Looking for a science fiction book I read from the 1980s - 1990s. It is set on alien worlds and I remember it centered around 3 plots with 3 groups of characters. One group has an intelligent chimpanzee that I think is named Darwin or named after a famous scientist. He breaks out of a camp and ends up on an adventure with the next characters. The next group is a young human and an alien daughter of an alien ambassador that get shipwrecked on a planet that is similar to the African savanna. The alien daughter can gently reshape her body to adapt to her environment like enlarging her nostrils to breathe thinner air, etc. I think they end up with Darwin at the end of the book. The last part isn't so much a plot as it is a memorable part for me in the book. The enemy race moves through space on ships powered by semi-sentient beings called "denial". They simply deny the existence of spacetime and rip a hole in it through which the ships pass. A humorous part was they sometimes denied their own existence destroying themselves and the ships they traveled in. There was another subplot about an avian race of aliens that invade a planet and the attack stalls. The plot deals a lot with the 3 leaders, 1 female and 2 male and their interactions. At one point one of the males (a general) is killed and later replaced by an officer from the accounting office. He makes up "rank points" by pointing out all the costs the other have run up. I thought this might be something from Dan Simmons Hyperion series but I don't really find mention of any of the plots or characters. I do remember readings these books around the same time, 1985-1995ish.
I also remember at the end of the book the ambassador and his daughter rig up a practical joke on Darwin that gives him a electrical jolt as he is onstage receiving an award for saving them.
SOLVED: I have found the book. It is StarTide Rising by David Brin. It is the second book of the Uplift Wars series. I believe I've read the complete series as some of the plot items I mention actually occur in two of the novels.
The next group is a young human and an alien daughter of an alien ambassador that get shipwrecked on a planet that is similar to the African savanna. The alien daughter can gently reshape her body to adapt to her environment like enlarging her nostrils to breathe thinner air, etc. I think they end up with Darwin at the end of the book.
The last part isn't so much a plot as it is a memorable part for me in the book. The enemy race moves through space on ships powered by semi-sentient beings called "denial". They simply deny the existence of spacetime and rip a hole in it through which the ships pass. A humorous part was they sometimes denied their own existence destroying themselves and the ships they traveled in.
There was another subplot about an avian race of aliens that invade a planet and the attack stalls. The plot deals a lot with the 3 leaders, 1 female and 2 male and their interactions. At one point one of the males (a general) is killed and later replaced by an officer from the accounting office. He makes up "rank points" by pointing out all the costs the other have run up.
I thought this might be something from Dan Simmons Hyperion series but I don't really find mention of any of the plots or characters. I do remember readings these books around the same time, 1985-1995ish.