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Uplift Storm Trilogy #1
Brightness Reef
Orbit 1996 edition paperback, vg++ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse
705 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
309 people are currently reading
4048 people want to read
About the author
David Brin
320 books3,305 followersDavid Brin is a scientist, speaker, and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Existence, his latest novel, offers an unusual scenario for first contact. His ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. Startide Rising won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel. The Uplift War also won the Hugo Award.
His non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association.
Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI, nanotechnology, and philanthropy.
David appears frequently on TV, including "The Universe" and on the History Channel's "Life After People."
Full and updated at:
http://www.davidbrin.com/biography.htm
Existence, his latest novel, offers an unusual scenario for first contact. His ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. Startide Rising won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel. The Uplift War also won the Hugo Award.
His non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Prize from the American Library Association.
Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI, nanotechnology, and philanthropy.
David appears frequently on TV, including "The Universe" and on the History Channel's "Life After People."
Full and updated at:
http://www.davidbrin.com/biography.htm
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 241 reviews
February 9, 2017
This happens to be one of those books that is both brilliant and lacking at the same time. I will explain myself.
The novel is actually quite as daunting and impressive as Startide Rising and The Uplift War in it's way, but it's mainly because Brin doesn't ever stint on world building. Ever. He goes all out and develops tons of alien races, tons of characters, and a great many implications for the amazingly complex alien culture among the 16 galaxies.
Truly, I have nothing bad to say at all about the quality and depth of its development. It's actually rather staggering. Brin never rests on his laurels. He finds new avenues to drill down into and I should say that there are VERY few authors who do it as deep or consistently as he does.
So what's lacking?
Well that's a very complex creature, too. My primary go-to complaint is in the basic story, but it isn't because it's too simple or too complex. Rather, it's because I was constantly wondering why I should care about some far distant fallow world where a bunch of alien refugees including humans had tossed all their technology into the drink in order to hopefully devolve genetically, culturally, and intellectually. Why would they do it? Because while they're political and cultural dissidents to the rest of the galactic society, they're also adherents to a weird quasi-religious tenant that is diametrically opposed to Uplift in general.
They want to return to innocence.
(Of course, not everyone believes. Humans are a bit more complex and have their own reasons to buck this trend with their books and their skepticism of the galactic culture that either doesn't want to be bothered to help the upstarts, but that's a sub-plot.)
I have no problem with the concept. In fact, if this was any other novel by any other author, I'd be touting it and the way it approaches the subject as honestly unique and fascinating. So what's my problem with it? I don't like book-burning. I'm in love with books. Of course, these guys take it all the way and sink their spaceships and all their tech, too, with a few human exceptions, but the core is the same.
What we've got is a novel about aliens and humans interacting in very complex ways with the ever-present fear that the galactics will find them and punish them and their entire RACE for the crimes of despoiling a fallow planet that should have remained fallow and untouched by anyone for several billion more years. That's a steep punishment for a broken law. Notice, too, that the galactic culture with its many, many, many species is an establishment that has been around for a very, very long time. Nothing stays around that long without being a very robust system. Mostly it relies on just out-waiting problems. :)
...Including dissidents who are thinking in terms of devolving themselves to pre-sentience. :)
Too bad that plan goes to seed. :)
So what's my problem? Too slow, maybe? My expectations wanted more resolution on a huge scale instead of what amounts to a tiny backwater and backward hamlet in the middle of nowhere?
Well that's my own damn problem, right? The novel is still a damn sight better than the majority of alien society novels out there by any yardstick. My problem is that I am judging it by his other brilliant Uplift novels instead of just focusing on what it does right. And it does a lot of things very right.
Of course, it's also book one of a trilogy that really needs to be read together if you want any sense of closure, too, so there's that. :)
And since I've read these before and I know that the end is practically a full 180 degrees from where we start now... I should have just kept faith from the start. :) So I will. I *was* of two minds about doing this re-read, but now that I've done this second read two decades after it was published, I'm now somewhat amazed and chastened that I should have worried. This is still a classic Brin.
I just needed to manage my expectations. :)
The novel is actually quite as daunting and impressive as Startide Rising and The Uplift War in it's way, but it's mainly because Brin doesn't ever stint on world building. Ever. He goes all out and develops tons of alien races, tons of characters, and a great many implications for the amazingly complex alien culture among the 16 galaxies.
Truly, I have nothing bad to say at all about the quality and depth of its development. It's actually rather staggering. Brin never rests on his laurels. He finds new avenues to drill down into and I should say that there are VERY few authors who do it as deep or consistently as he does.
So what's lacking?
Well that's a very complex creature, too. My primary go-to complaint is in the basic story, but it isn't because it's too simple or too complex. Rather, it's because I was constantly wondering why I should care about some far distant fallow world where a bunch of alien refugees including humans had tossed all their technology into the drink in order to hopefully devolve genetically, culturally, and intellectually. Why would they do it? Because while they're political and cultural dissidents to the rest of the galactic society, they're also adherents to a weird quasi-religious tenant that is diametrically opposed to Uplift in general.
They want to return to innocence.
(Of course, not everyone believes. Humans are a bit more complex and have their own reasons to buck this trend with their books and their skepticism of the galactic culture that either doesn't want to be bothered to help the upstarts, but that's a sub-plot.)
I have no problem with the concept. In fact, if this was any other novel by any other author, I'd be touting it and the way it approaches the subject as honestly unique and fascinating. So what's my problem with it? I don't like book-burning. I'm in love with books. Of course, these guys take it all the way and sink their spaceships and all their tech, too, with a few human exceptions, but the core is the same.
What we've got is a novel about aliens and humans interacting in very complex ways with the ever-present fear that the galactics will find them and punish them and their entire RACE for the crimes of despoiling a fallow planet that should have remained fallow and untouched by anyone for several billion more years. That's a steep punishment for a broken law. Notice, too, that the galactic culture with its many, many, many species is an establishment that has been around for a very, very long time. Nothing stays around that long without being a very robust system. Mostly it relies on just out-waiting problems. :)
...Including dissidents who are thinking in terms of devolving themselves to pre-sentience. :)
Too bad that plan goes to seed. :)
So what's my problem? Too slow, maybe? My expectations wanted more resolution on a huge scale instead of what amounts to a tiny backwater and backward hamlet in the middle of nowhere?
Well that's my own damn problem, right? The novel is still a damn sight better than the majority of alien society novels out there by any yardstick. My problem is that I am judging it by his other brilliant Uplift novels instead of just focusing on what it does right. And it does a lot of things very right.
Of course, it's also book one of a trilogy that really needs to be read together if you want any sense of closure, too, so there's that. :)
And since I've read these before and I know that the end is practically a full 180 degrees from where we start now... I should have just kept faith from the start. :) So I will. I *was* of two minds about doing this re-read, but now that I've done this second read two decades after it was published, I'm now somewhat amazed and chastened that I should have worried. This is still a classic Brin.
I just needed to manage my expectations. :)
February 2, 2024
We emerged to stare, dismayed, at the riven sky.
Soon sage and clanfolk alike knew The Day had finally come.
Vengeance is not spared upon the children of the fallen.
I suppose I would call this Science Fiction high literature; incredibly dense and expertly written, with more nuances than you can shake a stick at.
I tend to let too much time lapse between reading the Uplift novels, because I find them challenging. Brightness Reef is a good example: I had to work hard at it, but in the end it was extremely rewarding (as these books invariably tend to be).
‘These fine marvels would do just as well without us.’
But would they? He wondered.
Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn’t that what ‘sapience’ is for?
The Universe of the Five Galaxies that Brin conjures up in the Uplift Saga is probably as good an example of a Science Fiction setting, and ofworld cosmos building, as you are likely to find, anywhere. The whole notion of Uplift and wolfling species is super special, and makes for lots of philosophical back and forth, not to mention politics and intrigue on a scale to paralyse the mind.
Even the great Galactics, whose knowledge spanned time and space, were riven by clashing dogmas. If mighty star-gods could be perplexed, what chance had he of certainty?
There’s one thing both sides of me can agree on.
In both his scientific work and the pangs of his heart, he knew one simple truth –
We don’t belong here.
Brightness Reef is the fourth novel in the series, but it is the first in a trilogy which rounds off the series (and presumably puts the mystery of Earthclan’s status in the grand scheme of things to bed once and for all – an arc that was really kickstarted in Startide Rising). I am wary of spoilers, but things are off to a promising start here.
It is a big story, with lots (and lots) to assimilate. There are a number of POV characters, alien and human, and a number of factions, each with their own (not immediately apparent) agendas. Brin also does a really cool spin on linguistics, and on the old "pen is mightier than the sword" adage.
Also, some cool set pieces. It is probably worth noting that, despite the absolute vastness of the backdrop Brin has conceived (encompassing five Galaxies in this timeline – take a moment to let that sink in) his stories mostly take place in isolation, on specific planets (for example), where events may have a significant impact on the broader canvass (similar, say, to the approach Herbert took in Dune).
Some will call it The Lure,
or else The Enticement.
Aeon after aeon, old ones deport,
seeking paths that younger
races can’t perceive.
They vanish from our midst,
those who find these paths.
Some call it transcendence.
Others call it death.
The Uplift books have their detractors, and everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I really can’t find much to fault here. Brin is well known for his fascinating array of Galactics (and, in fact, you can consider reading his Uplift stories with Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe close to hand). This is epic old(ish) school Science Fiction at its finest.
A brilliant and dazzling book, with tantalizing glimpses of what’s to come. The only downside I can possibly find with Brightness Reef, is that when the final page rolls by, it is clear that this is only the beginning.
