If you've read Vernor Vinge's incredible space opera Fire Upon The Deep, then we've got some awesome news for you. His new novel, Children of the Sky, picks up just a couple of years after the end of Fire Upon The Deep, and is set entirely on the Tines' World, where a few crash-landed children live among dogs who form small packs of creatures with collective consciousness. Vinge has at last returned to this world after two decades, and it's simply terrific.
Vinge's publisher Tor has posted an excerpt from the first chapter, which will re-acquaint you with the Tines' culture. I've read a big chunk of the novel already, and yes - it totally delivers.
And holy crap, people, if you haven't read Fire Upon The Deep, then do it! It's one of the greatest science fiction novels of the past fifty years. Vinge followed it with a novel set in the same universe, thousands of years earlier, called A Deepness In The Sky. Both are packed with Vinge's trademarks: truly alien aliens, intriguing futuristic computer technologies, and characters you will never forget.