Next week is two awesome things. Vernor Vinge's "Children of the Sky", his new sequel to "A Fire Upon the Deep", is going to be out! I have no idea when or if Audible will be carrying that one. They added most of the Vinge stuff to their catalog between when the last book came out and now, so no saying how quick they'll be on the uptake for this one. I'm curious how the book is going to work out though. Without spoiling things too much, it seems like in order for the large scale issues to have been resolved that at the bare minimum at least 100 years will have had to pass. Even for the longish lifespans (or perhaps "mindspans"?) of the aliens the story is supposed to be taking part on it doesn't seem like any of the original characters will be alive at that point. (With a singular possible exception?) Alternately he could try to find a way to work around the external problem in a very unexpected way while some of the original characters are around to provide a little more continuity. It will be interesting to see which way he goes.
Okay, the next part got kind of long, so i'm moving it to a separate post...