Brin, David - Books - Magic Bean Dip

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The Postman (Bantam Classics)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 139 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very real characters, and a very unreal world 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I have not seen the film version with Kevin Costner, but that's where I'd first heard of the story. A friend lent me the paperback, and it was interesting and a good, quick read.

Gordon Krantz walks through a post-apocalyptic world, trading stories for what he needs, a nation torn apart by war and now divided. His finding of a Postal Service vehicle and its dead driver is his turning point as he moves through the Restored USA, though its restoration is far from done.

Brin's attention to character development and detail is excellent--Krantz and the people he meets and comes into conflict with are compelling, and you just can't stop reading to see how it all goes.

The back cover talks a little about how this can be compared to "Alas, Babylon." I don't know about that; I agree the style is a bit alike and it takes place largely in a similar situation, but Brin doesn't steal from that.

With the world as it is, this could be a cautionary tale. What happens when your universe collapses, and you realize what kind of real trouble you can be in, it makes one think. For me, that's the mark of a fine book!

Editorial Review:

Gordon Krantz survived the Doomwar only to spend years crossing a post-apocalypse United States looking for something or someone he could believe in again. Ironically, when he's inadvertently forced to assume the made-up role of a "Restored United States" postal inspector, he becomes the very thing he's been seeking: a symbol of hope and rebirth for a desperate nation. Gordon goes through the motions of establishing a new postal route in the Pacific Northwest, uniting secluded towns and enclaves that are starved for communication with the rest of the world. And even though inside he feels like a fraud, eventually he will have to stand up for the new society he's helping to build or see it destroyed by fanatic survivalists. This classic reprint is not one of David Brin's best books, but the moving story he presents overcomes mediocre writing and contrived plots.

Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga, Book 2)

David Brin

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Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I started my trilogy here... 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

It is basically part of a three book trilogy about a universe in which all races became sentient by being "uplifted" by previous intelligent races. The Human race is the only race arrogant enough to claim to have evolved. Humans would have been "adopted" into slavery but for the fact that before meeting the universe at large, we "uplifted" dolphins and monkeys. Humans are also considered arrogant because we believe in the value of human technology, while the rest of the universe just "retrieves" their technology from the "library"....but not all libraries are created equal.....

Each book is unique, captivating, and builds to the whole story (although Brin does not answer all questions). I haven't found anybody similar, all said and told. While Sundiver is the first book, I started with Startide Rising, which is still my favorite. There wasn't any real problem, but the Uplift War probably should be read last. Also, a decade or so later Brin created a second trilogy in this universe. I haven't found them nearly as inspired and amazing as these three.

Editorial Review:

David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?

The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret--the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.

Sundiver (The Uplift Saga, Book 1)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Don't bother 1 out of 5 stars.
8 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Other reviewers refer to this as a "classic" sci fi series and I was looking forward to being able to enjoy this and other books by David Brin. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

PROS: There are some really good ideas here. The dynamic of how the various alien races relate to each other and to humans, and how humans relate to other sapients on Earth, is interesting. The narrator's struggle with his split personality is interesting. Also, it's nice to read a sci fi book that stays in one narrative thread (most books in this genre insist on jumping between multiple narratives).

CONS: The writing ranges from mediocre to poor and the plot feels contrived. There are abrupt changes between chapters with no real explanation, and the narrator gets dragged from one scene to the next with little logic. A lot of the dialogue is stilted, and what's with all those exclamation marks? The plot is a mystery, but it keeps jumping to just one more even less believable solution.

Overall, some fun ideas, but by the last 50 pages I was just scanning the book to get it over with.

Editorial Review:

No species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron--except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? Circling the sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in history--a journey into the boiling inferno of the sun. Reissue.

Heaven's Reach (The Second Uplift Trilogy #3)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards, David Brin brings his bestselling Uplift series to a magnificent conclusion with his most imaginative and powerful novel to date--the shattering epic of a universe poised on the brink of revelation...or annihilation.
The brutal enemy that has relentlessly pursued them for centuries has arrived. Now the fugitive settlers of Jijo--both human and alien--brace for a final confrontation. The Jijoans' only hope is the Earthship Streaker, crewed by uplifted dolphins and commanded by an untested human.
Yet more than just the fate of Jijo hangs in the balance. For Streaker carries a cargo of ancient artifacts that may unlock the secret of those who first brought intelligent life to the Galaxies. Many believe a dire prophecy has come to pass: an age of terrifying changes that could end Galactic civilization.
As dozens of white dwarf stars stand ready to explode, the survival of sentient life in the universe rests on the most improbable dream of all--that age-old antagonists of different races can at last recognize the unity of all consciousness.

The Uplift War (The Uplift Saga, Book 3)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

This novel was long... decent philosohpical sci-fi 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The last book by Brin I read was 'Kiln People,' which was superior in every way imaginable to this work. David wrote it years later, so it's to be expected, I guess. But that contrast in quality definitely colors my review.

