically say, When are you going to write more about Tines World?

In October 2011, The Children of the Sky will respond to that request. In the meantime, we have After the Battle on Starship Hill, comprising more than three full chapters from the new novel. In this ebook you will see more of Tines World than was visible in A Fire Upon the Deep. In that novel, Vinge reported on events that occurred on a single part of a large continent. Here he reveals other parts of that continent, and other creatures. Tines in the tropics are not like the Northern packs with whom readers of A Fire Upon the Deep will be familiar. And time has passed, as the title of this ebook suggests.

As the cantankerous editor who made Vernor Vinge wait before writing more about the Tines, I think you’ll find that he has spent his time wisely, exploring Tines World and its wonders, and spinning a tale worth waiting for.

James Frenkel

Senior Editor

Tor Books

Two years after the Battle on Starship Hill

Chapter 00

How do you get the attention of the richest businessperson in the world?

Vendacious had spent all his well-remembered life sucking up to royalty. He had never dreamed he would fall so low as to need a common merchant, but here he was with his only remaining servant, trying to find a street address in East Home’s factory district.

This latest street was even narrower than the one they had left. Surely the world’s richest would never come here!

The alley had heavy doors set on either side. At the moment, all were closed, but the place must be a crowded madness at shift change. There were posters every few feet, but these were not the advertisements they had seen elsewhere. These were demands and announcements: WASH ALL PAWS BEFORE WORK, NO ADVANCE WAGES, EMPLOYMENT APPLICATIONS AHEAD. This last sign pointed toward a wide pair of doors at the end of the alley. It was all marvelously pompous and silly. And yet…as he walked along, Vendacious took a long look at the crenellations above him. Surely that was plaster over wood. But if it was real stone, then this was a fortified castle hidden right in

Reviews for After the Battle on Starship Hill

[phrim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Children of the Sky picks up right where A Fire Upon the Deep left off, with the librarian Ravna marooned with a shipload of children on a pre-industrial world inhabited by the alien Tines, a race of dog-like creatures whose consciousness spans across between 4 and 8 individuals each. While the last book ends with the nation of Tines wanting to take advantage of the humans being overthrown, this book introduces a new nation of Tines who want to utilize their unique mental abilities to start an industrial revolution and are generally hostile to humans. Additionally, the human factions splinter when the kids grow up, turning this into a multi-faceted political drama with the unique quirks of being among multi-organism consciousnesses. While the author does explore the peculiarity of the Tines a little, the book is mostly about politics and pretty much ignores the larger galactic picture painted in the original book. While that's fine, and I did enjoy the characters and their interactions, I did miss the wider picture.

[sussura · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow - FANTASTIC sequel to Fire Upon The Deep. There's a paced and careful start (possibly a little too paced for me), that helps pull readers back into Tines' world. Then all hell breaks loose. Vinge's broad imagination, rich world and characters, and ability to surprise the most jaded reader are operating at full power here. I don't want to spoil a thing for anyone else. It's well worth it.

[dgold-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as immediately immersive as A Fire Upon the Deep, somewhat disappointing after part-readin A Deepness In The Sky recently, I'd have to described this as a curate's egg. The world building, given we've been here before, is wonderfully well handled, as is the integration of the High Lab humans into the Tinish Society.

The tines are the most realised aspect of the book - Woodcarver is, thankfully, largely absent from this book, as is (sadly) Pilgrim. The replacement cast, among them Amdi and others from the first book, is given great depth, and the reader can feel a real connection to these characters, this strength extends to some of the humans, but by no means all.

What isn't handled well is the passage of time - the novel takes huge leaps without real purpose, leading to some frankly bewildering passages. The division of the human society is also mystifying - no understandable motivation is given, other than some hand-waving around Ravna's influence in society.

All in all, a good book, but by no means a great one, and in that respect, I guess its a disappointment.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Peaking at reviews a lot of people expressed disappointment, so I didn't expect much from this sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. I beg to differ though--I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and found this just as suspenseful and moving as the previous novels in Zones of Thought trilogy--or, I think, series, since given where this ends this demands more. Maybe that's why some found this a let down. Either of the first books could be read as standalones. There's a good case to be made for reading either of those first two books first, the second book, A Deepness in the Sky being a prequel. That's not true of The Children of the Sky. It's no standalone, and I'm glad I had recently read A Fire Upon the Deep. This begins two years after the first book ends. We meet a lot of old friends again: Pilgrim, Woodcarver, Amdi, Ravna, Johanna, Jefri--and well, others not so cuddly. But there are new characters, alien and human into the mix. If I have any criticism, it's that one development that is supposed to be a shock I could see coming a mile away--although my clue was this writerly thing that those who don't pay close attention to technique might not notice. Otherwise I'm still very charmed by the dog-like Tines, still find Vinge a remarkable storyteller, and I'm looking forward to the next (and last?) book in this series.

