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.