A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge
This novel deals with the emergence of a Blight at the edge of the galaxy on the edge of The Transcend. Star systems fall and swallowed up this new all-consuming intelligence. Their newly transformed inhabitants promise this is the beginning of a glorious new era. The only solution lies with a child on a planet with a deep within the galaxy close to The Slow Zone where many technologies begin to fail. This planet's native race, the Tines, must travel in packs and together each pack has a single mind. Then the child is found by the pack named Flenser.