So deep and black that no light could ever penetrate – a hiding place, but no sanctuary. In all the vast cosmos, there is no sanctuary.
Soon sage and clanfolk alike knew The Day had finally come.
Vengeance is not spared upon the children of the fallen.
I suppose I would call this Science Fiction high literature; incredibly dense and expertly written, with more nuances than you can shake a stick at.
I tend to let too much time lapse between reading the Uplift novels, because I find them challenging. Brightness Reef is a good example: I had to work hard at it, but in the end it was extremely rewarding (as these books invariably tend to be).
‘These fine marvels would do just as well without us.’
But would they? He wondered.
Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn’t that what ‘sapience’ is for?
The Universe of the Five Galaxies that Brin conjures up in the Uplift Saga is probably as good an example of a Science Fiction setting, and of
Even the great Galactics, whose knowledge spanned time and space, were riven by clashing dogmas. If mighty star-gods could be perplexed, what chance had he of certainty?
There’s one thing both sides of me can agree on.
In both his scientific work and the pangs of his heart, he knew one simple truth –
We don’t belong here.
Brightness Reef is the fourth novel in the series, but it is the first in a trilogy which rounds off the series (and presumably puts the mystery of Earthclan’s status in the grand scheme of things to bed once and for all – an arc that was really kickstarted in Startide Rising). I am wary of spoilers, but things are off to a promising start here.
It is a big story, with lots (and lots) to assimilate. There are a number of POV characters, alien and human, and a number of factions, each with their own (not immediately apparent) agendas. Brin also does a really cool spin on linguistics, and on the old "pen is mightier than the sword" adage.
Also, some cool set pieces. It is probably worth noting that, despite the absolute vastness of the backdrop Brin has conceived (encompassing five Galaxies in this timeline – take a moment to let that sink in) his stories mostly take place in isolation, on specific planets (for example), where events may have a significant impact on the broader canvass (similar, say, to the approach Herbert took in Dune).
Some will call it The Lure,
or else The Enticement.
Aeon after aeon, old ones deport,
seeking paths that younger
races can’t perceive.
They vanish from our midst,
those who find these paths.
Some call it transcendence.
Others call it death.
The Uplift books have their detractors, and everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I really can’t find much to fault here. Brin is well known for his fascinating array of Galactics (and, in fact, you can consider reading his Uplift stories with Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe close to hand). This is epic old(ish) school Science Fiction at its finest.
A brilliant and dazzling book, with tantalizing glimpses of what’s to come. The only downside I can possibly find with Brightness Reef, is that when the final page rolls by, it is clear that this is only the beginning.
So deep and black that no light could ever penetrate – a hiding place, but no sanctuary. In all the vast cosmos, there is no sanctuary.
January 28, 2011
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 of tradition. Client races are beholden to their patrons for millennia, if not hundreds of millennia. Entire species can be found culpable for the actions of a single group. It's very different from what we know, which is not surprising: in the Uplift series, humans are "wolflings." Either our patrons abandoned us long ago, or we developed sentience all by ourselves. Either concept is scary for the rest of galactic civilization.
So of course, the question is: did someone Uplift humanity, and if so, who?! It frustrates me that Brin has been so remarkably tight-lipped with that answer for the past three books. Hence, I begin this second trilogy with the ardent hope that by the time I finish Heaven's Reach, something like an answer will have emerged. (And please, if you have finished this series and Brin doesn't provide such an answer, do not tell me. I prefer to be disappointed on my own.)
Jijo is a fallow world. Settlement is not allowed. Fugitives from five species have settled there and formed an ad hoc society, well aware of their crime, well aware that when a ship arrives, it spells the end. Like the series premise of Uplift, Brightness Reef opens with high stakes, immediately establishing what these people fear and how it can all go wrong for them.
So when it does, it's no surprise. But that is where the lack of surprises ends, abruptly. Brin continuously new twists, and unlike Startide Rising , it actually works well here. For example, humanity's purported patron race, the Rothen, are first portrayed as somewhat god-like uber-humans. Of course, they have a much more sinister purpose that I won't reveal here, and after one of them is killed by some overzealous Jijoan defenders, we see that they have been deceptive even in their appearance. This aspect of the plot, like most of the book, doesn't get explained fully, and that would be extremely frustrating if I didn't have Infinity's Shore on the shelf.
The book ends quite abruptly too. It starts slow, despite its high stakes, and then in the last hundred pages adopts an astounding alacrity as if it has just remembered it needs to wrap up loose ends—until it doesn't. This is one of those qualities which are greatly subjective; it may bother you more than it does me (and it bothers me a little). So fair warning.
Aside from tantalizing hints, the question of human Uplift and the secret of the Streaker carries never gets addressed here (not that I expected it to be). Instead, where Brightness Reef excels is, as usual, its depiction of inter-species relations (wait, no, not those types of relations). The history of these five fugitive groups, as communicated by their sacred scrolls, is one of intermittent conflict ending in a recent peace known as the "Commons." As each sneakship landed on Jijo, it took time for the new settlers to fit into the rhythm of society. For some species, it was a matter of mutual distrust. For some, it's simply because humans smell bad—and ride horses. Whatever the reason, the harmony we see at the beginning of Brightness Reef is young—and, as we see as the story unfolds, very fragile.
My favourite characters were Sara and Lark, and not just because I am human-philic. I liked Sara's plight, her role as an intermediary between the Stranger and the sages, her discomfort with the "Path of Redemption" promoted by the sacred scrolls. That was something I didn't anticipate, the extent to which Brin juxtaposed the received wisdom of the Galactic Civilization's vast Library with the Jijoan settlers' desire to lose knowledge and retreat to the bliss of pre-sapient ignorance. As a bibliophile and an intellectual, all this talk of burning books got under my skin. As Sara watched the more militant parts of her society express their desires to hasten along the Path of Redemption, I found myself wanting to shout, "Nooo! Save the books!" I guess this resonates with me because of the zeitgeist, especially when I think about America and American media. The idea that there are people who are proud of their ignorance, and who wilfully seek to perpetuate the ignorance of others, astounds and, yes, offends me. So I found the Path to Redemption chilling, scary, and not at all to my liking.
Now, Lark was interesting because, like Sara, he is a bit of an outsider. As a heretic, he supports a movement that wants to end the settlers' habitation on Jijo by not reproducing. This differs from the Path to Redemption, which advocates for actual return to pre-sapience, as we see in the form of the dubiously unintelligent glavers. Lark's views are interesting, especially in the context of our growing population on Earth. Plus, through Lark we get to meet Ling, a starfaring human who believes (or believed) the Rothen are humanity's patrons. At first, she approaches Lark and the other humans on Jijo as backward, ignorant. Then they develop a mutual respect (and, if I'm not mistaken, not a little attraction between each other). I'm looking forward to seeing Ling resolve her crisis of faith, as well as Lark resolving his should they decide to get together and stay on Jijo.
As far as the other subplots go—Dwer and his interaction with Rety, Alvin and his companions diving, etc.—these were interesting, but I seldom found myself wondering, "Gee, I wonder what Dwer is doing now." There was never that sense of urgency to return to their perspective. The exception to this would be Alvin after their diving bell gets captured by an as-yet unidentified player. Still, those portions of the book were always shorter than the other perspectives, so I didn't get as attached to Alvin as I did to the other characters.
One character that did surprise me was Asx. The traeki fascinate me. Brin is very talented at coming up with unique species that are not merely humanoid stand-ins, and the traeki are a great example. Apparently they are the same as the Jophur, antagonists in previous books, but they are peaceful. Each individual traeki body is made up of "rings" that have different skill sets and traits; the rings together form a sort of group-mind that acts based upon consensus. So a single traeki can swap out rings and become a slightly different person in the process. Asx is the traeki sage, and his perspectives are little more than pithy ruminations upon the current action. Yet even in such brevity, glimpses into the traeki mind was still cool. Even though Brin doesn't consistently deliver well-paced action or complex characterization, he does often succeed at that one fundamental aspect of science fiction, that necessity for "difference."
Brightness Reef leaves you with questions—maybe too many questions. Still, it's fun, intriguing, and a great beginning to a new Uplift trilogy. Brin has managed to expand upon everything that makes the Uplift universe so unique and awesome. My only hope is that the series just gets better.
My Reviews of the Uplift series:
← The Uplift War | Infinity's Shore →
So of course, the question is: did someone Uplift humanity, and if so, who?! It frustrates me that Brin has been so remarkably tight-lipped with that answer for the past three books. Hence, I begin this second trilogy with the ardent hope that by the time I finish Heaven's Reach, something like an answer will have emerged. (And please, if you have finished this series and Brin doesn't provide such an answer, do not tell me. I prefer to be disappointed on my own.)
Jijo is a fallow world. Settlement is not allowed. Fugitives from five species have settled there and formed an ad hoc society, well aware of their crime, well aware that when a ship arrives, it spells the end. Like the series premise of Uplift, Brightness Reef opens with high stakes, immediately establishing what these people fear and how it can all go wrong for them.
So when it does, it's no surprise. But that is where the lack of surprises ends, abruptly. Brin continuously new twists, and unlike Startide Rising , it actually works well here. For example, humanity's purported patron race, the Rothen, are first portrayed as somewhat god-like uber-humans. Of course, they have a much more sinister purpose that I won't reveal here, and after one of them is killed by some overzealous Jijoan defenders, we see that they have been deceptive even in their appearance. This aspect of the plot, like most of the book, doesn't get explained fully, and that would be extremely frustrating if I didn't have Infinity's Shore on the shelf.
