Fire Upon the Deep

In 1993 the Hugo was awarded to two books in a tie.  This book is big.  It's background is the Milky Way, all of it.  It's time period is vast. The earth is estimated at 11 billion years old and this one book of 400 pages spans the history of the Milky Way.  As an example the Earth is mentioned in name only. Humans have left there and colonized Nyora. In turn this planet descended to Medievalism but recovered to space flight when they also fly off to colonize Sjandra Kei.  The characters  range from thinking puppy dogs to God like planet killers, with humans in between.