[eichin_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While it's got basically none of the sophistication of Fire upon the Deep, and perhaps my time would have been better spent re-reading that, I still think it's a reasonable (if *narrow*) sequel, as a stepping stone to a future work in which the galaxy pulls itself back together somehow, which moves the characters around (and introduces some major new ones) in mostly convincing ways to set the stage for a real second act.

[gwendydd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn't realize until I was most of the way through this book that it is the third in a series. Oops. There were definitely some places where I felt like I was missing some context, but I actually didn't have much trouble diving into the story.There are a lot of interesting elements to this story. I was fascinated by the idea of the Tines and their hive-minds, and the implications of their telepathic communication. The characters were convincing and likable, and the writing was good.I'm not quite sure what I thought of the story, and that's probably because this was a middle episode in a much longer story. It was certainly intriguing and suspenseful, and I cared about the characters and what happened to them.I listened to the audiobook, and Oliver Wyman is one of my favorite narrators. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this in any other medium.

[dantarlin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is the sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, which was a great book. That was a page-turner with multiple stories all converging thrillingly to a satisfying climax. This one moves slower... much slower. The first book had action onboard a ship heading to the Tines World, a deadly blight in hot pursuit, and children stranded in two separate places on Tines World along with a race of telepathic, intelligent canines. Yes, it sounds silly- but Vinge must have been fascinated with his creation of the Tinish creatures, and this book is all set on that world, continuing the story of the Humans and Tines and their planet's development of higher technology.And really, the fleshing out of a civilization of Tines is fascinating. The creatures form packs of 4 to 8 canines, joined by telepathy into one coherent "person". But down in the tropical region they are more numerous and apparently uncivilized, clumped together in a "choir" that terrifies the pack northerners and that destroys anything that ventures into its midst. And there is the problem of what happens to single dogs or remnants of former packs who lose a member to death. It's all drawn up with fascinating imagination.But the book takes a long time to develop- it doesn't move quickly until the last 200 pages, which are great. I'm not sure if this is the middle book of a trilogy or an end in itself- he published this one 19 years after Fire Upon the Deep. The ending begs for more, so I hope he's working on the next one.

[tlockney_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Seemed about on par with the previous two books in this series (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky). None of them blew me away, but all were solid and enjoyable reads.

[schant-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Messy, too much thrown in without rhyme or reason, no logical plotline.

[harroldsheep · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Problem with this third book in the Zones if Thought series, is that I simply can't suspend my disbelief enough find the rise of the Deniers credible, especially with all the logs and data that were on the "Oobii" showing the true nature of the Blight.
With that always at the back my mind, the other plot points just weren't plausible enough to make this a seamless reading as the previous books.

[dlmorrese · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I first heard of Vernor Vinge when I saw him at the 100 Year Starship Symposium in Orlando in 2011. This is the second of his books I’ve found at the library and read. The first was Rainbow’s End.
The Children of the Sky is the third book in his ‘Zones of Thought Series.’ As I did not (yet) read the first two, this was my first exposure to this world. Fortunately, enough backstory is provided to develop the characters and explain how humans arrived on this planet.
What I liked most:
- This is a character driven story of political power and manipulation. The advanced tech from the wrecked human starship, much of which does not work, does not dominate the story and neither does the limited psychic ability of the native sentient species.
- The story has an overall positive mood, and you can see the beginnings of an industrial age if not a philosophical enlightenment emerging. These provide promise that the future will be a better one. The ending is a setup for a sequel, not quite a cliffhanger, but with enough unresolved issues to provide plenty of material for another story to explore how well this promise is achieved.
- The fictional world of the “Tines” is very imaginative. However...
What I liked least:
- Back to the Tines. I felt I was being asked to suspend too much disbelief to imagine that a species without hands (or the equivalent), and which has difficulty even approaching one another physically, could develop what amounts to an early industrial age technology.
- I like that this is a ‘character based’ story, but the characters did not evoke much empathy for me. We see some of their inner turmoil, especially with Ravana, but not enough to make me care much about what happens to her.
- The principle villain in this is simply evil. There is no explanation for why or what he is trying to achieve other than personal power. Still, there is enough here for the reader to loath him by the end of the book, but his ultimate and well-deserved demise happens almost between scenes.
- A good deal could have been left out, which may have improved the pace without sacrificing the plot. I suppose much of this can be attributed to editing. Authors sacrifice a lot when they choose to go through a traditional publisher and they should expect to receive value in return. In this case, a little rewriting, tightening the prose, and even catching a few grammar and punctuation errors would have done a lot to improve the book.