The book ends quite abruptly too. It starts slow, despite its high stakes, and then in the last hundred pages adopts an astounding alacrity as if it has just remembered it needs to wrap up loose ends—until it doesn't. This is one of those qualities which are greatly subjective; it may bother you more than it does me (and it bothers me a little). So fair warning.
Aside from tantalizing hints, the question of human Uplift and the secret of the Streaker carries never gets addressed here (not that I expected it to be). Instead, where Brightness Reef excels is, as usual, its depiction of inter-species relations (wait, no, not those types of relations). The history of these five fugitive groups, as communicated by their sacred scrolls, is one of intermittent conflict ending in a recent peace known as the "Commons." As each sneakship landed on Jijo, it took time for the new settlers to fit into the rhythm of society. For some species, it was a matter of mutual distrust. For some, it's simply because humans smell bad—and ride horses. Whatever the reason, the harmony we see at the beginning of Brightness Reef is young—and, as we see as the story unfolds, very fragile.
My favourite characters were Sara and Lark, and not just because I am human-philic. I liked Sara's plight, her role as an intermediary between the Stranger and the sages, her discomfort with the "Path of Redemption" promoted by the sacred scrolls. That was something I didn't anticipate, the extent to which Brin juxtaposed the received wisdom of the Galactic Civilization's vast Library with the Jijoan settlers' desire to lose knowledge and retreat to the bliss of pre-sapient ignorance. As a bibliophile and an intellectual, all this talk of burning books got under my skin. As Sara watched the more militant parts of her society express their desires to hasten along the Path of Redemption, I found myself wanting to shout, "Nooo! Save the books!" I guess this resonates with me because of the zeitgeist, especially when I think about America and American media. The idea that there are people who are proud of their ignorance, and who wilfully seek to perpetuate the ignorance of others, astounds and, yes, offends me. So I found the Path to Redemption chilling, scary, and not at all to my liking.
Now, Lark was interesting because, like Sara, he is a bit of an outsider. As a heretic, he supports a movement that wants to end the settlers' habitation on Jijo by not reproducing. This differs from the Path to Redemption, which advocates for actual return to pre-sapience, as we see in the form of the dubiously unintelligent glavers. Lark's views are interesting, especially in the context of our growing population on Earth. Plus, through Lark we get to meet Ling, a starfaring human who believes (or believed) the Rothen are humanity's patrons. At first, she approaches Lark and the other humans on Jijo as backward, ignorant. Then they develop a mutual respect (and, if I'm not mistaken, not a little attraction between each other). I'm looking forward to seeing Ling resolve her crisis of faith, as well as Lark resolving his should they decide to get together and stay on Jijo.
As far as the other subplots go—Dwer and his interaction with Rety, Alvin and his companions diving, etc.—these were interesting, but I seldom found myself wondering, "Gee, I wonder what Dwer is doing now." There was never that sense of urgency to return to their perspective. The exception to this would be Alvin after their diving bell gets captured by an as-yet unidentified player. Still, those portions of the book were always shorter than the other perspectives, so I didn't get as attached to Alvin as I did to the other characters.
One character that did surprise me was Asx. The traeki fascinate me. Brin is very talented at coming up with unique species that are not merely humanoid stand-ins, and the traeki are a great example. Apparently they are the same as the Jophur, antagonists in previous books, but they are peaceful. Each individual traeki body is made up of "rings" that have different skill sets and traits; the rings together form a sort of group-mind that acts based upon consensus. So a single traeki can swap out rings and become a slightly different person in the process. Asx is the traeki sage, and his perspectives are little more than pithy ruminations upon the current action. Yet even in such brevity, glimpses into the traeki mind was still cool. Even though Brin doesn't consistently deliver well-paced action or complex characterization, he does often succeed at that one fundamental aspect of science fiction, that necessity for "difference."
Brightness Reef leaves you with questions—maybe too many questions. Still, it's fun, intriguing, and a great beginning to a new Uplift trilogy. Brin has managed to expand upon everything that makes the Uplift universe so unique and awesome. My only hope is that the series just gets better.
My Reviews of the Uplift series:
← The Uplift War | Infinity's Shore →
August 28, 2025
Началото на втората поредица за борбите на човечеството в космоса ни отвежда на угарната планета Джиджо.
Последните ѝ наематели - буюрите, са я напуснали окончателно, когато е изтекъл договора им за наем, като са унищожили почти всички следи от своята напреднала цивилизация. Планетата е оставена да се прочисти и след милиони години, се очаква да бъде родина на нови видове годни за Ъплифт или да стане удобен дом за друга могъща космическа раса.
Незаконното заселване на такъв свят се преследва жестоко от галактическите закони, но това не пречи на бегълци от различни проблеми и конфликти, да опитват да се промъкнат и устроят там, с надеждата че няма да бъдат открити и наказани.
На Джиджо са се заселили шест такива раси, като последни са долетели хората. Всички те са потопили в океана звездолетите си и са скъсали с високите технологии, опитвайки се да живеят в хармония с местната природа и в очакване на сливането си с нея.
Но един ден, крехкото равновесие постигнато след безчет кървави конфликти е застрашено - на Джиджо каца нов космически кораб, но целите на собствениците му са загадъчни и опасни за местните.
Макар и дълъг, и този роман на Дейвид Брин е много интригуващ и се чете леко! Чисто удоволствие е да се потопиш в богатото му и оригинално въображение!
Продължавам със следващата книга от трилогията.
Цитати:
"Където има правила, има и престъпващи ги."
"Казват, че гениалността е умението да виждаш очевидното."
P.S. Щеше да е много по-приятно изживяване, ако тази книга бе получила адекватна корица за българското си издание и ако в нея бяха включени рисунки поне на извънземните...
За нормален, редактиран и съгласуван превод на поредицата не мога и да мечтая!
Последните ѝ наематели - буюрите, са я напуснали окончателно, когато е изтекъл договора им за наем, като са унищожили почти всички следи от своята напреднала цивилизация. Планетата е оставена да се прочисти и след милиони години, се очаква да бъде родина на нови видове годни за Ъплифт или да стане удобен дом за друга могъща космическа раса.
Незаконното заселване на такъв свят се преследва жестоко от галактическите закони, но това не пречи на бегълци от различни проблеми и конфликти, да опитват да се промъкнат и устроят там, с надеждата че няма да бъдат открити и наказани.
На Джиджо са се заселили шест такива раси, като последни са долетели хората. Всички те са потопили в океана звездолетите си и са скъсали с високите технологии, опитвайки се да живеят в хармония с местната природа и в очакване на сливането си с нея.
Но един ден, крехкото равновесие постигнато след безчет кървави конфликти е застрашено - на Джиджо каца нов космически кораб, но целите на собствениците му са загадъчни и опасни за местните.
Макар и дълъг, и този роман на Дейвид Брин е много интригуващ и се чете леко! Чисто удоволствие е да се потопиш в богатото му и оригинално въображение!
Продължавам със следващата книга от трилогията.
Цитати:
"Където има правила, има и престъпващи ги."
"Казват, че гениалността е умението да виждаш очевидното."
P.S. Щеше да е много по-приятно изживяване, ако тази книга бе получила адекватна корица за българското си издание и ако в нея бяха включени рисунки поне на извънземните...
За нормален, редактиран и съгласуван превод на поредицата не мога и да мечтая!
November 27, 2019
I enjoyed this adventure in the Uplift universe, even though I had to wonder sometimes just what was going on. In an environment where Uplift is a desirable thing, who would choose to sneak onto a forbidden planet and attempt to divest themselves of all the trappings of permanent civilization? And not just one “sneakship,” but half a dozen different races are on Jijo to “return to Eden.” It’s a regular back-to-the-land movement.
There are a lot of moving parts--plenty of plots and counter-plots, conspiracies, and back stabbing, enough to keep any conspiracy theorist highly entertained. I also enjoyed a lot of the linguistic play. For instance, several species of plants known as Boo. Seeming derived from the word bamboo, Brin gives us greater boo, among others.
With the languages of the alien species, this would be a nasty book to try to read aloud. I pity anyone performing the audio book!
The previous books in the Uplift series were each self-contained stories, but this one leaves many questions unanswered. I’m glad I have the second volume queued up and ready to go.
Book number 335 in my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project.
There are a lot of moving parts--plenty of plots and counter-plots, conspiracies, and back stabbing, enough to keep any conspiracy theorist highly entertained. I also enjoyed a lot of the linguistic play. For instance, several species of plants known as Boo. Seeming derived from the word bamboo, Brin gives us greater boo, among others.
With the languages of the alien species, this would be a nasty book to try to read aloud. I pity anyone performing the audio book!
The previous books in the Uplift series were each self-contained stories, but this one leaves many questions unanswered. I’m glad I have the second volume queued up and ready to go.
Book number 335 in my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project.
September 3, 2022
‘Brightness Reef’ by David Brin is novel number 4 in the Uplift universe, but it is counted as the first in a new trilogy set in the Uplift universe. IMHO, readers should start with Sundiver because of Brin’s dense world-building and inventiveness regarding the amazing cultures of many many different space creatures included in his books. There also is some stuff going on which began in the previous trilogy. Fortunately, the books include a “Cast of Sapient Species” and a “Glossary of Terms”, as well as a map of whatever planet on which the action is taking place. Trust me, you will be flipping back to these pages often. I tried googling fan pics and there are some! The books are dense with species, politics, culture and plots.
