Perplexed comments on Specific Fiction Discusion (April 2011) - Less Wrong
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Comments (158)
I have the exact opposite view. I liked A Fire Upon the Deep and felt that Deepness had a woefully anthropomorphic and unimaginative alien world, cartoonish cast and a plot that drags on.
Aside from these two I've read Marooned in Realtime and True Names, and both were quite good. Overall I'd label Vinge a decent, albeit clearly second rate writer.
I suppose you are right that the alien world is unrealistically human-like - at least psychologically. The world-building that I particularly admired was the variety of human cultures that were briefly presented - the extra verisimilitude arising from the level of extraneous detail offered. (Did I just hear someone whisper: "Conjunction Fallacy"?)