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Vinge pickes up where Fire Upon the Deep left off. There are still some stranded humans way out on the border in 'slow' space, with the wolf-packish, group intelligence Tines. The humans have had a predictable affect on technology, though the extreme differences with the aliens sends this off on a bit of a different course. I really enjoyed the previous book, but I found this one hard to get into.

[joeyreads_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Nowhere near the fun of A Fire Upon the Deep or subtlety of A Deepness in the Sky. Took the least interesting part of AFUtD, the part that drags for me most when I read it, and expanded it to a whole book. Also added lots of airships, presumably because steampunk sells these days.

Disappointing, but I do hope the obvious sequel is written.

[chrisriesbeck · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Long and unmemorable. If you last read A Fire Upon the Deep when it came out 20 years ago, you better have a good memory, because this book makes no attempt to explain references to prior events. Worse, there is no reasons to care about the characters and their plights. The book coasts on whatever residual interest you may have from before. SFnally, the best parts are several brief passages where Vinge plays with an emergent "distributed computing" variant on the multi-actor Tine intelligence. Hardly worth the price of such a long read, though.

[brightcopy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

No real specific spoilers in this review, but some general discussion on the ending.A good book that was a few flaws short of being a very good book. The main plot of the book felt a bit overused: the righteous "good" people are cleverly made out to look like the "bad" people and spend most of the book trying to get vindication. Only it never truly comes. That's one of the unsatisfying things of the book. Sure, it's probably more true to how real life is, but it's far less fulfilling as a piece of fiction. One character pays for his crimes, but the rest mostly escape punishment.This also happened quite a bit in A Fire Upon the Deep. However, the surviving bad guys were all remnant/reformed Tines that had the ability to drastically change due to their unique biology. It makes less sense with humans. In that, it's perhaps less realistic. I don't see the ringleader being allowed to get away with murder. Multiple murders, in fact.Plus, the overall plot advanced very little since Fire. Where Fire ended with major unresolved plot lines, Children outdid it. We can only hope Vinge will manage to finish the tale one day while he still has the knack.I give it 3.5 stars. It lost a half star due to the ending (and I even had my hopes down because I knew it had a bit of an unresolved ending before reading it) and because of the unsatisfying outcome of the main plot.

[section241 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's been far too long since I read Fire Upon the Deep and this novel isn't constructed in a way to quickly refresh your memory of who the characters are and what their predicament is. My biggest problem with the book is the entire concept of the Blight; I can't recall the details behind the Blight from the previous book and they're the driving force behind the split in the humans' ranks. Each side has an opinion about the Blight, but I'll be damned if I can recall the facts about the Blight.This was an engaging read, even though not much changes in the course of its 600+ pages: one enemy is dispatched, one enemy becomes an ally and another enemy becomes mostly irrelevant.

[travelster · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This isn't really science fiction and should be labelled as such. I LOVE everything else I've read/listened to by this author, but this book I did not like. It's a well-written and great story, but IT IS NOT science fiction. More like fantasy.

[guide2_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As usual, full of interesting ideas, but this one did not feel as well wrapped up together as the previous one. There were so many bad people/Tines clans with different loyalties that some of the changes or events were hard to believe at times.

[rakerman_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

An interesting story about the crew of a crashed spaceship trying to get a planet from zero technology to starships in a single generation (with the help of an intelligent and somewhat friendly alien race). Unfortunately this story (sort of what it would be like to play the game Civilization for real) is buried completely under an interminable and improbable political intrigue story in which all the good people are completely naive and lacking in insight and all the bad people are endlessly clever and mostly sociopathic. For those who look to Vinge for incredibly imaginative ideas about technologies and societies, there is not much here to enjoy.Most disappointingly, neither the race to civilization nor the political intrigue stories are resolved. The characters are moved around like pieces on a game board, and by the end of the book some of them have changed position and importance, and a few pieces have been eliminated, but nothing fundamental has changed; the book's ending is just the set up for another sequel.

[rbrohman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a huge fan of the "fallen god" sort of books, where remnants of a technologically advanced race struggle to rebuild after some catastrophe sends them back to pre-technology life. But the collective minds of the Tine world adds an interesting twist, and I enjoy the concept of the Zones of Thought, so this wasn't a bad read. I'm looking forward to the next book where presumably we see the children return to former tech levels.