David Brin's Science Fiction

Last updated August 20, 1998

The late 70's were a grim time for science fiction. All the old masters were either inactive (Asimov, Clark) or were not producing works of the greatest merit. However, things were going to change and the first sign of this was the publication of David Brin's book Startide Rising. This book was widely praised and deservedly so. And, it turned out, that Brin was not alone, but was joined by other writers who would eventually produce the great works in SF in these, the waning years of the 20th century.

Since the publication of Startide Rising, Brin has gone on to write a number of great science fiction novels and short stories. The following are some short reviews of Brin's science fiction.

Startide Rising

This novel remains the finest SF novel of the 80s. Brin's key innovation was the discovery of a valid motive force for global civilization: namely the concept of Uplift. In brief, uplift is the moral duty that every race has to raise the intelligence of the creatures that they share their home planet with or that they meet in their journey through the stars. Uplift is a wonderful idea on a number of levels. First, although there is plenty of room for conflict, the total war as typified by World War II, is almost completely out of the question. Second, it allows Brin to tap into the garden of Eden myth from a completely different direction. Instead of yearning for the days when man and animal could talk together, Brin is saying: look to the future, we can't talk with the other creatures of the earth now, but we might, if we put some effort into it. Uplift is such a powerful idea that I suspect it is indeed a valid moral imperative for humans of the next 1000 years.

Beyond this wonderful idea, Startide Rising has dolphins as main characters. Brin's dolphins are fascinating creations, and he portrays them convincingly with a great deal of charm. They have their own special language called Trinary and attitudes that seem very plausible.

Finally, the story is smashing good fun as the various alien races fight each other furiously in a nearly comic battle while the clever humans escape right out from under their noses. What was especially enjoyable was the different attitudes and machinations of some of the key alien races like the Soro and the Tandu. This book won both the Hugo and Nebula when it came out, and it deserved every accolade heaped upon it.

The New Uplift Trilogy

As of July 1998, Mr. Brin has published three new books in what is called The New Uplift Trilogy: Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach. I liked Brightness Reef a great deal. I thought Infinity's Shore was the best novel Brin has written since Startide Rising. The last book, Heaven's Reach was enjoyable, but not as not much fun as the middle book. Here I must confess to liking middle novels in general (The Dark Design by Phil Farmer and Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe being two of my favorite books), all the cards are on the table by the end of the second novel but who knows how things will turn out? Often enough the final novel is a bit of a disappointment as vast wave fronts of potential events collapse into a single reality.

That said, I loved Infinity's Shore. It was a very strong contender for both the Nebula and Hugo in 1996 (and 1997 though it did not win). The key element to the story is the reappearance of the ship and crew from Startide Rising. Brin tells us more about what happened with the ship and it's subsequent travels. Perhaps those people who haven't read Startide Rising will not enjoy the book as much as I did, but considering the popularity of the first book, hopefully not that many people are in that category.

The other key attribute of Infinity's Shore is the detailed exploration of the Jophur. The Jophur are a great invention, one of the most interesting alien life forms ever described in science fiction. This book is so good that it makes me wish that Mr. Brin would stick to writing in this universe for many more books. It is certain to become one of the best known and loved creations in the history of science fiction.

Heaven's Reach
Published 8/1998
In which all secrets are revealed and all unanswered questions are resolved. Well, not exactly, but close. It is obvious based on this book that Brin has been thinking long and hard on the internal workings of his Uplift Universe. In this book he reveals a great deal of his thoughts on the weighty issues of what a galactic civilization would look like and what challenges would really stress it. While the book was a good read, it wasn't that much fun. Our main characters are basically at the whim of forces much vaster and more powerful than they can hope to deal with. For most of the book the Streaker, the heroic ship and crew of Startide Rising, are pushed around from place to place as they observe birth and death on a cosmic scale. They get to do something useful and clever at the end, but a whole lot of time was spent just hanging on as it were.

