A Deepness in the Sky

Extract: In finishing this book, I achieved two amazing feats. First, I have read all the Hugo Award winners through 2013, excluding the retro winners. Second, I learned to like the space opera. While I knew I'd accomplish the first, I never thought I'd accomplish the second.

"Deepness" is a classic space opera. The Qeng Ho, the ultimate interplanetary traders, are at Arachna, a planet orbiting a strangely variable star. The star is about to relight, awakening Arachna's spider-like sentient race from their 200 year hibernation. Their mission is to make contact with the spiders and engage them in interplanetary commerce. Another group, the Emergents, have also shown up with less noble intentions. A war between the two breaks out, leaving the Emergents the victors but with crippled ships and a lot of captive Qeng Ho. Together they must wait until the spiders awake and become technologically savvy enough to help them restore their ship. Several of the Qeng Ho try to devise a plan to overthrow the Emergents and protect the spiders from their genocidal intentions…