Free (DRM-free) A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge [Award-Win Sci-Fi Space Opera]

[ATDrake]

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (ISFDB, Wikipedia, SFE), who used to be a professor of mathematics before he retired to write full-time, is the 1st novel in his Zones of Thought sequence of hard science fiction space opera novels set in a far future which has warring aliens, super-intelligent beings, and a proto-Usenet, this one kicking off the saga with the discovery that the Earth exists in a space zone which limits its technology and mental ability, plus the unleashed threat of the use of a devastating weapon designed by the beings in the super-intelligence zones and the ensuing galactic power struggle, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Tor Books.

This is their featured Tor.com eBook of the Month Club selection for May and won the 1993 Hugo Award for Best Novel in a tie with Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, according to its Wikipedia entry, and also the SF Chronicle Award, according to ISFDB. I've been meaning to try this for ages (I have a giant-size Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge paperback I haven't gotten around to yet, since the intro to a few of the stories mentioned that they were in the setting and followed up from some things in the novel and I wanted to read it first before tackling those) so it's a real treat that this is being offered free and now I don't have to make a special trip to the library downtown (regular trips will still be made).

Incidentally I also found out from fellow MR member author Robert J. Sawyer's WWW trilogy that I'd been pronouncing Vinge's last name (which I knew from reading the excellent and recommended novels of his ex, Joan D. Vinge) wrong for years : it's apparently supposed to be “vin-jee”, and does not rhyme with “hinge”. Just so you know.

Currently free through 11:59 PM Eastern Time on May 15th directly @ the publisher's special promo page (DRM-free ePub & Mobi bundle officially available only to Canada & the US due to geo-restrictions; requires newsletter signup with valid email address), and you can follow along with the Tor.com book club discussion via their dedicated blog tag here.

Description
The universe has a natural limit on the speed of light...but what if it does the same for the speed of thought?

Earth discovers it exists within a “Slow Zone,” making faster-than-light travel AND super-intelligence impossible. But life is nothing if not adaptable, and there just may be a diabolical way for humanity to reach the wild marvels of the Beyond and take its place amongst galactic civilization...

[Dr. Drib]

Got it.

Thank you!