"Startide Rising" by David Brin (BR)

[Silvana]

Diane and Dawn, are you ready? :D

Everyone else, do come and join this BR.

[Gabi]

I'll be joining as well. I listened to the first book last week.

[Silvana]

Gabi wrote: "I'll be joining as well. I listened to the first book last week."

Glad you could join us, Gabi.

I could only get to the first book after reading this so I hope it's fine...

[Dawn F]

Thanks! If I’m *really* fast I can read Sundiver before starting this one 😄

[Gabi]

I've heard they have not much in common concerning the content. So book 1 isn't needed for reading book 2.

[Dawn F]

I certainly never realized there was a book before Startide Rising wheb I read it in my teens. We’ll see what I have time for, I have many irons in the fire at the moment.

[Silvana]

Gabi wrote: "I've heard they have not much in common concerning the content. So book 1 isn't needed for reading book 2."

I heard about that too. Did you enjoy Sundiver?

[Dana]

I would not worry about "Sundiver" too much, it's not needed to enjoy "Startide". It's not that it's bad, it's just "Startide Rising" is really good. I think "Uplift War" is better too.

[DivaDiane]

I’m listening to the book now! Started a couple of days ago. 18% in, it might take me a week to finish though...

[Gabi]

Silvana wrote: "Gabi wrote: "I've heard they have not much in common concerning the content. So book 1 isn't needed for reading book 2."

I heard about that too. Did you enjoy Sundiver?"

It was good entertainment and I adored the fact that the uplift-theory was derived from van Däniken whom I vividly remembered from my youth. I gave it a good 3 stars.

[Silvana]

Starting today!

[DivaDiane]

I'm about 60% in at the moment. I'm sure you'll catch up lickety-split, Silvana. Hopefully, we can get some good discussion in.

[Silvana]

Mayhaps.... I will be reading a dead tree version so my usual speedy ebook reading will be compromised.... 😆

[Gabi]

In theory I'm 12% into the book, but it could be that I have to re-listen to those 12%. This seems to be one of those books where I don't pay attention to what I'm hearing ^^'. I let it go on for a little while longer to see if it grabs me and I get into the story. Otherwise I'll start again.

[Jordan]

Oh, I might hop in on this one. I've been meaning to read it as part of my read all the Hugo winners challenge, but I keep putting it off because I didn't enjoy Sundiver at all.

[Rachel]

Ah I remember this one! It’s quite good. Worthy of its Hugo. I may have to follow the discussion

[Gabi]

I think I'm a bit better into the story now, but I realise that multicharacter tales beyond a certain number of characters aren't my thing. I have no idea who is who, the voices all feel so similar to me. But I really dig the uplifting theory that goes so contrary to Star Trek's prime directive. A n interesting concept.

[Silvana]

Just finished chapter 2. I want to see the inside of that ship!

[Silvana]

Chapter 7


The underwater technology (view spoiler)[they had was fabulous! The nitrogen scavenging symbiotes especially would come in handy for divers in our world. (hide spoiler)]

As for the uplifting part, I agree Gabi. (view spoiler)[So dolphins are human's clients, they said. How exactly is the power dynamics, between them. Do dolphins still mostly obey their patrons? I guess they have their captains but seem to be there's still some kind of dependency thing going on.

I enjoyed the interaction between Toshio and the fins (and how human live together with them) though he seemed to be very curmudgeon about them. His tirade at the end of the chapter was hilarious though. Overrated fish! Reply with grammatically correct response! LoL (hide spoiler)]

Edit; most of my questions on the uplifter and upliftee have been addressed in subsequent chapters. (view spoiler)[indenture for one hundred years? Yeesh. (hide spoiler)]

Wonder which animal I would uplift. Dogs maybe.

[Silvana]

On POVs, a blog said apparently
There are a total of 15 POVs in the Streaker’s crew with around 5-10 aliens.
Now thats alot.

[Gabi]

@Silvana: I'm loving the glimpses at science development as well, I could go with more of that - and with more planetary exploration. These are the moments where I'm quite attentive :D.

Yes, dogs would be an idea I could see as well.

[Silvana]

In later part of the book apparently (view spoiler)[neo dogs are underway. (hide spoiler)]I wonder if they also uplifted the other apes like gorillas and my personal favorite, the bonobos. I think I also want the corvid family, ravens and crows since they are already so smart. Aaanyway, going back to the book.

