Vernor Vinge: A Deepness in the Sky

Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky is nearly as famous as its predecessor, A Fire Upon the Deep, in whose universe it is also set. (It's a prequel, but only sort of.) Going by reputation, this will be an engrossing book full of complex alien species and big ideas. It's long - 537 pages of fairly small print, in my edition - so we'll have our first meetup of 2026 a little later than usual, to give us all more time to read it.