9 reviews found

The Large Hadron Collider is doing pretty well this early into its life. It has already produced compelling evidence for the existence of a Higgs boson. And it hasn’t produced a microscopic black hole that would sink into the centre of the Earth and devour us all. Yet.

David Brin wrote Earth around the same time I was born, long before the LHC was being built and its doomsayers were crying disaster. Even then, however,…

You cannot ask for a better premise than Uplift. Of all the science fiction series I've read, David Brin has something special here. Uplift is more than just panspermia, because Brin has taken the idea of aliens genetically engineering pre-sapient life to full sapience and wrapped his own entire mythos around the concept. As a result of Uplift, galactic civilization is a network of intricate social relationships defined and bound by literally millions of years…

Shit just got real!

OK, so remember how Brin left off Brightness Reef on a cliffhanger? Jophur ship had just landed above the returned Rothen vessel, totally changing the balance of power on Jijo. Sara and the starfaring Stranger, whom we now know to be Emerson from the Streaker escaped the zealots and have fallen in with a group horse-riding human women and urs. Dwer and Rety are stuck on a mad robot. Oh, and…

(In my best Majel Barrett voice.) Last time, on my review of the Uplift Storm Trilogy…

• Alvin et al were rescued from their wrecked diving bell by none other than the submerged crew of the Streaker.
• a Jophur starship landed on Jijo, capturing the Rothen ship and promising a slow, painful annihilation if the Jijoans did not divulge the location of the Streaker (if they did, the Jophur promised a swift annihilation).
…

First read October 17, 2008. (No review)

Second reading review, April 23, 2010.

There are as many origin theories as there are people to think about the origins of humanity. Like most reviews, I can't help but praise David Brin's Uplift concept. On one hand, the von Daniken-like idea of having a "patron" species that shepherded humanity toward sentience is comforting and resonates with our need to have concrete origins and a sense of belonging…

At first, I couldn't decide if I liked Sundiver or this book better. The former has a superior mystery, and arguably a superior plot. Startide Rising, on the other hand, is more satisfying on the subject of "uplift" itself and better portrays the multitudinous horrors of Galactic society.

After considering my quandary further, I decided to throw in behind Sundiver. My fellow Goodreads reviewers seem split on this question, but the more I…

David Brin's Uplift Trilogy has not been the easiest series for me to read. I enjoyed Sundiver as a mystery set within a much larger universe. Brin left me hungry for more, but Startide Rising left me bitter and disappointed. What had started with so much potential seemed encumbered by flawed storylines and a myriad of unwanted characters. Hence, I was doubtful of The Uplift War's ability to mollify me.

While certainly superior…

My copy of The Postman is battered, well-read, and much loved. It's a movie tie-in Bantam paperback that I found at a used bookstore, the pages ever so slightly yellowed, the cover worn, its top corner ever so slightly curling up in a dog's ear. It fits perfectly with the atmosphere that David Brin creates. This is not a book to be treated delicately or reverently; it is meant to be read, re-read, enjoyed, and…

Perhaps the best science fiction book I've ever read that so elegantly reverses our contemporary notions of gender. Not so great as a novel, unfortunately.

In Glory Season, David Brin depicts a world with an intensely matriarchal society. The majority of the population of Stratos consists of female clones, "sparked" in winter by male sperm, but genetic copies of their mothers. Men and "variant" girls are born in summer. Designed this way the founders…