An excellent
science fiction novel written by
Vernor Vinge, a prequel to the Hugo-award-winning
A Fire Upon the Deep. It's hard to
summarize the plot of a nigh-on-800 page book, but I'll try anyway. It's a story about a group of traders (members of a
larger group known as the
Qeng Ho) who take on a joint
mission with a
culture known as the Emergents. They are subtly
betrayed and
enslaved, many of their people being placed under a form of
mind control, and must find a way to
free themselves and save an entire newly discovered
race from the same fate.
It's not nearly as
cheesy as it sounds, either. Go
read it, it's
worth your time.