Deepness in the Sky- Far out...

First of all, let me just point out that I didn't fully appreciate how space opera-y this book was until I started reading the Neuromancer book. Already I can see that space opera and cyber punk are massively different. In Deepness in the Sky, the story is soaked in drama, while this new book is so lush with details I wouldn't be able to pick drama out of it if the story was a remake of Romeo and Juliet.
Frankly I liked this book a bit; at least in comparison to Cosmonaut Keep anyway. In truth much of the drama that kept occuring with the humans got in the way of my real interest in the book- the Spiders. I mean different worlds, space flight, Focus; it all got pretty boring in comparison to the aliens and all of their different yet similar problems. The reason I like this book so much was because of the completely different way of life the Spiders lead.
With the OnOff star always shaking things up, they had to hibernate for decades at a time, only to wake up to different extremes of weather. I loved the effects on the Spider society and traditions this odd sun caused. Like how the babies had to be born at the start of the new sun and how some were expected to be killed off during the next Dark. And the war- God I loved the war. Especially how in depth the author went as to how the Spiders fought each other.
Drilling toward each other, trying to stay awake longer than the enemy, and eventually walking in the oh-so-scary Dark; gotta love it.
In the class dicussion I heard some arguments or complaints or what-have-you concerning the author's inventiveness and the number of similarities between the Spider technologies and our own. Things such as Spider airplanes, cars, and nuclear power were all seen as unoriginal concepts. Now while it is understandable how some might perceive the author as lazy, one really has to ask, what should the aliens be using? I mean is it really that unbelievable that at some point an alien race would invent something like a car to make travel easier? The Spiders didn't have wings (although apparently the cats did), how else were they going to fly through the air? I know it is hard to accept such similarities, but how can one man really speculate anything so incredibly alien that it entirely unlike what mankind has already invented? Let's see you do it... I rest my case.
Well, all in all, I rather liked this book, although it may just be because it was better than that laughable read Cosmonaut Keep. Regardless, I have managed to pull some things from Deepness in the Sky that I may be able to apply to my own writing in the future. My goal in this class is to expand my reading interests as well as hone some sci-fi writing skills. Though my journy is still long from being over, I feel that after this read, I am that much closer to realizing a truly unique style of writing.