In this particular trilogy, readers are introduced to The Six - refugees of various species who have tried to hide their homes which they have built on the planet Jijo from space travelers and The Institute, a governing authority their home worlds have pledged obedience. Jijo has been declared a “fallow” planet, supposed to be left alone from all of the sentient, space-traveling species in the Universe. However, The Six have sneaked onto the planet and destroyed all of their space technology in order to keep hidden from the authorities.
The planet Jijo is under the social mandate signed by the leaders, “sages”, of The Six to follow “The Path to Redemption”. In theory, everyone is committed to devolve to their previous physical forms and lack of sentience. There is a library, but it is under continuous threat from extremists who want to burn all of the paper books. There are no digital books or any digitalization of anything. To some of the humans, and some of the other races, the library is vital. But the art of reading and writing is disappearing. And devolving, as many are discovering in this novel, does not mean a decrease in violence or the development of an Eden of Love. In fact, The Six, who landed and settled on Jijo in different years, at first went to war with each other. When humans came, arriving on Jijo three hundred years ago, and the last race to join The Six, they stopped the wars because humans startled the previous settlers by introducing paper and the library, plus they had superior nature-based technology. The other races had established themselves on Jijo so many thousands of years ago they have become quite primitive in technology, but only the Glavers, the third “sooner” race, have actually achieved devolving themselves. Glavers no longer are part of The Six, being only animals now.
Besides the humans, there are:
-g’Keks, the first sooner race who arrived on Jijo two thousand years ago. They have biomagnetically driven wheels and eyestalks instead of heads.
-Hoons, the fifth settler race, they are bipedal omnivores with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system, and they have inflatable throat sacs.
-Jophurs, organisms resembling a cone of stacked doughnuts. They, the second group of settlers, have sort of changed into a different devolved race and now call themselves traeki. The doughnut rings are specialized and provide sentience, different senses, organs and chemosynthetic abilities. Each ring is a sentient being, so that a traeki is actually a multi-person sentient being in one physical form.
-Qheuens, the fourth sooner race, they are racially symmetric exoskeletal beings with five legs and claws. Their brain is partly contained in a retractable central dome. They used to have a caste system based on their color. There are the grays, the Royalty, and the blues and reds, servants and artisans. Human intervention broke down the caste system.
-Urs, the sixth sooner race, they are blood-drinking centauroid plains dwellers. They have long necks, narrow heads, and shoulderless arms ending in dexterous hands. The females are big, the males can fit into a pocket or pouch. They have hoofed feet and can’t stand water.
Other sentient species which become involved with Jijo in this novel, to the consternation of The Six, are the Rothen, a mysterious Galactic race who claim to have uplifted humans, a claim rejected by most Galactics. No one really knows who, or if, anyone uplifted humans because whoever did, abandoned them before teaching them about Galactic rules and regulations, and before finishing the job of uplift. Humans achieved space travel without any help, for example. There is no record in the Great Library about humanity whatsoever.
All the Galactics know, as they have all been taught, all races have been uplifted, beginning with The Progenitors, who have long disappeared into mythology.
Humans knew nothing about the Galactics until three hundred years ago. Being abandoned is considered a crime by Galactics. Patronage is considered a huge privilege, and the social/power position of each Galactic species is based on how many critters they’ve uplifted. Humans are considered a wolfling race which nonetheless must be accepted as patrons because they uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees before being discovered by the Galactics.
The Six have been living on Jijo illegally, and if they are caught there, apparently it will mean the destruction of their species on all of the planets wherever they have settled. Each individual, all refugees, made a choice to come to Jijo anyway, sometimes because they were desperate to have children or they wanted to live the way they want without interference from authoritarian governments or because of death sentences. Weirdly, they reject all technology and want to devolve into animals without sentience because it is a sin to be literate and intelligent. Don’t ask me, idk what that is about. But, gentle reader, this isn’t exactly an unknown practice on Earth now, whatever the human cult or group might be naming it or describing it. A few religions definitely appear to be currently preaching different forms of devolving in order to be good in the eyes of their god(s). Most of the Six speak of sinning when they use tech.
There is a lot more to unpack! Each novel introduces new Galactic species and new cultures. They are delightful amusing and weird, if difficult to keep straight. Brin must have spent several months under the influence of psychedelics or something! How can he keep it up? Plus the plots are intricate and politically multi-faceted. In this novel, he changes point-of-view between many characters - a pack of teens who represent each of The Six in their gang, and a large contingent of characters who occupy different niches and cultures on The Slope, an area most of The Six have settled in. There are some tribal groups who are rumored to live beyond a mountain range on what most consider inhospitable lands. They are rumored to be extremely primitive. Of course, I found some characters unlikeable, readers are supposed to I think, and frankly, some characters are unfathomable to me. Why the cultural shame of being sentient and literate? But my favorite character is one who belongs to an animal species no one knows if they are sentient or not - the noors. They seem to be like a cross between cats and otters. Mudfoot in particular is very very funny! Each noor seems to pick someone to hang around.
The books are dense with world-building and species culture. The plots are full of politically-driven action. Species compete with each other, have wars and illegal raids because they are hungry for patron status and, if you ask me, their unhealthy desire for uplifted clients. Everyone seeks pre-sapient animals ready for genetic manipulation to uplift. These clients are actually like slaves for a million years until their patrons must give them freedom under galactic laws. However, humans treat their uplifted clients with compassion and rights, a rarity! The Galactics do NOT approve! Thus spite and animosity is a source of many Galactic underhanded tricks from enemies of the human way of things.
The books are difficult and long, and won't be read in a weekend. But I like 'em.
In this particular trilogy, readers are introduced to The Six - refugees of various species who have tried to hide their homes which they have built on the planet Jijo from space travelers and The Institute, a governing authority their home worlds have pledged obedience. Jijo has been declared a “fallow” planet, supposed to be left alone from all of the sentient, space-traveling species in the Universe. However, The Six have sneaked onto the planet and destroyed all of their space technology in order to keep hidden from the authorities.
The planet Jijo is under the social mandate signed by the leaders, “sages”, of The Six to follow “The Path to Redemption”. In theory, everyone is committed to devolve to their previous physical forms and lack of sentience. There is a library, but it is under continuous threat from extremists who want to burn all of the paper books. There are no digital books or any digitalization of anything. To some of the humans, and some of the other races, the library is vital. But the art of reading and writing is disappearing. And devolving, as many are discovering in this novel, does not mean a decrease in violence or the development of an Eden of Love. In fact, The Six, who landed and settled on Jijo in different years, at first went to war with each other. When humans came, arriving on Jijo three hundred years ago, and the last race to join The Six, they stopped the wars because humans startled the previous settlers by introducing paper and the library, plus they had superior nature-based technology. The other races had established themselves on Jijo so many thousands of years ago they have become quite primitive in technology, but only the Glavers, the third “sooner” race, have actually achieved devolving themselves. Glavers no longer are part of The Six, being only animals now.
Besides the humans, there are:
-g’Keks, the first sooner race who arrived on Jijo two thousand years ago. They have biomagnetically driven wheels and eyestalks instead of heads.
-Hoons, the fifth settler race, they are bipedal omnivores with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system, and they have inflatable throat sacs.
-Jophurs, organisms resembling a cone of stacked doughnuts. They, the second group of settlers, have sort of changed into a different devolved race and now call themselves traeki. The doughnut rings are specialized and provide sentience, different senses, organs and chemosynthetic abilities. Each ring is a sentient being, so that a traeki is actually a multi-person sentient being in one physical form.
-Qheuens, the fourth sooner race, they are racially symmetric exoskeletal beings with five legs and claws. Their brain is partly contained in a retractable central dome. They used to have a caste system based on their color. There are the grays, the Royalty, and the blues and reds, servants and artisans. Human intervention broke down the caste system.
-Urs, the sixth sooner race, they are blood-drinking centauroid plains dwellers. They have long necks, narrow heads, and shoulderless arms ending in dexterous hands. The females are big, the males can fit into a pocket or pouch. They have hoofed feet and can’t stand water.
Other sentient species which become involved with Jijo in this novel, to the consternation of The Six, are the Rothen, a mysterious Galactic race who claim to have uplifted humans, a claim rejected by most Galactics. No one really knows who, or if, anyone uplifted humans because whoever did, abandoned them before teaching them about Galactic rules and regulations, and before finishing the job of uplift. Humans achieved space travel without any help, for example. There is no record in the Great Library about humanity whatsoever.
All the Galactics know, as they have all been taught, all races have been uplifted, beginning with The Progenitors, who have long disappeared into mythology.
Humans knew nothing about the Galactics until three hundred years ago. Being abandoned is considered a crime by Galactics. Patronage is considered a huge privilege, and the social/power position of each Galactic species is based on how many critters they’ve uplifted. Humans are considered a wolfling race which nonetheless must be accepted as patrons because they uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees before being discovered by the Galactics.
The Six have been living on Jijo illegally, and if they are caught there, apparently it will mean the destruction of their species on all of the planets wherever they have settled. Each individual, all refugees, made a choice to come to Jijo anyway, sometimes because they were desperate to have children or they wanted to live the way they want without interference from authoritarian governments or because of death sentences. Weirdly, they reject all technology and want to devolve into animals without sentience because it is a sin to be literate and intelligent. Don’t ask me, idk what that is about. But, gentle reader, this isn’t exactly an unknown practice on Earth now, whatever the human cult or group might be naming it or describing it. A few religions definitely appear to be currently preaching different forms of devolving in order to be good in the eyes of their god(s). Most of the Six speak of sinning when they use tech.
