 |
|
What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
|
|
Ads links:
|
|
Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
|
| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
|
| David Brin |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
Notes: (U) - Uplift Sags
(F) - Second Foundation Series |
Sundiver
(U)
Startide Rising (U) |
Uplift War (U)
Brightness Reef (U)
Infinity's Shore (U)
Heaven's Reach (U)
Foundation's Fear (F)
Foundation and Chaos (F)
Foundation's Triumph (F)
Postman
Kil'n People |
|
|
|
 Our
Ranking I read Sundiver after hearing so much
about Brin's Uplift trilogies. This is the first of these trilogies so I went
in expecting some very ground breaking good science fiction. I must admit I was
sorely disappointed. The basic premise is interesting enough. Brin creates a galaxy
where no race has ever reached the stars (colonized beyond their own system) without
the help of another species, Earth being the only possible exception to this.
He uses this to set up a fairly interesting galactic political environment. Species
aspiring to reach the stars have more of a servant class to those patron races
that are helping them. Earth meanwhile has a freak/elite status being the only
race to have done this on their own. They are the source of jealousy and envy
at the same time from various other species. The backdrop for this novel is probably
the only thing that saved this book from being a complete disaster. The plot was
a fairly weak mystery set within the setting of a ship making a historic expedition
into the Sun. The characters were terrible and very cookie cutter. Brin does a
terrific job of creating a totally intergalactic cast of characters full of a
wide range of species (including even monkeys and dolphins who are mankind's attempt
to sponsor a race) and then ruins it by more or less promoting the humans and
human morales as the superior race and rules. Reading it, I felt like I was reading
a doctrine of how great the human race is and how evil all other beliefs are except
for those that agree with mankind. While I realize it is tough to create truly
unique races and beliefs, to think outside of our own reality, Brin, just is horrible
at it. Throw in a weak plot, and to be honest not that great of writing to go
with it, and I barely made it through the book. I personally wouldn't suggest
this one to anyone, but from what I've heard it is the weakest of the series and
the remaining books are very good. I haven't read them, but may eventually. However
after reading this one I'm skeptical. |
|
|
Our Ranking I'm actually a little surprised
I read this one. If you have read my review of Sundiver above, I was less than
impressed with Brin's first book in the Uplift saga. However, of all the books
I've reviewed, I've probably received the most mail about Sundiver: all of them
telling me to give Brin another chance and move on to the second book. So, eventually
I found myself at the Barnes and Noble, sitting in front of the B section, and
there was Startide Rising sitting in front of me. I figured "why not" and gave
it a try. First off, I need to admit, the e-mails were correct and Startide is
a great deal better than Sundiver was. However, I was very surprised to learn
that Startide was the winner of both the Nebula and the Hugo awards the year it
came out. This was a good read, with some interesting ideas, but in my opinion
not overly deserving of those awards. I have no idea what the competition was
that year, but I have to assume it was a weak year. Startide Rising takes place
in the same universe setting as Sundiver does. Basically, the universe is crawling
with alien species, all of which follow a basic rule set centered around the practice
of uplifting. Uplifting is when a space faring race stumbles upon another intelligent
race that hasn't quite made it to space yet. By law, the space faring race, can
adopt this new race, teach them technology and the ways of the universe and basically
"uplift" them into space. Of course, these new found races wind up owing their
patron races in a big way usually for centuries. As it turns out though, mankind
seems to be patronless and have discovered their way to space on their own causing
tons of problems for the ways of the universe. Around this setting, Startide centers
around a single Earth spaceship that happens to be made of mostly a dolphin crew.
(dolphins being one of the two species mankind has uplifted) In its journeys the
ship has discovered what might be an incredible secret and now has most of the
universe hunting them down to get hold of this secret themselves. The ship and
its crew are forced to crash land and hide onto a mostly ocean covered world,
to desperately try and figure out how to get back to Earth with their treasure.
Plotwise at the high level, Startide is pretty interesting. The whole concept
of uplifting is unique and the idea of a dolphin manned ship was also a new twist.
Where I thought the book struggled a bit, were the sub-plots. Basically, here's
a ship, on its first space faring mission and they've just managed to get the
entire universe pissed enough at them to want them dead. However, even with that,
the crew of the ship manages to waste incredible amounts of time pursuing petty
goals and even some love interests along the way. I really felt that if Brin had
focused more on the big picture plot, this could have been a far more intense
book. Brin also struggled a bit with the characters. Some he truly nailed, but
others were complete shell characters I thought. I have to give Brin some leeway
though, in that he was trying to create a book where most of the characters are
dolphins. Brin does do a great job (actually a pretty amazing job) of going through
how it would even be possible for dolphins to be space faring and to develop unique
personalities for the dolphins, instead of just dumping human traits into dolphin
bodies. The dolphins were probably the strongest characters. Charles Dart, I found
completely annoying (maybe that was on purpose) but worst of all, the alien races
I felt were completely cheesy. Considering these aliens are supposed to be incredibly
powerful and knowledgable, they wind up being very dumb and easily out maneuvered.
At no point in the book did I feel remotely impressed with something they did
or said. Overall, as I said, this was a pretty good read. It starts of very nicely,
with a very intense crash scene. In the middle I was getting worried I was reading
another Sundiver, but then, once things get kicking, the book picked right back
up again. The last 100-150 pages of the book truly saved it. Am I glad I read
this? Yes. Will I now move on to the next book of the series? That I'm not sure
about. I don't really see where else Brin can go with the uplift idea, especially
with the way he has developed the aliens. I have a suspicion, the next books are
just more of the same. Of course, if I get bombarded by e-mails again, you never
know. |
|