AND TODAY WAS THE DAY I LEARNED HOW TO PRONOUNCE VERNOR VINGE'S NAME CORRECTLY: It's VINGY~!

(Finally read A Fire Upon the Deep, was doing some googling. Surprised there isn't a larger Zones of Thought fanbase...though there would at least be a wiki out there or a message board or something. It's a well-constructed fictional world that you could easily map in your nerdy way, after all.)