Startide Rising (Uplift Trilogy)

In its day, this book won the Nebula, the Locus, and the Hugo awards. It is a sequel to [b:Sundiver|96472|Sundiver (The Uplift Saga, #1)|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388176548s/96472.jpg|461555], the second in a trilogy called the Uplift Saga. It was also the sophomore effort by author [a:David Brin|14078|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1352956147p2/14078.jpg], and for me, it didn't quite measure up to either the previous book or its own awards.

The universe he created for this series is vast and populated by some really interesting species. This book shows Humankind as the local upstarts, primarily by focusing on one of our client races, the uplifted dolphins. This story also contains intrigues and politics between the main scientists, at least one of which fits the "mad" description.

The story floats through several crewmembers, and while they have their own motivations, they each feel very much the same. Without the vocal stutters, it's hard to tell the 'fins from the humans. This is something many other reviewers have pointed out also.

I quite enjoyed the plot - a spaceship forcibly landed on a planet trying to hide from several factions of the various galactic powers, all hunting them for their own reasons of course. How they try to solve this task and what they find on the planet are all a grand story. In fact the whole book fits the genre of "space opera" much more closely than "hard science fiction".

The story also stands alone - apparently this trilogy is connected in setting only. A few cameo references are given to the previous novel, and this story takes place quite a bit after.

Good plot, flat characters, not as good as the previous effort - this strongly suggests at least some of the awards were more for the author or the first book than this one. I do plan to finish the trilogy as a later book in an "80s challenge" - read one SF book from each year of that decade. But before that I must visit with Vinge, Sagan, Bova, an Bujold. 3 stars.

I read Startide Rising about 30 years ago, back when it was first translated into Finnish. I remember it being a bit confusing and tedious to read. I did like it, later bought the first three books of the Uplift Saga in English and decided to reread it when I have time.

It took several years, and I'm happy to say it was a much more entertaining read than I anticipated.

Brin's Uplift world is full of ideas. The basis of sentient galactic species being part of a big happy family living on what past generations stored in the Library is an interesting concept, and it creates a conflict that makes strange bedfellows.

In case of Startide Rising, that conflict rises up as the first spaceship with a dolphin crew happens to find an armada of spaceships that is at least two billion years old. They get into trouble and then run into hiding in Kithrup, a forgotten waterworld.

I'll avoid spoilers here, but let's say the whole book is a study on the morality and effects of uplifting - genetically altering species into sentient and/or otherwise suitable form. The story is told from multiple points of view, where some of the characters and interesting and some... well, not so much.

The book is 35 years old, and sometimes it shows. Particularly the way men and women - or mels and fems - behave in the book: in addition to being a skilled, psi-wielding genius, Gillian is also described as being beautiful, occasionally getting naked and otherwise swimming around in bikinis. She's genetically matched to his man, Tom Orley, who's naturally even more magnificent.

That's another thing: Tom Orley, as Jacob Demwa in [b:Sundiver|96472|Sundiver (The Uplift Saga, #1)|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388176548s/96472.jpg|461555], is a true renaissance man who's assertive, invents things like MacGyver and is guaranteed to save the day, no matter what the problem is.

30 years ago this was the only book translated into Finnish. This time, I'm happy to immediately continue with the next book in the series.