"Pham Nuwen is living in anonymity among the Qeng Ho interstellar trading fleet. In high orbit above the planet Arachna, they wait for the awakening of its dormant population, the Spiders, who have burrowed deep into the planet, awaiting the relighting of the On/Off star their planet orbits. For when light returns, Arachna will at long last explode into a Golden Age of technology and commerce." "But the slumbering Spiders' vulnerability has attracted another lurking presence - the Emergents, a band of traders whose plans for Arachna are more sinister than anything the Qeng Ho could envision." "Reluctant to share their spoils with the Qeng Ho, the Emergents unleash an attack unlike any seen in the Qeng Ho's millennia-long history of exploration, reducing their fleet to serfdom...and then to something far worse." "As Pham's underground resistance cell struggles against its torturers in space, a wondrously gifted clan of Spiders on the planet below fights another battle - to advance their technology quickly enough to defeat their terrestrial foes, and to somehow overcome the invisible enemy lurking above."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

After thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as it does every two hundred and fifty years....Then, following terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by the Qeng Ho and Emergents alike.More than just a great science fiction adventure, A Deepness in the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love.

A Deepness in the Skyis a 1999 Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel.