I have never before read a book by someone who's blog I read regularly. Reading "Existence" was a very odd experience, because there were too many times where I heard the author's own voice from his blog, and I found it really distracting. In general I liked the book, but I'm not sure I like Brin's form of optimism. I finished it feeling the way I did after the end of his last Uplift trilogy -- sad, and not very hopeful. He sees all the pitfalls, and while he seems to be hopeful that we'll get past them, the pitfalls are so much front and center the the hope gets lost, at least as far as I'm concerned. Still, he has some very entertaining ideas, and lots of them regarding the silence in the universe.