There is a lot more to unpack! Each novel introduces new Galactic species and new cultures. They are delightful amusing and weird, if difficult to keep straight. Brin must have spent several months under the influence of psychedelics or something! How can he keep it up? Plus the plots are intricate and politically multi-faceted. In this novel, he changes point-of-view between many characters - a pack of teens who represent each of The Six in their gang, and a large contingent of characters who occupy different niches and cultures on The Slope, an area most of The Six have settled in. There are some tribal groups who are rumored to live beyond a mountain range on what most consider inhospitable lands. They are rumored to be extremely primitive. Of course, I found some characters unlikeable, readers are supposed to I think, and frankly, some characters are unfathomable to me. Why the cultural shame of being sentient and literate? But my favorite character is one who belongs to an animal species no one knows if they are sentient or not - the noors. They seem to be like a cross between cats and otters. Mudfoot in particular is very very funny! Each noor seems to pick someone to hang around.
The books are dense with world-building and species culture. The plots are full of politically-driven action. Species compete with each other, have wars and illegal raids because they are hungry for patron status and, if you ask me, their unhealthy desire for uplifted clients. Everyone seeks pre-sapient animals ready for genetic manipulation to uplift. These clients are actually like slaves for a million years until their patrons must give them freedom under galactic laws. However, humans treat their uplifted clients with compassion and rights, a rarity! The Galactics do NOT approve! Thus spite and animosity is a source of many Galactic underhanded tricks from enemies of the human way of things.
The books are difficult and long, and won't be read in a weekend. But I like 'em.
September 3, 2024
The Uplift Storm saga is the followup series to the Uplift one (Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War) and since I truly enjoy those three (particularly the middle volume!), I was excited to see how he would develop the story further because at the end of the 3rd book, we still don't know what Streaker found or what would happen to them! Well, this book doesn't answer those questions (hopefully Infinity's Shore or Heaven's Reach will do so!), but it does describe the planet of Jijo that has become an outlaw refuge for six species of aliens (including humans) trying to avoid genocide from their mentor races. This may not make much sense if you haven't read the first trilogy and indeed, I would NOT recommend trying these without first going through the original trilogy.
I wasn't blown away by the character development in this book, but I found the atmosphere and the narration interesting enough to finish it and start the next one. There is a fast-paced ending that was fun, but I'll hold final judgement until I finish out the series.
I wasn't blown away by the character development in this book, but I found the atmosphere and the narration interesting enough to finish it and start the next one. There is a fast-paced ending that was fun, but I'll hold final judgement until I finish out the series.
Read
March 26, 2021DNF. The writing is technically brilliant and the world building is exquisite, but I could care less about the characters in the story. Too many names, too little time. Individually, each of these storylines could be really good, but aren't allowed enough time to breathe, and I got confused trying to follow them.
February 2, 2015
Six sentient species live together secretly in hard-won harmony on the planet Jijo, which the almighty Galactics have decreed to be left unsettled. All goes well until their discovery by a starship crewed by humans with a mysterious purpose throws everything into chaos and uncertainty.
David Brin is telling a big story here. The planet and the various alien cultures upon it are meticulously detailed and his concept of Uplift, whereby races achieve sentience and admittance to a heavily stratified galactic society through the patronage of more advanced races, remains one of the most brilliant concepts in science fiction.
However, be warned. This is not a stand-alone book. As Brin himself acknowledges in his afterword, his story just kept expanding in the telling until it could no longer be contained within a single volume. This book does not even attempt to provide a temporary conclusion but rather leaves all of the various plot strands waving in thin air. Therefore, I do recommend this book, but only if you are prepared to go on and read the next two in the trilogy as well.
David Brin is telling a big story here. The planet and the various alien cultures upon it are meticulously detailed and his concept of Uplift, whereby races achieve sentience and admittance to a heavily stratified galactic society through the patronage of more advanced races, remains one of the most brilliant concepts in science fiction.
However, be warned. This is not a stand-alone book. As Brin himself acknowledges in his afterword, his story just kept expanding in the telling until it could no longer be contained within a single volume. This book does not even attempt to provide a temporary conclusion but rather leaves all of the various plot strands waving in thin air. Therefore, I do recommend this book, but only if you are prepared to go on and read the next two in the trilogy as well.
August 7, 2014
I read the first three Uplift novels back when they were fairly new, and since then they've been one of my favorite brainy space opera series. Recently I marathoned through the initial trilogy again and was pleased to discover there were three more books in the series since then.
The Uplift books are a great mix of adventure, world-building, and scientific speculation, and the alien races portrayed in these books are especially great. "Brightness Reef" took me a little longer to get into compared to the earlier books because of its broad scope (lots of storylines and characters to keep track of). Once I'd gotten through the first few chapters, however, I found it hard to put down and a thoroughly enjoying bit of storytelling.
Anyone who is new to the Uplift world, I'd recommend starting with one of the earlier books (Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War). "Brightness Reef" is *mostly* a stand-alone story, but there are a lot of details in this later trilogy that will be more satisfying if you're familiar with what's come before.
The Uplift books are a great mix of adventure, world-building, and scientific speculation, and the alien races portrayed in these books are especially great. "Brightness Reef" took me a little longer to get into compared to the earlier books because of its broad scope (lots of storylines and characters to keep track of). Once I'd gotten through the first few chapters, however, I found it hard to put down and a thoroughly enjoying bit of storytelling.
Anyone who is new to the Uplift world, I'd recommend starting with one of the earlier books (Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War). "Brightness Reef" is *mostly* a stand-alone story, but there are a lot of details in this later trilogy that will be more satisfying if you're familiar with what's come before.
October 24, 2021
Jeez. Did not get any of that. It's weird how these Uplift books jump up and down in quality and feel. Maybe just for me personally.
Here we have 6 totally different alien species cohabiting a world, but none of them really feel different and it was just all a jumble. I couldn't really relate to any of them as characters, nor even really paint as pictures in my head. And they kinda were not doing much as well, maybe mildly starting to get to something interesting, but then the book ended and nothing of note had really happened. I don't think you should try to conjure a "trilogy" if you barely have a story for one.
Here we have 6 totally different alien species cohabiting a world, but none of them really feel different and it was just all a jumble. I couldn't really relate to any of them as characters, nor even really paint as pictures in my head. And they kinda were not doing much as well, maybe mildly starting to get to something interesting, but then the book ended and nothing of note had really happened. I don't think you should try to conjure a "trilogy" if you barely have a story for one.
April 17, 2017
Storyline: 4/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 5/5
Asx, qheuens, traeki, khuta, Hph-wayou, hoonish, Jijo, Zang, Izmuti, g'Keks, glavers, the Great Buyur, Alvin, Mister Heinz, Guenn Volcano, Terminus Rock, Joe Dolenz, Mu-phauwq, Yowg-wayou, humicker, Huck, Becky, Pincer-Tip, wrigglers, Ur-ronn, urs, Uriel, Mount Guenn, urrish, uttergloss, Drake, Ur-jushen, Holy Egg, er, hoon, Biblos, Aph-awn, Ur-Tanj, noor, Wuphon, mulc-spiders, Uncle Lorben, Sixers, Ifni, gingourv trees, hoonlike, garu, umble, and humicking. Those are the made-up names, places, races, adjectives or other terms that appear in the Prelude and Part I (called "Parts" instead of chapters). Additionally, there are the words with more obvious meanings but also having specific connotations for Brin's worldbuilding: rings, sage, Commons, pentapod, children of exile, Scroll of Exile, sneakership, gloss, the Slope, the Midden, throat sac, humanmimicker, the Big North-side Avalanche, red shells, greys, blues, mudflats, leg-mouths, lava pools, Great Peace, the Big Quest, gloss, burnish, Gathering Festival, dross, the Line, The Day, sky-gods, heretic, eyestalks, heresy, cranial tympanum, and the Rift. This all comes in the first 19 pages. Part II (of XXVIII) makes vocabulary additions at about the same rate. Thereafter it slows down, but those first two parts were difficult. Remember, too, that this is addition to all the Uplift terminology carried over from the original trilogy. The opening of Brightness Reef, then, gives a lot of new material in a short amount of space, and you must be able to distinguish between many of the terms to understand the conversations and action. Was it the g'Kek that was blue with four legs or was that a hoon? Or is this thing wheeling around the g'Kek? When hoonish is an adjective am I supposed to remember riverfolk or galloping plainsmen?..... I prefer my worldbuilding to proceed with a bit more finesse. In fairness, Brin does offer clues and descriptors alongside the proper names to help the reader distinguish between all the new terms. Still, this start proved more work than fun.
I forewarn the reader that the ending, too, requires some forbearance, in that there is no ending. The first three of the Uplift saga were independent works with their own self-contained plot with some sort of settlement. This is a to-be-continued ending that leaves the reader without a resolution. Even trilogies which contain a single, overarching plot can and have managed to find reasonable ending places. Brin appears to have stopped when his publisher said, Enough!
Other than the beginning and the ending, this was Brin's best Uplift book. Discounting the slogging start and the abrupt finish, there are still a good 600 pages in a middle full of quality worldbuilding, believable characters, and creative perspectives. I remain awed by the concept of uplift and the galactic politics Brin has built around it. He moves in a nice direction here, emphasizing the high regard and long-term planning that goes into saving species potentially sentient, even when that sentience is eons into the future. This was also Brin's most ambitious effort yet at perspectives and mediums. Not only are there a plethora of alien vantage points but we get snippets of recorded lore and published history interjected amidst the 28 parts. The writing exhibited a real self-awareness as one of our protagonists discussed literary writing styles and the best ways to relate his story, and there was some intriguing philosophical ideas on linguistics. This did come off more as Brin defending himself by saying he was aware of literary devices and systems of thought. He himself struggled make good use of or delve deep into these matters. Nevertheless, the experience was better for their inclusion. The author did make some poor choices with the twists and turns, putting me in a place throughout most of the book where I felt that the choices and reasoning of the actors did not make sense. Brin's twists give some needed coherence, but where he was thinking that he was solving puzzles, to me it seemed like he was finally remedying errors.
It is impressing to think of the author beginning with a blank page before him and resulting with something so wildly creative. It is difficult to imagine how he got from point A to point Z, but we readers are the beneficiaries. I would have called this his best Uplift book had it been finished. Perhaps I'll be better prepared when I get to the end of the second Uplift Storm Trilogy, Infinity's Shore.
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 5/5
Asx, qheuens, traeki, khuta, Hph-wayou, hoonish, Jijo, Zang, Izmuti, g'Keks, glavers, the Great Buyur, Alvin, Mister Heinz, Guenn Volcano, Terminus Rock, Joe Dolenz, Mu-phauwq, Yowg-wayou, humicker, Huck, Becky, Pincer-Tip, wrigglers, Ur-ronn, urs, Uriel, Mount Guenn, urrish, uttergloss, Drake, Ur-jushen, Holy Egg, er, hoon, Biblos, Aph-awn, Ur-Tanj, noor, Wuphon, mulc-spiders, Uncle Lorben, Sixers, Ifni, gingourv trees, hoonlike, garu, umble, and humicking. Those are the made-up names, places, races, adjectives or other terms that appear in the Prelude and Part I (called "Parts" instead of chapters). Additionally, there are the words with more obvious meanings but also having specific connotations for Brin's worldbuilding: rings, sage, Commons, pentapod, children of exile, Scroll of Exile, sneakership, gloss, the Slope, the Midden, throat sac, humanmimicker, the Big North-side Avalanche, red shells, greys, blues, mudflats, leg-mouths, lava pools, Great Peace, the Big Quest, gloss, burnish, Gathering Festival, dross, the Line, The Day, sky-gods, heretic, eyestalks, heresy, cranial tympanum, and the Rift. This all comes in the first 19 pages. Part II (of XXVIII) makes vocabulary additions at about the same rate. Thereafter it slows down, but those first two parts were difficult. Remember, too, that this is addition to all the Uplift terminology carried over from the original trilogy. The opening of Brightness Reef, then, gives a lot of new material in a short amount of space, and you must be able to distinguish between many of the terms to understand the conversations and action. Was it the g'Kek that was blue with four legs or was that a hoon? Or is this thing wheeling around the g'Kek? When hoonish is an adjective am I supposed to remember riverfolk or galloping plainsmen?..... I prefer my worldbuilding to proceed with a bit more finesse. In fairness, Brin does offer clues and descriptors alongside the proper names to help the reader distinguish between all the new terms. Still, this start proved more work than fun.
I forewarn the reader that the ending, too, requires some forbearance, in that there is no ending. The first three of the Uplift saga were independent works with their own self-contained plot with some sort of settlement. This is a to-be-continued ending that leaves the reader without a resolution. Even trilogies which contain a single, overarching plot can and have managed to find reasonable ending places. Brin appears to have stopped when his publisher said, Enough!
Other than the beginning and the ending, this was Brin's best Uplift book. Discounting the slogging start and the abrupt finish, there are still a good 600 pages in a middle full of quality worldbuilding, believable characters, and creative perspectives. I remain awed by the concept of uplift and the galactic politics Brin has built around it. He moves in a nice direction here, emphasizing the high regard and long-term planning that goes into saving species potentially sentient, even when that sentience is eons into the future. This was also Brin's most ambitious effort yet at perspectives and mediums. Not only are there a plethora of alien vantage points but we get snippets of recorded lore and published history interjected amidst the 28 parts. The writing exhibited a real self-awareness as one of our protagonists discussed literary writing styles and the best ways to relate his story, and there was some intriguing philosophical ideas on linguistics. This did come off more as Brin defending himself by saying he was aware of literary devices and systems of thought. He himself struggled make good use of or delve deep into these matters. Nevertheless, the experience was better for their inclusion. The author did make some poor choices with the twists and turns, putting me in a place throughout most of the book where I felt that the choices and reasoning of the actors did not make sense. Brin's twists give some needed coherence, but where he was thinking that he was solving puzzles, to me it seemed like he was finally remedying errors.
It is impressing to think of the author beginning with a blank page before him and resulting with something so wildly creative. It is difficult to imagine how he got from point A to point Z, but we readers are the beneficiaries. I would have called this his best Uplift book had it been finished. Perhaps I'll be better prepared when I get to the end of the second Uplift Storm Trilogy, Infinity's Shore.
August 29, 2015
I've read most of David Brin's Uplift Universe, but I actually started with this particular series, and despite it being the final trilogy, I can say with confidence that it's a mighty fine place to start. To this day these three books remain my favorite Brin novels.
Not only is David Brin an absolute master of Hard Science Fiction, his work is a good antidote to the pile of young-adult-inspired-barely-feasible-dystopias that are currently flooding the market and trying to coattail on the success of the Hunger Games. If you like Hard Sci-Fi chances are you already know what that genre means, and Brin has it down. His strongest feature is his world building, coupled with a fantastic ability to fill the universe with a dazzling array of BELIEVABLE aliens.
Most science fictions falls into one of two traps when creating alien species. They either make the aliens just a green version of humans (e.g.Star Trek), or they make the aliens mortal enemies that are incapable of any common ground or saving feature, hell-bent on destroying all of humanity, thus necessitating their complete and totally satisfying destruction.
Brin actually imagines complicated, nuanced, foreign, not-even-slightly-human aliens. And the wackier his ideas the more you will find them to be rooted in solid science. Aliens that evolved with wheels and an axle? Sounds unreal, but he based the idea on a currently existing bacteria.
Nuanced pretty much sums up Brin's approach. Politics, culture, character development...if you're looking for a straight forward Good vs Evil story you really should look elsewhere. While Brin creates characters you can root for, the people of his novels do not always live up to your expectations, and you will not be allowed to myopically focus on only one "hero" or "heroine"... and that's a good thing. David Brin is an author that asks more of his readers than many science fiction and fantasy authors do today, and certainly more than Hollywood does. He asks you to care about more than one person, more than one "side", more than one culture, to relate to more than one protagonist.
These days I feel like with so many people picking simplified issues and drawing battle lines, writers like David Brin that promote Big Pictures with complicated problems are a much needed contrast . Read up and enjoy.
Not only is David Brin an absolute master of Hard Science Fiction, his work is a good antidote to the pile of young-adult-inspired-barely-feasible-dystopias that are currently flooding the market and trying to coattail on the success of the Hunger Games. If you like Hard Sci-Fi chances are you already know what that genre means, and Brin has it down. His strongest feature is his world building, coupled with a fantastic ability to fill the universe with a dazzling array of BELIEVABLE aliens.
Most science fictions falls into one of two traps when creating alien species. They either make the aliens just a green version of humans (e.g.Star Trek), or they make the aliens mortal enemies that are incapable of any common ground or saving feature, hell-bent on destroying all of humanity, thus necessitating their complete and totally satisfying destruction.
Brin actually imagines complicated, nuanced, foreign, not-even-slightly-human aliens. And the wackier his ideas the more you will find them to be rooted in solid science. Aliens that evolved with wheels and an axle? Sounds unreal, but he based the idea on a currently existing bacteria.
Nuanced pretty much sums up Brin's approach. Politics, culture, character development...if you're looking for a straight forward Good vs Evil story you really should look elsewhere. While Brin creates characters you can root for, the people of his novels do not always live up to your expectations, and you will not be allowed to myopically focus on only one "hero" or "heroine"... and that's a good thing. David Brin is an author that asks more of his readers than many science fiction and fantasy authors do today, and certainly more than Hollywood does. He asks you to care about more than one person, more than one "side", more than one culture, to relate to more than one protagonist.
These days I feel like with so many people picking simplified issues and drawing battle lines, writers like David Brin that promote Big Pictures with complicated problems are a much needed contrast . Read up and enjoy.
September 15, 2013
-Despliegue abrumador pero no totalmente necesario.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Tras un breve preludio de lo que parecen los últimos instantes de alguien en una zona pantanosa, conoceremos al joven estudiante Hph-wayuo (al que le gusta que le llamen Alvin) de la raza hoon, que disfruta leyendo historias clásicas terrícolas y que nos hablará de sus amigos, Huck la g´Kek, Pinzón el qheuen rojo y Ur-ronn la ur, una pandilla con representación de cuatro de las razas presentes en el planeta (alguna de ellas tratando de no llamar la atención). Y es que al planeta Jijo, supuestamente aislado y cuya colonización está prohibida para favorecer su recuperación ecológica y ambiental, han ido llegando individuos de diferentes razas por distintas razones, y además han logrado convivir en paz (aunque les tomó cierto tiempo y guerras hacerlo) y con respeto entre ellos. Dentro de la serie La Elevación de los Pupilos, cuarto libro de la serie ambientado en esa línea argumental y primer libro de su segunda trilogía.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Tras un breve preludio de lo que parecen los últimos instantes de alguien en una zona pantanosa, conoceremos al joven estudiante Hph-wayuo (al que le gusta que le llamen Alvin) de la raza hoon, que disfruta leyendo historias clásicas terrícolas y que nos hablará de sus amigos, Huck la g´Kek, Pinzón el qheuen rojo y Ur-ronn la ur, una pandilla con representación de cuatro de las razas presentes en el planeta (alguna de ellas tratando de no llamar la atención). Y es que al planeta Jijo, supuestamente aislado y cuya colonización está prohibida para favorecer su recuperación ecológica y ambiental, han ido llegando individuos de diferentes razas por distintas razones, y además han logrado convivir en paz (aunque les tomó cierto tiempo y guerras hacerlo) y con respeto entre ellos. Dentro de la serie La Elevación de los Pupilos, cuarto libro de la serie ambientado en esa línea argumental y primer libro de su segunda trilogía.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
July 4, 2022
This book is really *slow*, like the one in the anecdote where nothing happens for three hundred pages and then someone else's aunt dies? Yes, that kind of book, except here it was like *five* hundred pages.
