[jrgoff]

I've seen others who felt similarly about the enjoyability of the space part vs the dog part. But for some reason I felt the opposite, the space part was alright but I didn't really connect with any of the characters or plot there much. But I loved the part on the dog planet, for me that world felt like he started with a question of "What might it look like if a pack animal achieved human-like level of intelligence?" and explored from there, and what he came up with made a lot of sense to me and was really interesting to think about.

[CWuestefeld]

I'm completely with you. I found the space parts a chore to read through to get back to the most interesting stuff. The whole "zones of thought" concept just seems an obvious device to allow Vinge's ideas to work.

By contrast, the thrill I got when I first realized that the dog hive mind was evolution's stab at an acoustic modem was fantastic, and I read through all of this aspect of the book with great wonder.

[The_Colonel]

I think the dog part really suffered from a quite common syndrome, that the sci-fi author gets some really cool idea/concept, and has to explore it in some context / story, but doesn't really deliver on it. For me the idea/concept was great, the story just boring filler needed to explore the idea.