A Deepness in the Sky
Vernor Vinge
41 people recommended it in 23 threads, 2007–2024.
1 commenter pushed back on it — worth reading the threads.
What people on Hacker News said
A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge. A science fiction novel that is really about hacking, set thousands of years in the future, when Moore's Law is long defeated and programmers are basically archeologists.
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge: explore the far future in a space opera dreamed up by a computer science professor turned sci-fi author. This book literally inspired the first IoT sensor "motes" created, and we haven't come close to achieving the vision he explores just as texture in this rich book with fascinating characters.
Deepness had a lot of themes that satisfy hacker tastes (not just in terms of the technology but also the socio-political ramifications of it).
Lots to dig into in that book, but my favorite aspect of it is actually how he writes the two different cultures' points of view to skew the reader's perception of the (very) alien culture, only revealing exactly how uncomfortable humans would be around them late in the book.
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