[Jordan]

I've finished chapter 18, looks like I'm about a quarter of the way through: (view spoiler)[Things seem to be moving so slow. He keeps giving hints of things with the Galactics duking it out above the planet and the mysterious corpse that the Earth crew recovered from the derelict fleet, but so far not much has really come of it. Hopefully soon? I do really like the universe he's created though, with species being uplifted into galactic society and humans just crashing the party. I also just think dolphins in a spaceship is such a fantastically fun idea. (hide spoiler)]

I would definitely have dogs at the top of my uplift list.

[Gabi]

Jordan wrote: "I've finished chapter 18, looks like I'm about a quarter of the way through: [spoilers removed] ..."


Yup, I'm having some problems with the pace myself. I feel like I have to dig for the actual story underneath all the musings and opinions of all those POVs.

[Silvana]

There are indeed a lot to take. The book has lots of layers you could pick which to focus on. I for one am interested with:
- the uplift tech, including genetic manipulation
- client- patron relationship
- individual relationship, military officers, civilians, military vs civilians, intersection those with dolphins, humans, chimps
- the languages of the dolphins and their other behaviors (I been spending some time googling some of the interesting behaviors in this book to see if they are like that IRL)
- the mysterious relic and the exploration
- human's own lost patron


Of there are more, like the aliens fighting over the planet, the Galactic rules and bureaucracy, and so on and so forth. Just focus on what you like, I guess?

[Silvana]

And yes Jordan, I hope we get more reveals of the mysteries stuff too! At chapter 22 now.

I love the dolphin captain Creideiki

[Gabi]

The uplift theory and patronage are a great concept, yet they were addressed in the first book as well but in a for me better way.
I heard a lot of readers say that the second one is better, but I don't feel it. The writing feels simplistic and I'm missing some fleshing out of the characters. The POVs don't really feel that different for me.

Well, I'm halfway in so there is a lot of room to still convince me. But at the moment I'm more of a grumpy reader, sorry.

[Silvana]

No worries! I too am a grumpy reader with lots of books, like the last one I read before this :p

[DivaDiane]

I am at chapter 16. I love how the dolphins often speak in haiku.

[Anna]

Diane wrote: "I love how the dolphins often speak in haiku."

I'm going to have to take a closer look at this one!

[Silvana]

The end of Part 3
chapter 34

(view spoiler)[Darn it! Poor Credeiki! But I've been having a bad feeling for a while, smelling obvious mutiny. (hide spoiler)]

[Silvana]

End of part 4

(view spoiler)[I feel like I understood what Tom was doing but then I kinda lost it again after finishing chapter 45. (hide spoiler)]

Akki (view spoiler)[I hope he is okay. This mutiny thing is really upsetting. (hide spoiler)]

Toshio (view spoiler)[needs to grow up. I am more annoyed with his thoughts about Dennie and Gillian than Sah'ot interspecies flirting with Dennie, which is weird at first (hide spoiler)]

[Gabi]

I started again. Through the first 5 chapters and this time I forced myself to pay more attention. Now I know why I was so confused the first time. The explanations of what happened and why everybody is fighting was told off screen. I must have missed those few sentences.

I'm intrigued by the spacetravelling of the species in chapter 2. I would love to hear more of them.

[Silvana]

You'll get more Tandus later. And uh, many others. Interesting though as long as you could keep up with who's whom. I am at chapter 54. Moving rather slowly due to dead tree copy ugh. Glad this is my second last unread one. I really could not read this way again.

[Silvana]

End of part 7 - chapter 75

(view spoiler)[Poor Alki! His death was sadder than the previous Credeiki's (attempted) murder.

The chase scene between the semi orca monster and Keepiru was making me so nervous.

I hate that chimp doctor. (hide spoiler)]

[Gabi]

Silvana wrote: ". though as long as you could keep up with who's whom ."

LOL! Indeed! This is definitely one of those novels where going for the audiobook was a quite stupid decision ... ^^'

[Silvana]

I can imagine that, Gabi. The chapters in this book are very short too, the audio must have been disorienting.

[Dawn F]

Finished it recently and was surprised at how well it holds up since I read it in the 90s.

Perhaps because I had already read it I was not confused about the characters. The chapters are short and have their names, so I found it easy to follow.

My main critique with it would be that it's fairly light and simplistic, but that was exactly what my scatterbrain needed right now.

(view spoiler)[Poor Akki indeed :(

Toshio is super immature and his chapters almost made the book lean towards YA. His comment about Gillian being an "older, beautiful woman, at least 30 years old" made me want to smack him!

