A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Somehow, I ended up with two copies of A Fire Upon the Deep. I entered one of Tor’s many giveaways promoting The Children of the Sky and won; the prize package included the incredibly fancy new trade paperback edition of A Fire Upon the Deep, presumably to get potential readers up to speed. However, I had found a copy of it in a local used bookstore a few weeks prior, after being unable to find A Fire Upon the Deep in either of my library systems. (This appears to have been a fluke; I encountered a copy shelving.) In any case, I’ll probably give away the extra copy, because this is a novel I want you guys to read.