Hoisted from the Archives from 11 Years Ago: Notes: Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky
Hoisted from the Archives from 11 Years Ago: Notes: A Deepness in the Sky:
[Spoilers]. In Vernor Vinge (1999), A Deepness in the Sky (New York: Tor: 0812536355). On pp. 699-700, a brief paragraph completely reverses your understanding of the progress of the book's main plot:
Sherkaner Underhill didn't seem to notice. He moved his head back and forth under the [game] helmet's light show. 'There has to be reconnect. There has to be.' His hands twitched at the game controls. Seconds passed. 'It's all messed up now,' he sobbed."
When you finish that paragraph, your picture of what is going on in the story is turned upside down.
This time through the book, I looked for earlier clues that Vernor Vinge had dropped to what the real situation was. I found a great number of them, and felt like somewhat of an idiot for failing to pick up on what they might have told me had I paid more attention and thought harder:
UPDATE 2014: And Art Brown ["AB"] emails in with some more:
- p. 250 [AB]: “You remember the aurora we saw in the Dark? I have a fellow here [Jaybert] who thinks that maybe it was caused by objects in space, things that are exceptionally dark.… He’s working on a wireless device that can radiate at wavelengths of just a few inches...”
- p. 359: Of course, Jaybert took the question to be about his work. "Damnedest thing. I put my new antenna..."
- p. 371: Locally, the translators had screamed something past the controllers, but the Spiders had not noticed...
- p. 403: "There has to be a way to find them. There has to be. I have computers, and the microwave link to Lands Command."...
- p. 423 [AB]: Qiwi: "Apparently the Accord is experimenting with distributed computation across the link. That’s frivolous, since there are less that ten computers on their entire net..."
- p. 424 [AB]: During the kidnapping episode, "We’re listening for…." He leaned forward, apparently lost in the mysteries of his own programming. "We’re trying to break the crypto intercepts."
- p. 447: Then perhaps ten or fifteen seconds after he had spoken, Trixia abruptly looked up. There was expression on her face again, but this time it was surprise. "Really? I'm not a machine?"...
- p. 474 [AB]: Anne’s suspicions about sabotaged zipheads were totally amorphous…” AB: [We’re meant to confuse Pham’s lurk with the Counterlurk; only much later (p. 529 and 658) do we learn that Pham specifically avoided manipulating the Focused. There are similar references to Anne’s suspicions on p. 551 and 576. She never suspects there could be an external subverter; I guess that would have given the game away to the reader. See also p. 648, where she specifically calls them “internal enemies.”, and pp. 654-655.]
- p. 524: "Beats me!" Sherk was practically vibrating with glee. "You've found something genuinely new. Why, not even the..."
- p. 526: He recognized Underhill's shaky penmanship in one title: "Videomancy for High Payload Steganography."...
- p. 528 [AB]: "But all those papers by 'Tom Lurksalot'? I thought that was Sherk and his students being coy." "That? No. That’s … that’s only his students being coy."
- p. 583: "No, no, Hrunk. The videomancy was just a means, a cover..."
- p. 603: He would have been very suspicious that it was a steganographic cover...
- p. 611: She looked vaguely in Ezr's direction. "Number Four, when do we go to Arachna?"...
- p. 639 [AB]: AB: [Rachner Thract is not interrogated, despite the widespread suspicion that he is a traitor. Those in charge know he’s not.]
- p. 658: The woman is unbelievable!...
- p. 665: "I know," was all Brent said. "Critter nine sees our op..."
- p. 665 [AB]: The General was no longer essential to the great counterlurk that she and Daddy had created.
- p. 681 [AB]: "We are here to prevent you from doing that."
- p. 697 [AB]: "It’s all messed up now."
Sigh... It is too bad. A Deepness in the Sky is such a great book, but so much of its greatness has to come from reading it for the first time. And from the realization that one should never engage in a land war in asia, never eat at a place called "Mom's", never play poker with a man named "Doc", never leave your sword maker's young son alive beyond you, never bet on whether Lindy's sells more cheesecake or more strudel, never bet that the jack of spades will not jump out and squirt cider in your ear, never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line, and never engage in a contest of lurk-and-pounce with a species of intelligent spiders...
