Now with a new introduction for the Tor Essentials line, A Fire Upon the Deep is sure to bring a new generation of SF fans to Vinge's award-winning works. A Hugo Award-winning Novel! “Vinge is one of the best visionary writers of SF today.”-David Brin Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. Tor books by Vernor Vinge Zones of Thought Series A Fire Upon The Deep A Deepness In The Sky The Children of The Sky Realtime/Bobble Series The Peace War Marooned in Realtime Other Novels The Witling Tatja Grimm's World Rainbows End Collections Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge True Names At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The advent of the Reagan administration's "New Federalism" initiatives in 1981 impacted state government in numerous ways. One example of this new era in intergovernmental relations is the transfer of responsibility of the Small Cities Community Development Block Grant Program from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to state governments. This volume provides an overview of the Small Cities CDBG program, an analysis of its politics, and an examination of the grant award processes established by the states. It concludes with an assessment of the consequences of state assumption for program activities, outcomes, and administration. Assessing the program transfer within the context of theories and practices of intergovernmental relations and policy execution, the book provides rich contextual information and a thorough comparison of implementation activities and outputs in seven states.