“A Fire Upon the Deep” holds a special place among Verner Vinge’s works. It is a sensation novel — a book that, right after its publication, was recognized as the most significant work of the 1990s in the genre of a space saga. Dozens of civilizations, hundreds of planets, the entire Galaxy as the setting — that is what “A Fire Upon the Deep” is: a space saga of unbelievable scope. A group of archaeologists who discover an ancient archive — a repository of knowledge of many civilizations — on the fringes of a planet activate a sleeping mind in search of a key. A foreign mind. A mind whose main principle is domination. A mind that puts the very existence of humankind at risk.