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    Pi in the Sky
    Pi in the Sky
    Pi in the Sky
    Audiobook7 hours

    Pi in the Sky

    Written by Wendy Mass

    Narrated by Mark Turetsky

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York Times bestselling author Wendy Mass has received an array of awards for her children's fiction, including the ALA Schneider Family Book Award. Pi in the Sky stars Joss, the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe, whose job is to deliver magical pies--ones that happen to hold the secrets of the cosmos. But when planet Earth suddenly disappears, Joss must figure out a way to bring it back--even if it means enlisting the help of an outspoken Earth girl named Annika.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 19, 2013
    ISBN9781470370381
    Pi in the Sky
    Author

    Wendy Mass

    Wendy Mass is the New York Times bestselling author of The Candymakers series, Bob, and many other novels for young readers, including the Schneider Family Book Award-winner A Mango-Shaped Space, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (which was made into a feature film), Every Soul a Star, Pi in the Sky, the Twice Upon a Time series, and the Willow Falls series that began with 11 Birthdays. She and her family live in New Jersey.

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    Reviews for Pi in the Sky

    4/5

    60 ratings26 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Not quite as good as the other book in this losely knit series. Still, it keeps in the spirit of exploring the ideas of alien scocieties that differ from our own in some important way.
    • 5/5
      I've read it at least three times, with varying experiences.

      I think the first time I wanted more of ADOtD and didn't quite get it, but did get lots of other great stuff (particularly programmer-archaeologists who still knew about the unix epoch), and just want along for the thrill ride.

      Second time I was focused on the Focused, and got a bit blindsided at the ending.