Overall this book tells a story that could have been condensed down to two hundred pages and not lose much if anything, but takes almost seven hundred pages to do it.
I liked the original Uplift trilogy very much, but I don't think I will be reading the other two books in this one. Usually I read a book this long in three weeks or less, but I thought this one would never end, and more than once thought about just giving up on it. I'm really glad (or maybe relieved is a better word) to have finished it.
Overall this book tells a story that could have been condensed down to two hundred pages and not lose much if anything, but takes almost seven hundred pages to do it.
I liked the original Uplift trilogy very much, but I don't think I will be reading the other two books in this one. Usually I read a book this long in three weeks or less, but I thought this one would never end, and more than once thought about just giving up on it. I'm really glad (or maybe relieved is a better word) to have finished it.
August 27, 2011
A high four. Some of my favorite things were things that I appreciated in thought more than enjoyed as I read it, but that may be my harshest critique. I sometimes complain that science fiction is so concentrated upon its jawsome ideas that it forgets to also be literature, but the sort of self-aware literary technique in the secondary story line seemed a bit out of place sandwiched between the more conventional sections. Perhaps if the whole book had been written that way it would have worked, but I'm not sure how I feel about the two styles being slapped together.
It gradually forced itself into my mind the effect of designing your life and societal goals so as to leave nothing behind and devolve. Having such a goal akin to sacred seems the only way to have it happen, and yet it still strikes me as unsatisfying and difficult to maintain. The need for progress, for impact, for something important to result, if not from one individually, then from one's collective group seems a strong urge to me. Of course, maybe it would not be the same for other species, or other cultures, but it has pushed me into pondering why or how it could matter. I frequently run into this problem - why progress? What progress? And so to have an explicitly anti-progress goal draws out these unsupported and potentially meaningless drives for meaning. One could make arguments that to aim to let everything erode over time is the only consistent one - and yet it seems infeasible to expect everybody in a society to be comfortable maintaining it, however sacred a mission it may be. Somehow, we want to at least strive to create something, and to know with certainty that it will be destroyed without any legacy whatsoever is a hard thing to face, even if to think otherwise is delusional.
It gradually forced itself into my mind the effect of designing your life and societal goals so as to leave nothing behind and devolve. Having such a goal akin to sacred seems the only way to have it happen, and yet it still strikes me as unsatisfying and difficult to maintain. The need for progress, for impact, for something important to result, if not from one individually, then from one's collective group seems a strong urge to me. Of course, maybe it would not be the same for other species, or other cultures, but it has pushed me into pondering why or how it could matter. I frequently run into this problem - why progress? What progress? And so to have an explicitly anti-progress goal draws out these unsupported and potentially meaningless drives for meaning. One could make arguments that to aim to let everything erode over time is the only consistent one - and yet it seems infeasible to expect everybody in a society to be comfortable maintaining it, however sacred a mission it may be. Somehow, we want to at least strive to create something, and to know with certainty that it will be destroyed without any legacy whatsoever is a hard thing to face, even if to think otherwise is delusional.
August 10, 2014
Spoiler alert: There are no bright reefs in here. Brin has taken two words that he likes, put them together, and named his story that. He then filled up 650 pages with multiple threads of a tale that I'm not all that interested in. This book is at least 3x longer than it needs to be. I can summarize:
1) There are various aliens who have come into illegal exile together for various reasons. Their motivations are slowly revealed.
2) Their plan is to devolve into pre-sentient lifeforms. By the way, everyone thinks evolving into a sapient species is somehow magically impossible. But devolving from one is fine. OK.
3) The Steaker's underwater. Doing what, who knows.
4) There are other aliens that come. They're looking for the Streaker, though they won't tell you that. It's unclear why else they're here. You'd think that after 650 pages this would be evident.
Ugh. I hated the fact that I read 650 pages about a insignificant world only to have to read another 1000 pages to finish the story. Why does Brin focus on these backwater worlds with their unimportant inhabitants when he's got a huge universe out there to explore? This is all quite unsatisfying.
1) There are various aliens who have come into illegal exile together for various reasons. Their motivations are slowly revealed.
2) Their plan is to devolve into pre-sentient lifeforms. By the way, everyone thinks evolving into a sapient species is somehow magically impossible. But devolving from one is fine. OK.
3) The Steaker's underwater. Doing what, who knows.
4) There are other aliens that come. They're looking for the Streaker, though they won't tell you that. It's unclear why else they're here. You'd think that after 650 pages this would be evident.
Ugh. I hated the fact that I read 650 pages about a insignificant world only to have to read another 1000 pages to finish the story. Why does Brin focus on these backwater worlds with their unimportant inhabitants when he's got a huge universe out there to explore? This is all quite unsatisfying.
April 3, 2013
Not sure why i keep at theses Uplift books.
I dont by the setup - I am not overwhelmed by any ideas in the story, the setting, the premise, etc...
They arent bad, they just dont do much for me. I find it hard to imagine people taking species responsibility over the course of thousands of years. It is hard to get most people who study a specific thing - to agree what happened 100 years ago. So to think we or any like species would carry any guilt for thousands of years seems unlikely.
For this particular book I felt myself getting interested here and there, then the scene shifted and I lost interest. Often the characters didnt feel distinctly individual, so unless this one mentions its footstalks or rings or whatever it had, I didnt always know where it was right away after the scene shifted.
I wont spoiler it, but the twist at the end wasnt surprising if you paid attention, even a bored guy on the treadmill saw it coming.
Still, all my comments are harsher than I feel about it, it wasnt unreadable, it just doesnt spark my imagination like some other things I have read.
I dont by the setup - I am not overwhelmed by any ideas in the story, the setting, the premise, etc...
They arent bad, they just dont do much for me. I find it hard to imagine people taking species responsibility over the course of thousands of years. It is hard to get most people who study a specific thing - to agree what happened 100 years ago. So to think we or any like species would carry any guilt for thousands of years seems unlikely.
For this particular book I felt myself getting interested here and there, then the scene shifted and I lost interest. Often the characters didnt feel distinctly individual, so unless this one mentions its footstalks or rings or whatever it had, I didnt always know where it was right away after the scene shifted.
I wont spoiler it, but the twist at the end wasnt surprising if you paid attention, even a bored guy on the treadmill saw it coming.
Still, all my comments are harsher than I feel about it, it wasnt unreadable, it just doesnt spark my imagination like some other things I have read.
January 1, 2018
Remember the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll? It is filled with nonsense words, but if you carefully track the context clues it makes some degree of sense. It is beautiful to roll off the tongue, but a slight strain to the brain as you try to make sense of it.
So too is Brightness Reef. I don't know if it was written in Galactic Two or perhaps Galactic Six, but it sure weren't writ in Anglic. It was fun to read about non-bipedal aliens. It was fun to have the story told with their own vocabulary. These wonderful jabberwocky-esque words also had a beautiful roll to them. However, they too had the accompanying brain strain. I am a fairly proficient and fast reader, but I slogged down in this book, on occasion rereading a passage to pick up those missed context clues that helped bring meaning to a foreign language... Galactic Four?
It is a very s-l-o-w moving plot. S--l--o--w!
I hope things speed up in the next installment. It is enough to have to read slowly, I don't need the revelation to be significantly delayed as well.
So too is Brightness Reef. I don't know if it was written in Galactic Two or perhaps Galactic Six, but it sure weren't writ in Anglic. It was fun to read about non-bipedal aliens. It was fun to have the story told with their own vocabulary. These wonderful jabberwocky-esque words also had a beautiful roll to them. However, they too had the accompanying brain strain. I am a fairly proficient and fast reader, but I slogged down in this book, on occasion rereading a passage to pick up those missed context clues that helped bring meaning to a foreign language... Galactic Four?
It is a very s-l-o-w moving plot. S--l--o--w!
I hope things speed up in the next installment. It is enough to have to read slowly, I don't need the revelation to be significantly delayed as well.
November 19, 2018
I honestly have to say I found this book hard to read and tiresome in the extreme. I try always to finish any book I start, so I persevered to the end, and was left wondering what the heck it was all about.
The basic story is about six refugee alien species hiding on a forbidden planet in fear of being discovered by the galactic superpowers from whom they fled in the first place. I appreciate imagination in inventing aliens, but to me an alien must at least be believable according to the laws of physics and nature. Two of the aliens did not, in my view.
Also, the book is so full of padding, and unrelated side stories it becomes tedious, and the vast amount of made-up words and names leaves the reader a little stunned, to say the least.
I will not buy this author again.
The basic story is about six refugee alien species hiding on a forbidden planet in fear of being discovered by the galactic superpowers from whom they fled in the first place. I appreciate imagination in inventing aliens, but to me an alien must at least be believable according to the laws of physics and nature. Two of the aliens did not, in my view.
