A Deepness in the Sky

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel
Winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award
Winner of the Prometheus Award

After thousands of years of 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—are dramatically opposed in their anticipation of this first contact, for the group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But initially, 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 250 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.

A Deepness in the Sky is not only a great sci-fi novel—it is a universal drama of courage, love, and self-discovery.