Brin has an imagination and knowledge that is equal to the task of the galactic civilization. For example, the space-time fracture that lurks at the heart of this novel is taken right from the theories of modern cosmologists. However, Brin was also famous for his ability to create human characters. Previous novels placed sympathetic characters squarely at the center of all the science. This novel breaks that pattern, the characters feel secondary to the vast events that they are involved in.

In fairness to Brin, he has spent most of the two pervious books explaining characters and showing motivations. I suppose he can be forgiven for indulging in a bit of galactic showmanship. All I can say is that I was unsatisfied by the resolution of the story involving Lark and Ling (they were trapped on a Jopher battle ship at the end of the second book). The resolution, that they both merged with the Hydrogen breathers was disappointing. It sure isn't the sort of life I would have chosen (I'm just biased against gaseous hydrogen-based life).

I was also not pleased by the resolution of the Dwer & Rety story either (they were trapped on an abandoned space ship heading out of control at the end of book two). They travel to civilized space, Rety becomes a successful religous figure, then they end up back on their home planet Jiro. In effect their journey has been circular and their relationship remains just as it was before.

Brin introduces one new character, Harry, a very mater-of-fact super chimp who patrols a rather odd dream space. Aside from the fact that Harry is a rather dull character without much personality, this was a good part of the book. I don't really think that the series needed yet another method of FTL travel, but it was thought provoking. I got the feeling that Brin introduced Harry as a gesture of good will towards Chimps who in all previous books were the bad guys (with one or two exceptions). I don't think political correctness is really called for right now, but future generations of super chimps will doubtless be pleased.

The Series As Whole

Well, as I said elsewhere, I like the Uplift Universe a great deal. It is Brin's universe and if he doesn't write stories in it, no one will. I'm glad that he returned to it for these three books. Based on his Afterword, he still sees the potential for more books. Personally, I'd rather see more books like Infinity's Shore than Heaven's Reach. Character and Plot, and no more Old Ones!

Earth

Brin gets high marks for the novel Earth in which he tackles the very hard problem of thinking about the world 50 years into the future. For one thing, the Earth in the year 2035 is completely dominated by the "net". If you want to read about some intelligent extrapolation of the Internet world, read this book.

Earth has some flaws, namely a lack of really engaging characters and a resort to a "duex ex machina" which is brought on at the end to solve most of the problems that have been created. I personally found most of Brin's future convincing and rather bleak. Still, as a work of serious imagination and speculation, this book is not to be missed.

Glory Season

This also gets high marks because Brin was willing to imagine a world where women dominate and men fill the subservient role. Brin developed his world in a fashion that is quite believable. Not only did he imagine the world's culture, but he invented a well thought out history for his world and he points out the good aspects to the world culture, as well as the bad aspects. His epilog is well worth reading. "The world he created is "neither a utopia nor a distopia".

I liked the main character a great deal and I really enjoyed the exploration of the world and its culture. What I didn't like was the really poor ending. The final chapter is an anti-climax of the first magnitude. Glory Season deserved a better ending but it is still a wonderful book.

Other Brin Books

• The Postman. A very nice post-end-of-civilization novel. It has a good main character and a nice idea behind it. Being made into a movie by Kevin Costner.
  
  
• The Uplift War. A book set in the same Uplift universe as Startide Rising, and in fact set at very nearly the same time. However, few of the characters are as strong, and I personally found the chimps to be less attractive and less interesting than the Dolphins of Startide Rising. Perhaps Brin has run into the problem that there is very little that separates a smart chimp from a human being. Worth reading to some degree.

• Sundiver. The first novel in what became Brin's Uplift universe, and Brin's first novel. I don't much like this book but there are people I respect who like it a great deal. More a mystery for those who like that type of plot.

• The River of Time. This is a stunning collection of short stories. Possibly the best collection of short fiction I have ever read. Rivals the classic collections by Clark The Other Side of the Sky and LeGuin The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

• Otherness. Aside from two very good essays and a couple of good stories, this is not a good collection of Brin's later short fiction. Brin's real mode is the novel. His short fiction has become overly didactic.

This link leads to a very good web site devoted to David Brin at this location.

Next author: Kim Stanley Robinson