Only after finishing the book and coming online to write this review, did I realize that it was 'Book Three.' As a stand-alone novel 'The Uplift War' works.

Sure running five main characters is hard, but Brin took about 700 pages to cover it. I never felt a truly emotional connection to any of the characters, though I did laugh at some well drawn humor. As a sci-fi volume, the hard sciences weren't well represented. The sci-fi part comes from far future speculation, the uplift, and is more philosophical. Brin has a few neat tech. ideas, but the pages of exposition that characterize 'hard' sci-fi aren't there. He skimps a bit on settings, specifically character descriptions and landscape, and parts of the novel felt like summary instead of showing.

All together, I found the book to be OK. Pacing and suspense could have been better. From what I can tell from other reviews online, this was the best of the 'Uplift' books, and I think I'll give the other five a pass. Brin definitely turns into a much better author than when he wrote this in the late 1980's.

Editorial Review:

Billions of years ago, an alien race known as the Progenitors began the genetically engineered techniques by which non-intelligent creatures are given intelligence by one of the higher races in the galaxy. Once "Uplifted," these creature must serve their patron race before they, in turn, can Uplift other races. Human intelligence, which developed by itself (and brought about the Uplifting of chimpanzees and dolphins), is an affront to the aliens who plan an attack, threatening a human experiment aimed at producing the next Uplift. Such is the premise of this novel, which won the 1988 Hugo Award.

Infinity's Shore (The Uplift Saga, Book 2)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Continuing Jijo's Story...A Strong Follow-Up 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The illegal, backwater colony of Jijo has been thrown into turmoil. Six sooner races inhabit this Galactically-proclaimed fallow world...knowing their colony would oneday attract the attention of Galactic society. Now they have...and it is nothing like they thought it would be. Instead of official representatives from the Galactic Migration Institute coming to mete out long overdue justice, Jijo has attracted those who would stop at nothing to hunt down the dolphin-crewed Streaker, still on the run after narrowly escaping the bickering clans fighting over her above the ocean world Kithrup (read Startide Rising). Streaker has come to Jijo to lick her wounds...and determine the next course of action in an attempt to get the cargo they are carrying back to the Terragens Council, or at least someone neutral, someone who won't use what Streaker discovered in the Shallow Cluster to take control of a Galactic Civilization now in turmoil. In the midst of all this, the technologically inferior inhabitants of Jijo must not only deal with the worst Galactic civlization has to offer, but must also deal with the growing fissions within their own peaceful culture.

Infinity's Shore was a bit of a surprise for me. Coming off Brightness Reef, which at times tended to drag on a bit and get mired in minutiae not particularily related to the story, this book was an easy page turner. But more importantly than that, it began to establish links between characters and plotlines the previous book stubbornly refused to do. The inhabitants of Jijo introduced to us in Brightness Reef -- Alvin and his friends as well as Sara, Dwer, Lark, Rety -- began heading in a coherent, if not always unified, direction. While the characters native to Jijo finally took steps toward their "destiny" (a.k.a what Brin has in mind for them), the characters aboard the Streaker begin to connect to the environs around them, if a bit circuitously at first (i.e. automated scouts sent to "sniff" out the Jijoan culture).

What it all boils down to is a plain old good book. Character and plotline development is much better than its immediate predecessor, "stuff" happens that makes you want to see what happens next, and like any good trilogy, there is just enough left frustratingly out of reach for the final book. The one gripe is that there really is no conclusion to Infinity's Shore, probably quite irksome when it first came out and the next book, Heaven's Reach was a couple years away, but now it was only slightly annoying, seeing as how Heaven's Reach was sitting on top of my pile of to-read books waiting to be picked up as soon as this installment was completed. This story is a fine addition to the Uplift universe and I now anticipate completing the final installment with due haste.

Editorial Review:

This second volume in David Brin's new Uplift trilogy is an epic tale that artfully combines dozens of unique characters and their individual stories. The planet Jijo, which has been settled by six separate races despite a decree that it remain barren for a million years, is about to change. The exploration ship Streaker, on the run since discovering the secrets of a two-billion-year-old derelict fleet, has arrived with virtually the entire universe in pursuit. Overnight the peaceful, technologically backwards Jijoan society erupts into civil war, creating a chaotic tapestry of grief, sorrow, joy, love and, ultimately, hope.

Brightness Reef (The Uplift Trilogy, Book 1)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 80 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Utterly Confusing 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Brin is a great story writer. But he misses on this one. There are a huge number of characters, and species, that are not sufficiently introduced to be able to definitively understand who they are. The story is told from a number of points of view, most of them alien, and worse yet, with alien psychologies. Brin's goal here is to create a fully different psychology, and he succeeds, to the point that you can't be sure what is actually being said. Unfortunately Brin adds to the confusion by not telling us always what species is talking. It's not until 1/3 of the way through the book that we even know who the humans are, and who we can identify with as a common species. This results in there being very little for us to latch on to to care about, and throughout the book there is not one character that I feel for.

