Just finished "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge and it is the best SF novel I've read in years. The "zones" concept he uses is like a space/time inversion of the singularity concept he also pioneered, and having it as a space concept rather than time gives him a great playground for the story. Massive scale, lots of Internet-future stuff in there. Thoroughly recommended. IF you can find "The Cookie Monster" by him (a short story) that is also excellent.