The "Fire" is within Pham Nuwen. The Old One downloaded the Countermeasure into him when the Blight gobbled up all the processing capability at Relay and for a brief moment, Nuwen was exposed to the entirety of the Old One's godlike powers; hence Ravna's reference to his convulsions as "Godshatter." Pham's backstory is actually very close to his reputation; he really was a hero on a number of occasions, notably intervening in the subjection of the Spider civilization in "A Darkness in the Sky." He led the internal resistance to the Emergents and exposed their corruption and sadism. Yes, a lot of his memories were added in, largely through extrapolation by the Old One. He was literally a bomb with a proximity fuse; get close enough to the Blight and the Countermeasure activates--but it had to be close enough to the deeps of the Slow Zone. (Yes, they had to trick the Blight's forces into following them deep into the Slow Zone.) We may speculate that the "wave of slowness" created by the the Countermeasure is similar to a Higg's Boson. Mess with that and you can alter gravity. Apparently, the Countermeasure can affect the physical constant of the speed of light. (Which we should have expected since the Beyond civilizations use antigravity and FTL which require enormous and insanely fast computing power.) Pretty scary stuff. It implies that the High Transcend has ways to reach down into the Slow Zone, perhaps into the Unthinking Depths. What they hell are they doing up there in the High Transcend? BTW, I had the extreme pleasure to have Vernor Vinge on the review panel for new authors at WorldCon 51 (San Francisco) There was Dr. Vinge, Connie Willis, Steven Perry ("Men in Black.") and one other whose name escapes me. We five contestants (out of a field of about a hundred) submitted our best short story (under 5000 words) and these fine professionals were tasked by the Con Committee to review and critique our work. I recorded it--MY review, at least. When I want to become really depressed, I listen to it. Willis liked it because it was primarily a love story (which she got immediately) but seemed confused as to the ending. Perry and the other chap (his name will come to me eventually) didn't like it and suggested some rather brutal, graphic changes. But Dr. Vinge's critique was perhaps the most valuable of all. He admired my use of dialogue, called it "beautiful and compelling." He liked that I gave almost nothing away--but he was still a bit disappointed by the ending. He felt that it didn't "land" right--or that it may have been insufficiently emphasized. Overall, he called it "a damn fine effort from a writer with obvious talent. Don't put this one in a drawer. Polish it and sell it." Best advice I ever had. I did in fact sell it to Omni magazine which, as you probably know, is long gone. They never published it. I reacquired the rights a few years ago and published it in in my latest collection of short stories: "Jade Milkshakes and Other Dreams." See for yourself if he was right.
"The Blabber" was the first to be published, yet the last chapter of "Zone of Thoughts" so far. The Blight was not dead/or at least the Blight fleet and had destroyed the Tine's World. :p
I've been thinking about this. In "The Children of the Sky" it's revealed that the Blight is still making its determined way towards Tines World. Why is it doing this? Countermeasure has alteady done its thing. Does the Blight think that by reaching the used remains of Countermeasure it can somehow reshape the Zone boundaries? In "The Blabber", Ravna&Tines seem to have come from the Beyond. The Zones must have shifted again for them ever to have escaped Tines world.
There's just no way to properly discuss how brilliant this book is in this region of the galaxy.
The "Fire" is within Pham Nuwen. The Old One downloaded the Countermeasure into him when the Blight gobbled up all the processing capability at Relay and for a brief moment, Nuwen was exposed to the entirety of the Old One's godlike powers; hence Ravna's reference to his convulsions as "Godshatter."
Pham's backstory is actually very close to his reputation; he really was a hero on a number of occasions, notably intervening in the subjection of the Spider civilization in "A Darkness in the Sky." He led the internal resistance to the Emergents and exposed their corruption and sadism. Yes, a lot of his memories were added in, largely through extrapolation by the Old One.
He was literally a bomb with a proximity fuse; get close enough to the Blight and the Countermeasure activates--but it had to be close enough to the deeps of the Slow Zone. (Yes, they had to trick the Blight's forces into following them deep into the Slow Zone.) We may speculate that the "wave of slowness" created by the the Countermeasure is similar to a Higg's Boson. Mess with that and you can alter gravity. Apparently, the Countermeasure can affect the physical constant of the speed of light. (Which we should have expected since the Beyond civilizations use antigravity and FTL which require enormous and insanely fast computing power.)
Pretty scary stuff. It implies that the High Transcend has ways to reach down into the Slow Zone, perhaps into the Unthinking Depths.
What they hell are they doing up there in the High Transcend?
BTW, I had the extreme pleasure to have Vernor Vinge on the review panel for new authors at WorldCon 51 (San Francisco) There was Dr. Vinge, Connie Willis, Steven Perry ("Men in Black.") and one other whose name escapes me. We five contestants (out of a field of about a hundred) submitted our best short story (under 5000 words) and these fine professionals were tasked by the Con Committee to review and critique our work.
I recorded it--MY review, at least. When I want to become really depressed, I listen to it. Willis liked it because it was primarily a love story (which she got immediately) but seemed confused as to the ending. Perry and the other chap (his name will come to me eventually) didn't like it and suggested some rather brutal, graphic changes.
But Dr. Vinge's critique was perhaps the most valuable of all. He admired my use of dialogue, called it "beautiful and compelling." He liked that I gave almost nothing away--but he was still a bit disappointed by the ending. He felt that it didn't "land" right--or that it may have been insufficiently emphasized. Overall, he called it "a damn fine effort from a writer with obvious talent. Don't put this one in a drawer. Polish it and sell it."
Best advice I ever had. I did in fact sell it to Omni magazine which, as you probably know, is long gone. They never published it. I reacquired the rights a few years ago and published it in in my latest collection of short stories: "Jade Milkshakes and Other Dreams."
See for yourself if he was right.
"The Blabber" was the first to be published, yet the last chapter of "Zone of Thoughts" so far. The Blight was not dead/or at least the Blight fleet and had destroyed the Tine's World. :p
I've been thinking about this. In "The Children of the Sky" it's revealed that the Blight is still making its determined way towards Tines World. Why is it doing this? Countermeasure has alteady done its thing. Does the Blight think that by reaching the used remains of Countermeasure it can somehow reshape the Zone boundaries?
In "The Blabber", Ravna&Tines seem to have come from the Beyond. The Zones must have shifted again for them ever to have escaped Tines world.
Check out our review of A Deepness in the Sky, a prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, here: th-cam.com/video/CRq4Swc_kbs/w-d-xo.html
Im still sad fro Scriber :(
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