I was curious to see how I'd feel about Sah'ot's flirting with Dennie compared to when I was younger. While it is strange, I don't think I have an actual issue with the interspecies sexual advances - had it been mutual. I suppose I have more of an issue with people around her laughing at her discomfort instead of helping her. But I guess it's not presented as her being in any actual danger, and Sah'ot sort of redeems himself in the end. (hide spoiler)]

[DivaDiane]

You guys are going to make me read your comments on my Mac, aren’t you?!?

I’m about 85% and will most likely finish tomorrow or the next day. Then I’ll sit down and read all the spoilers!

[Silvana]

Shoot, I am reading via app and got spoiled a bit by Dawn post. Not your fault, Dawn, it is the app that shows spoilers but open with no tags and I read your comment from below :| I am at chapter 85 and wonder why (view spoiler)[Nissi was kept secret by Gillian and Tom since the Tymbrini was already a known ally of humans (hide spoiler)]

[Silvana]

Finished! Wow what a crazy book. I don't know how to rate it, 4 or 5. But I really, really liked it. It has adventure, compelling characters, very fascinating worldbuilding.

Dawn wrote: "Finished it recently and was surprised at how well it holds up since I read it in the 90s.

Perhaps because I had already read it I was not confused about the characters. The chapters are short and..."

Now I can reply.

Toshio (view spoiler)[was 26, which was more surprising since that's not a YA age anymore hahaha (hide spoiler)]

Dennie and Sahot (view spoiler)[I actually googled dolphins behavior and could see the basis for this interaction. While I was amused, I kept thinking if Sahot was a human male, he really should be charged with sexual misconduct and harassment. I wonder whether he was using his dolphin status as an excuse. If Dennie said no, he should have backed off, dolphin or not. (hide spoiler)]

[DivaDiane]

So, I’ve finished it and read all your comments and spoilers.

Yeah, Gabi, the audio book was not a good choice. I listened to the first one too and was mildly, but much less confused by that one, but I thought it’d be fine, because I was familiar with the world. Nope.

One day, I’ll read it again but with a real book. An eye-read. I liked it, quite a lot, but because I’m sure I missed a lot, I can’t really say much.

I agree with the sentiment that Sah’ot’s (view spoiler)[behavior did border on harassment. (hide spoiler)]

Also, the way the Galactics (view spoiler)[treated their clients was really awful racial discrimination bordering on slavery (hide spoiler)]

[Jordan]

Okay, finally finished this one! This was much better than the first book, though I did still feel there were some pacing issues here.

(view spoiler)[While I liked the world-building and thought that the escape was great, I was a little bummed that absolutely nothing was done with the mysterious corpse that they had taken from the derelict fleet. I expected that to be the big mystery of this book and instead the mystery was really more about the world and the former patron race who lived there and the corpse gets mentioned three times or something like that. So I definitely had to do a hard reset of expectations on that.

Despite that, I did like the way that the mystery about the planet really had time to build with everyone slowly trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the world even while they were focused on the escape plan. This was just overall so much better than Sundiver in terms of keeping my interest and having a plot I cared about, and I'm glad I continued with this one instead of just giving up entirely.

I'll agree with you all who dislike Toshio. He seemed very immature in his thoughts and it made it a pain to read his chapters. I was on the fence with Sah'ot. I wanted to give him a pass because of actual dolphin behavior, but I feel like uplift should have given him some idea of harassment at the same time. (hide spoiler)]

[Silvana]

Jordan:

I agree with you on (view spoiler)[still mysterious Herbie. Maybe it will be addressed in the later books? (hide spoiler)]Is there a direct sequel?

I want to meet the other aliens now. especially the Tymbrimi

[Jordan]

The edition I read was the omnibus Earthclan, which includes the next book, The Uplift War. I'm hoping that means they're connected and that some of my questions might get answered there.

Also agreed on the Tymbrimi! It seems like we've seen the nastier races, but there are clearly also more positive races out there that I'd like to see. I'm also curious about the Synthians. (view spoiler)[I liked the few POV chapters we got from the scout. (hide spoiler)]

[Silvana]

Jordan wrote: "The edition I read was the omnibus Earthclan, which includes the next book, The Uplift War. I'm hoping that means they're connected and that some of my questions might g..."

Yes, Synthians too!

I'm reading Sundiver next then will continue to Uplift War once I get the ebook.