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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   2090 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 28, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I've been reading Verner Vinge's a Deepness in the Sky and it's quite... slow.

Someone suggested I read it because they have interesting takes on dealing with software that's thousands of years old. About 150 of 500 pages in and I'm still not really seeing much of that.

Anyone else read this thing?

I remember enjoying the novel, and yes, it does have bits about old technology. Probably halfway through is when it becomes a major facet of the novel. I'd suggest you stick with it.

It's probably been a decade since I read that but I can't help but wonder if that someone got A Deepness in the Sky mixed up with perhaps A Fire Upon the Deep or another one of his works. IIRC, the closest Deepness gets to software is with the whole control people via direct brain modification whereas Fire at least had the whole thing about digging up an ancient "recipe" and setting it to work which I could easily see as being analogous to running software that's thousands of years old.

I had a similar issue with Lucifer's Hammer. I made it a couple hundred pages, and it was about 2% comet related stuff and 98% sordid vingettes about the grubby little sex lives of a wide cast of people I didn't care about.

I seriously wonder if people remember the book fondly, not as scifi, but in the same way I recall the magazines my dad had hidden when I was young.

Yes. That was his best-paced one, too. Don’t remember the details on the software. I dropped two of his other books (A Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbow’s End) after several tries.

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