Also, the book is so full of padding, and unrelated side stories it becomes tedious, and the vast amount of made-up words and names leaves the reader a little stunned, to say the least.
I will not buy this author again.
October 4, 2015
Lots of good talking points in this return to Brin's Uplift universe: interrogating ideas of humanity and sapience, cultural imperialism, and feminist commentary. But it's just so damn long and unwieldy!
September 17, 2024
David Brin’s The Postman may be the greatest novel of all time. It’s in the conversation at least. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make this any less horrifically empty and time-wasting. No characters are remotely distinguishable from each other and NOOOOOOOOOOOOTHING EVER HAPPENS! I’m giving up at ~57% complete.
September 7, 2009
These are getting better, though the author still has some writing quirks that annoy me. These last three Uplift books are apparently all one long story. The first one, Brightness Reef, introduces us to the planet Jijo, and to the six erstwhile starfaring races that dwell there in exile illegally. Some of the storylines and characters are quite captivating, like that of Rety and of the Stranger. Others like Alvin, Huck and friends, I wish to get through quickly and move on. He has learned to go longer between viewpoint character changes, sometimes as much as a chapter, which helps. And overall he's getting a bit better at storytelling. It's not as jumpy and awkward as it was in the earlier books. Again the book is packed with clever inventive details about all the different species and their technology and societies. The science is good, which really matters to me.
I've started the next book now. Tune in for the next review in a few days. =)
I've started the next book now. Tune in for the next review in a few days. =)
May 6, 2017
This was a hard one to muddle through--it wasn't until I realized that this trilogy is contemporary to the events of the Uplift Trilogy that I started to get interested.
Brin is experimenting with perspective--from the alien Asx to the Stranger who has lost all language when introducted to Alvin, the young hoon who tells his story in a first person journal style.
Of course, since it's Brin, the intrigue is thick.
Gone are the weird time passage "burps" from earlier books. Everything seems to flow naturally.
The big questions:
1. Did humanity 'bootstrap' themselves to sentience?
2. Who is Herbie and why does everybody want him?
and the new one:
3. What the FUCK is up with the noors?
Brin is experimenting with perspective--from the alien Asx to the Stranger who has lost all language when introducted to Alvin, the young hoon who tells his story in a first person journal style.
Of course, since it's Brin, the intrigue is thick.
Gone are the weird time passage "burps" from earlier books. Everything seems to flow naturally.
The big questions:
1. Did humanity 'bootstrap' themselves to sentience?
2. Who is Herbie and why does everybody want him?
and the new one:
3. What the FUCK is up with the noors?
April 17, 2011
This is a good book.the 6 different species on the planet Jijo are well created and interesting. There was lucklily a picture at the end of the book and after looking at that I understood the shape and parts of the different types of aliens there. There is also an interesting idea of 'Patron' species. In other words a species that takes another fledgling group and begins to uplift them. Genetically changing them slowly as well as teaching them things to make them into the next star-faring species.
December 11, 2016
Būna serijų, kur nuotykis išsenka rašytojui besistengiant išsunkti paskutinius lašelius iš sugalvoto pasaulio. Būna, kad nebetiki pritemptu veiksmu. Būna ir, kad fantazija peržengia logikos ribas stengdamasi atrasti kažką, kuo dar mus nustebinti. Ši Uplift saga turi kitą bėdą. Autoriaus fantazija neturi ribų, ji išradinga ir išmani. Bet veiksmo linijų tiek daug ir jos tokios susipynusios, kad aš jau noriu pailsėt nuo šio gausybės rago ir imu pauzę. #Recom #LEBooks
August 19, 2018
Come al solito, Brin sviluppa una serie concatenata di filoni narrativi, nell'ambito del suo variegato universo, con la sua ottima prosa. A differenza dei primi tre romanzi del Ciclo delle Cinque Galassie, questo libro non ha una conclusione, affidandola ai successivi altri due libri della trilogia di Jijo. Non semplice da seguire.
Read
August 14, 2025I did not get through this audiobook before my license period expired. Not a dnf. I was enjoying it.
May 21, 2014
I used to be a voracious reader, and although I find that my reading time is now taken up by other communication methods (iPad, Internet, etc.) I still enjoy reading a good book, or listening to audiobooks.
So, I've gone back and started listening to one of my favorite series of books by David Brin called the Uplift Trilogy. It's really a long story set after the events of Startide Rising, which is the keystone book in his whole Uplift "universe."
The short explanation of the story is that humans have gone out into the universe and found that there is a very well established galactic society based around the concept of "uplifting" lesser species to sentience. Humans, as we are wont to do, have already done so with dolphins and chimpanzees, which makes our race "patrons," much to the chagrin of the older races that consider us upstarts. Then, as we are also wont to do, we end up poking things we shouldn't and causing trouble.
At any rate, there are several fascinating aspects to societal interactions, race development, recycling and most importantly, languages, that I just love to revisit. Especially as it compares when its on the page verses spoken aloud in an audiobook.
As part of a massive galactic culture, there are at least 7 galactic dialects that the characters use in the story, which is then added to the earthling languages of "anglic" and "trinary" (which is dolphin language). The author Brin has a lot of commentary about how one language is better for certain concepts compared to another, and how each race interacts with them to cross-communicate. Moreover, on the page he was forced to resort to pairing certain languages in specific ways, almost like a haiku for "Trinary" for instance. Ah, but when read aloud, it takes on a whole different feel. Some languages become a song, while others are stilted and specific.
My hat's off to voice over artist George K Wilson for his great job not only managing numerous styles of voices, but also the strange dialects that it entails.
At any rate, if you read science fiction at all, I'd recommend this whole series.
And, as a final side note, I'm sorry to say that I've personally had several interactions with the author David Brin... and each time he's been a real jerk. Few things are more disappointing than really liking someone's creative efforts, and really wanting to feel a pleasant connection to the person that so inspired you... only to have them turn out to be a jerk. But oh well.
So, I've gone back and started listening to one of my favorite series of books by David Brin called the Uplift Trilogy. It's really a long story set after the events of Startide Rising, which is the keystone book in his whole Uplift "universe."
The short explanation of the story is that humans have gone out into the universe and found that there is a very well established galactic society based around the concept of "uplifting" lesser species to sentience. Humans, as we are wont to do, have already done so with dolphins and chimpanzees, which makes our race "patrons," much to the chagrin of the older races that consider us upstarts. Then, as we are also wont to do, we end up poking things we shouldn't and causing trouble.
At any rate, there are several fascinating aspects to societal interactions, race development, recycling and most importantly, languages, that I just love to revisit. Especially as it compares when its on the page verses spoken aloud in an audiobook.
As part of a massive galactic culture, there are at least 7 galactic dialects that the characters use in the story, which is then added to the earthling languages of "anglic" and "trinary" (which is dolphin language). The author Brin has a lot of commentary about how one language is better for certain concepts compared to another, and how each race interacts with them to cross-communicate. Moreover, on the page he was forced to resort to pairing certain languages in specific ways, almost like a haiku for "Trinary" for instance. Ah, but when read aloud, it takes on a whole different feel. Some languages become a song, while others are stilted and specific.
My hat's off to voice over artist George K Wilson for his great job not only managing numerous styles of voices, but also the strange dialects that it entails.
At any rate, if you read science fiction at all, I'd recommend this whole series.
And, as a final side note, I'm sorry to say that I've personally had several interactions with the author David Brin... and each time he's been a real jerk. Few things are more disappointing than really liking someone's creative efforts, and really wanting to feel a pleasant connection to the person that so inspired you... only to have them turn out to be a jerk. But oh well.
May 16, 2014
The second Uplift trilogy, or the Jijoian Trilogy is set in a universe where species are raised to sentience by a Patron race, to whom they then owe one hundred thousand years of servitude as a thank you. Humanity, having already raised Chimps and Dolphins to sentience stumble out into the galaxy at large without a patron race, making them rare "wolflings" generally doomed for extinction lacking protection in what is often a dangerous and violent galactic society.
The majority of the trilogy is set on a Sooner colony called Jijo, where half a dozen outcast races live together striving to return to "blessed presentience" avoiding larger galactic society. The story follows this colony as the wider universe comes crashing in.
I tremendously enjoyed these books, they're well written with a wide range of characters. The galactic society is startling different from most simple Utopian or "mankind stands alone" situations often found in fiction. Groups centered on uplift clans or religious beliefs fight wars within the constraints of stability within the larger society. The differences between the collective cultures of the mixed races of Jijo and the interactions of the parent races out in the Five Galaxies form a large part of the subtext. Both the overarching plot and the development of each character is handled well and Brin doesn't leave minor loose ends dangling at the end of the tale. He has left himself with a few hooks for another series if he wants it though.
The majority of the trilogy is set on a Sooner colony called Jijo, where half a dozen outcast races live together striving to return to "blessed presentience" avoiding larger galactic society. The story follows this colony as the wider universe comes crashing in.
I tremendously enjoyed these books, they're well written with a wide range of characters. The galactic society is startling different from most simple Utopian or "mankind stands alone" situations often found in fiction. Groups centered on uplift clans or religious beliefs fight wars within the constraints of stability within the larger society. The differences between the collective cultures of the mixed races of Jijo and the interactions of the parent races out in the Five Galaxies form a large part of the subtext. Both the overarching plot and the development of each character is handled well and Brin doesn't leave minor loose ends dangling at the end of the tale. He has left himself with a few hooks for another series if he wants it though.
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