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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
Military conflict and violence connected to the struggle for control over first contact; significant deaths
Language
Barely any
Minimal profanity; clean hard SF register
Sexual Content
Barely any
Minimal sexual content
Substance Use
None
No substance use
Emotional Intensity
Some
The ethical weight of memory manipulation and the exploitation of an alien civilization for economic gain are the novel's central moral concerns
What this book is about
Vernor Vinge's Hugo Award-winning companion novel to A Fire Upon the Deep follows traders and merchants making first contact with the Spiders, an alien species on a world that freezes and thaws with its variable sun. The human traders are split between those willing to manipulate the Spiders through memory modification and those who aren't. Vinge's hard science fiction is meticulous about physics, alien society, and the ethics of contact. Violence and political intrigue are present throughout as the two human factions compete.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Memory modification used as a weapon
Ethical complexity of first contact
Reader Verification
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