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by jjoonathan 1274 days ago
I stopped reading at the dog kingdom.

A few chapters in, it felt like I had been baited with a veneer of scifi over a core of anthropomorphic medieval historical fiction. Do the dogs connect back to the AIs in a satisfying way? Should I give it a second chance? ChatGPT says

    As the story progresses, the puppies become involved in the larger
    conflict that is taking place in the galaxy, and they play a key role
    in helping the human and alien characters achieve their goals.
    The puppies' involvement with the artificial intelligences (AIs) in the
    story is a central part of the plot, and the resolution of the conflict
    between the puppies and the AIs is an important part of the story's
    resolution.
which I take as a "yes." Any humans care to weigh in?
2 comments
gnomewascool 1274 days ago
AFAIR "no". Humans interact with both the AIs and the "dogs", and both groups of humans end up in contact with each other, but unless I'm missing something, the "dogs" don't directly interact with the AIs in any significant way (or the two threads end up interfering with each other, but more in a "they distract some of the characters" in both cases).
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akkartik 1274 days ago
I don't really think of any Vernor Vinge as hard scifi that's got a core "theme" that everything has to connect to. It's rather space opera with fairly deep world building. Every chapter has certain "episodic" aspects, often exploring a single theme, and some chapters advance the broader story arc more than others. So no, the Tines don't connect to the AIs. Instead the Tines contribute to the warp and weft of the story just like the AIs. The angle in their subplot that sticks with me a decade later is the exploration of sense of self when split up between multiple bodies. And what happens to the sense of self when the number of bodies grows or shrinks.

To be fair, "A Deepness in the Sky" has a richer world than Fire. When I reread Fire a few years later I did tend to skim the Tines as well. Whereas every one of the half dozen themes in Deepness has remained compelling after multiple readings.

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