      Third time, I read it quite slow and found a lot of things I'd not found before, including the exquisite way the last quarter was put together.
    • 4/5
      Nearly as good as A Fire Upon the Deep, this one deals with interesting aliens and even more interesting disease.
    • 4/5
      Huge universe and timescale. Enjoyable, but darker than I thought from the first few chapters (i.e. Qiwi Lisolet and the Brughel character). Not as innovative (IMHO) as Fire Upon the Deep. I'll probably read more Vinge, though!
    • 4/5
      Every bit as good as A Fire upon the Deep with, once again, nicely alien aliens and a page-turner of a plot. Not especially deep, but high entertainment.
    • 5/5
      This is a fantastic book - the Spiders are truly weird creatures though initially filtered through the perceptions of the humans watching their civilisation from deep space. Vinge has managed to make the humans almost as weird as the Spiders, though, and in the Emergants, he's created one of the few groups of people that have really scared me.
    • 5/5
      I have a poor memory. Recently, I was asked the simple question, “What’s your favorite book?” and I said what I’d been saying for years, “Vernor Vinge wrote it. I can’t remember the name—A Darkness in the Deep or A Deepness in the Dark—something like that. It’s awesome; the ending had me jumping around, I was so excited at how clever it was.” When I realized I couldn’t even remember what had me so excited, I decided to reread it. I’m glad I did.Plot and title were not the only things I’d forgotten about the Hugo award-winning ‘A Deepness in the Sky.’ Maybe it was because I was young when I first took this tome on, with time on my hands to spend entire afternoons absorbed in a story, but dang! Deepness is LONG. It took me forever to read it this time, squeezing in a chapter between meetings and appointments here, a few pages between chores and obligations there. This is not to imply that reading Deepness again was in any way a chore or obligation—on the contrary, the book is every bit as good as what I recalled of it.Refreshing my memory only served to reinforce this novel’s place at the top of my favorites list. There’s no way this review can do it justice, so before I try to explain exactly what’s so great about it, please just take my word for it. Even if you’re not a science fiction fan, it’s simply the best.First of all, Vinge’s intellectual brilliance (he’s a retired computer scientist and Professor of Mathematics) shines through in his work. Not just in his exceptional concepts, but in his ability to filter those concepts through effective word usage, sentence structure, plot and characterization. In other words, he’s a scientist who also happens to be a great writer. He’s got a unique vision of what civilization might be like thousands of years in the future, and the technical skills to put that vision on paper in a highly effective manner.(Plot summary/Spoiler Alert!)The Qeng Ho (pronounced Cheng Ho) are the future. Star faring humans, a huge family of traders with ships spread out over known space. In all the thousands of years of exploration, there’s only been one other intelligent race found, until now. Whoever makes first contact will secure great fame and fortune. One Qeng Ho fleet is speeding through space, but hot on their heels are the Emergents, a civilization that has recently ‘emerged’ from a heinous civil war.In the On/Off solar system, the planet Arachna’s sun phases between light and dark. During its dark phase, the planet’s inhabitants burrow deep underground, where they go into a natural frozen hibernation as the atmosphere of the planet dissipates. The dominant species is a spider-like race with technology similar to that of mid-twentieth century earth.The Qeng Ho and Emergents arrive at the solar system at nearly the same time. They form an uneasy alliance that is soon destroyed when the Emergents attack. Tomas Nau, the Emergent ‘Podmaster,’ is surprised at the Qeng Ho’s resilience. Even as the Emergents’ horrible biological weapon, a ‘mindrot’ virus, is unleashed, the Qeng Ho manage to fight back. The result is that both fleets are nearly decimated. The remaining Qeng Ho are enslaved, and those whose immune systems were unable to fight off the mindrot virus are subject to ‘focus,’ a deliberate manipulation by Emergent technicians of the virus in their brains that causes them to focus only on one area of specialization. These unfortunate ‘zipheads’ can now hardly even care for themselves; they are only concerned with whatever they’ve been focused on.Nau must play a dangerous game of keeping the Qeng Ho sublimated through pervasive ziphead-enhanced surveillance as they wait for Arachna’s star to relight. The one attempt at rebellion is quashed quickly and brutally, further subjugating the remaining unfocused Qeng Ho population.All this sounds very science-fiction-y, doesn’t it? And I promised you’d like it even if you don’t like sci-fi.Well, there’s more to the story to than the background (and there’s significantly more to the background than I describe here). That’s what’s so great about this novel. The unique stage Vinge sets allows him to write about human behavior under extreme circumstances. And it’s the multi-dimensional characters that really set this story apart. We care about these people—even the ones who aren’t ‘people.’Vinge uses multiple points of view, including that of the ‘spiders’ themselves before they enter the long ‘deep,’ and again when the sun relights and they emerge. We see through the eyes of one family, whose patriarch is a progressive-minded genius named Hrunkner and whose matriarch is a respected general in the King’s army named Victory. Even though Vinge’s vivid description reminds us often that these creatures are very different physically from us, he rounds them out with familiar emotions. We peek in at their lives as they attempt to change their world through technology and logic aimed at converting the culturally ignorant majority. This world mirrors old earth (us, sixty or so years ago), politically. As nuclear power becomes a reality, the major countries arm themselves with nervous pointed ‘hands’ poised above the red button.This is what Tomas Nau is counting on. His zipheads are in incognito communication with the spiders, feeding them information that both propels them forward technologically and keeps the various countries at legs-length. Meanwhile, the true hero of the story (well, okay, there are several heroes, but this one is the *main* one), an old Qeng Ho man named Pham Trinli, has figured out an ingenious way to infiltrate Nau’s near-impenetrable surveillance system. We learn a lot about Pham in back-story that’s woven in almost seamlessly. Pham is not the swaggering blow-hard everyone thinks he is.Life in space under Nau’s thumb has been hard for the Qeng Ho. Entertainment is at a premium, and every week they gather to hear the ziphead’s interpret a spider radio program for children, produced by Hrunkner and Victory and acted by their children. The Qeng Ho, and even some of the Emergents, grow very fond of the beings on the planet they are spying on. They lurk in space, waiting for the spider’s technology to reach a point where it will be profitable to make first contact.I don’t want to give any more away.Even if you don’t take my word for it that this book is more than read-worthy, maybe those silver rocket ships on Vinge’s mantel (his Hugos) might sway you. He’s got, I think, four or five of them…(Review originally posted to Booksquawk)
    • 3/5
      This book is reallllllllly long. I think I really would have loved it if it was about half as long.The point of view of the spiders is kinda lame at times. While the luddite spiders were kind of an interesting dynamic, I didn't really love reading about them quite that much. I also go over the spider babies really quickly. The author does dive a bit into speculative software design of the future, which you might expect from a Computer Science professor. I thought it was pretty cool, thankfully not at all like [author:Stephenson]'s frequent outbursts, but i expect some people who don't design software for a living might not 'get it' as much.I probably should have read fire in the deep first, I think thats his first book and people have told me that one is better.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed the creative ideas in this book.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book, but not quite as much as A Fire Upon the Deep. Never-the-less, it was very entertaining and fun to read. The alien spiders were fascinating, as was the storyline with Pham. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Not as cool as -AFUtD- but still great. Could have dropped 100 pages but I can't think of a part that was really boring. Couple of excellent big ideas: Focus, Qeng Ho culture, on/off star etc...
