A Fire Upon the Deep (SFBC 50th Anniversary Collection)

A driving force in science fiction, Vernor Vinge won the 1993 Hugo Award for this space adventure whose ideas still wow us today. - In Straumli Realm, human scientists discover an archive of quantum data lost to the nets for 5 billion years and unwittingly unleash the Blight. A god-like Power, its now free to prowl the multi layers of space from the High Beyond to the Slow Zone destroying its human enemies. Piloted by two scientists and their children, Johanna and Jefri, one ship escapes and lands in the Slowness, on a world inhabited by hostile beings. Captured and separated, each convinced the other is dead, Johanna and Jefri find themselves in a complex alien society only to learn that the Blight has followed.