A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (1992)
This is in my list of top 10 (ish) books I've read.If you've enjoyed it, He's got two more books in the Zones of Thought universe: A Deepness In The Sky, which follows Pham in his Queng Ho days before A Fire Upon The Deep (recommended!) as well as Children Of The Sky, which follows Ravna and the children on the Tines world as a direct sequel to Fire Upon The Deep.