    • 5/5
      This is an epic science fiction novel, both in length and quality. Almost as good as A Fire Upon the Deep, this is really an excellent exploration of an alien culture, mixed in with the familiar universe of the other novel. This is long, but well worth reading.
    • 5/5
      It was such a interesting way to write a book! I like the reader he does most of the Wendy mass books. I think it was great & I would love to see a pi in the sky 2 soon hopefully Wendy will write one ( probably not tho)
    • 5/5
      I found A Deepness in the Sky to be slow going at first, and I had a hard time finding much sympathy for any of the human characters. But, I stuck with it and by the end had come around to thinking it is one of the great recent science fiction novels. The Emergents are truly creepy and despicable bad guys; Vinge does an effective job of gradually revealing more and more reasons to hate them. I felt ambivalent about the other human faction in the book, the Qeng Ho, who had both good points and bad points; it was only as I understood the depravity of the Emergents that I started really rooting for other side. The alien "Spiders" are the best thing about the book. For me, Sherkaner Underhill and his family were the true protagonists of the story, and very easy to root for. He is a brilliant alien scientist who has yet to discover much of what the secretly-orbiting-and-spying-down-on-them humans already know. His entire family plays a critical role in the political and military maneuverings on-planet and in the ultimate system-wide resolution when the humans finally act. The pace eventually picks up and builds to an exciting climax and satisfying conclusion with plenty of surprises. It's only very loosely associated with A Fire Upon the Deep; I wouldn't really call it part of a series.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I haven't read a lot of modern sci-fi but i'm starting to get more into it, especially after reading this. Very interesting and exciting new ideas. Very cool.
    • 2/5
      Couldn't finish this one. I was a hundred pages from the end and just couldn't do it anymore. Just like Fire Upon the Deep (which I loved), it started out incomprehensible and then slowly came to make sense to me. But I didn't find the story or setting compelling and it felt like nothing was going on most of the time.
    • 5/5
      Vernor Vinge is a master at weaving complex plots and innovative concepts.
    • 3/5
      This review may contain what some consider spoilers. A Deepness in the Sky is, at its core, a predictable book with very few fresh ideas. I am quite surprised by the amount of favorable reviews, and I would imagine that this book might be much more favorable by those that have not read a lot of science-fiction. It is my opinion that Vinge recreated 600 pages of Human history with the introduction of advanced technology. The Qeng Ho are very reminiscent of Europe's early colonial traders (in ideals and their wish to expand their empire). My opinion is that the author did not produce a world of beings that would undoubtedly be very different than the world we see in, for example, Star Trek and Star Wars. The descendants of Earth simply aren't alien enough for the time period of the setting.During the author's introduction of the Qeng Ho and the Emergents (Humans), their history and the technology was somewhat interesting as it unfolded, but the author introduced very few fresh ideas about the possible Human condition in the far future and their technological advancements. For example, the method of star travel is what one might expect-- near light travel with very large ships; the ships' inhabitants are "frozen" on shifts due to the vastness between stars; Humans have returned to a form of slavery, albeit through technological, more direct means by altering the brain of their subjects; and the building of artificial environments in space was written in. Each of these, and others, once arrived, brought the question to mind, "How will Vinge handle this as other authors have in other science-fiction books?" The author should have asked this of himself, and steered away from those frequently used expectations.Vinge focused heavily on each character, but his descriptions were somewhat rambling. It is as if he spent most of the time on the relationships between characters, but left the meat of the excitement just outside of the frame. Character building is important, but I felt Vinge used too many words to spell out what the reader should already know about these characters by what had been written before. Less is definitely more when it comes to this story; nothing at all was left to the imagination. Key happenings are foretold, almost in passing, and the foretold events come and go without much narrative. For instance, only a couple of pages actually describe the invasion of the alien world. 400 pages build and build and build to first contact, and when we arrive to that point in the book, it goes off with a fizzle of excitement and still high expectations of revelations of something unexpected or new. Vinge didn't provide that sort of experience. In the end, the aliens were imagined as something alien but familiar: insects with technology and thought far too much like our own to be alien. The idea that the products of such an alien world could be anything remotely like us is, frankly, absurd. The result of this book is surprising considering that Vinge has been vocal about a possible technological singularity. This book could have been so, so much more.
    • 5/5
      A true visionary author. He manages to be a great talespinner, too, this volume being perhaps the best example of that within his oeuvre.
    • 3/5
      Well, it's by Mass, so I liked it - her books have been reliably entertaining. But this wasn't my favorite - too superficial, too focused on the action, and the science was too forced. Imo. There were no meaty themes about relationships, or growing pains, or politics, or even the transience of life - though all those ideas were glanced at.
    • 3/5
      There are not a lot of science fiction novels written especially for middle grade readers but this fun intergalactic adventure that sometimes delves deeply into cosmological theories helps fill that void.
    • 4/5
      Such a unique science fiction story! I have never read anything like this book. There are few children's books where there is a place called "The Afterlives" (for the dead) and The Supreme Overlord of the Universe runs everything from the Realms, the place where the immortals live. Although these immortals run things, they are different than gods in Mythology because they are not supposed to interfere with the inhabitants of the various planets in their solar systems. But for all it's strangeness, Pi in the Sky is a story friendship and love and of finding your strength within. Kids will like the adventure story like this AND middle grade girls will like the touch of romance between Joss and Annika.
    • 4/5
      Fantastic book! The youngest son of 7 sons finds out is job of "delivering pie" is important after all. And humans are considered "aliens?" Great story!
    • 4/5
      I read this one right after I finished Henry Clark’s What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World. Pi in the Sky was in the same sort of genre as Sofa. What genre would we call this? Young People Called to Save the World? Whatever the genre, I like it. I like the genre and I liked this story. The twist in this book is that the young person called to save the world was not an Earthling. A pretty clever twist. The young person, Joss, is the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe, which is pretty clever, and unlike his brothers who are responsible for sunsets and creating worlds, Joss delivers pies. Or is that really all he does? And how can that save the world? Very fun read.
    • 5/5
      Don't care much for science fiction, but this book forced me to think a little more than normal. It will be a great recommendation for a student in my 5th grade class.
    • 4/5
      Loved Wendy Mass's newest. She weaves in scientific facts seamlessly in a very humorous story.