As a reader I shouldn't have to be constantly flipping through previous pages to figure out who a character is. I shouldn't have to be checking the list of characters to keep this in mind- but if that is necessary, there *should* be a list of characters. The result is that most of the characters know more about this world and themselves than the reader does. It is the opposite of the ominscient view-point, and does not lead to reading enjoyment.

I read this book in order to understand the developments that were left unanswered in the previous Uplift books. I was disappointed in this as well. Very little progresses in this regard, and even the famous final revelation in the last word of the book is woefully uninteresting. Skip this book, or read only the end and Wikipedia summaries. Yes, you'll be confused, but you might catch some developments important for the next book, and you'll be no more confused then if you read the entire work. If you must read it, have Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe handy to parse the various aliens. And fair warning: Don't read the advance peak chapters for Book 5 at the end of Book 4. They give away far too many interesting plot developments from the end of the next book.

Editorial Review:

Millennia ago the Five Galaxies decreed the planet Jijo off limits. But in the last thousand years six races have begun resettling Jijo, embracing a pre-industrial life to hide their existence from the Galactics. Overcoming their differences, the Six have built a society based on mutual tolerance for one another and respect for the planet they live on. But that has all changed with an event the Six have feared for hundreds of years: the arrival of an outside ship. Author David Brin has returned to his popular Uplift universe in this, the first book of a new trilogy.

Foundation's Triumph (Second Foundation Trilogy)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Isaac Asimov's 1951-53 Foundation trilogy is a rough-hewn classic of far future SF, honored with a unique 1965 Hugo for Best All-Time Series. It begins with "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon mapping the best possible course for humanity's next millennium, after the fall of the doomed Galactic Empire. Late in life Asimov revisited the series and awkwardly linked it with his popular robot stories--introducing vast conspiracy theories to explain the Empire's total lack of visible robots.
Asimov's estate authorized three SF notables to fill out Seldon's life in the Second Foundation Trilogy, which David Brin here wraps up after Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear and Greg Bear's Foundation and Chaos. Chaos is the new keyword, because chaos theory seemingly makes nonsense of psychohistorical prediction. Whole planetary populations can lapse into chaotic rebellion despite secret mind-controlling agencies behind the scenes. So Seldon makes his last interstellar journey, harried, lectured, and even kidnapped by the warring factions of robots and not-quite-robots that have long manipulated humanity. The robots' dilemma:

"We are loyal, and yet far more competent than our masters. For their own sake, we have kept them ignorant, because we know too well what destructive paths they follow, whenever they grow too aware."
Brin does his best with Asimov's overcrowded legacy, skillfully steering Seldon to an insight about the much-foretold future that satisfies both the old man and the reader, with a spark of human free will and constructive chaos shining through the grayness of predestination. Asimov would have approved. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

The Life Eaters

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Nice Idea, Poor Execution 2 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

I'm a sucker for alternate history, especially when it involves Nazis (wow, that sounds bad...) or other aspects of World War II. I also have a minor interest in Norse and other mythology (a spillover from playing D&D back in the day). So when I came across this book about the Nazis winning WWII with the aid of the Norse pantheon, I had to read it. The story just drops you right into the mix, with a group of good-guy holdouts, aided by the one renegade Norse god (Loki, the trickster), on a kind of suicide commando mission in the 1960s. Basically, the background is that WWII was proceeding normally until D-Day, when the Norse gods pretty much wiped out the Allied invasion of Europe. The premise is that all that real-life Nazi fascination with the occult (popularly portrayed in Raiders of the Last Ark) comes to fruition and concentration camps are basically giant sacrificial abattoirs designed to maximize the number of souls offered to the deities. It's a clever concept that does a nice job of dovetailing real-life horror with fantastical elements.

However, the concept doesn't work so well in the execution. The first part of the book is pretty solid stuff, the reader is drawn in by the slowly unfolding background and premise, and there's plenty of action. This section is apparently based on Brin's 1986 short-story "Thor Meets Captain America" (which is available on his web site). The latter two-thirds of the book start to spin wildly out of control and become much less engaging. (Which is essentially the same problem I had with the final third of Birn's otherwise fun book Kiln People.) Basically, others around the world learn how to "raise" the gods through human sacrifice, and soon the world is enveloped in a kind of Battle Royale of the Gods. Before one has a chance to catch a breath, we have orgies of blood in Africa and Asia, as more and more soul-fed gods are raised. (One could make a case that the book is somewhat racist, in the sense that the only people who raise gods are Nazis, Africans, and Asians, while the forces of monotheism practice restraint. There's even a totally sappy scene in which the leaders of monotheism come together in brotherly unity to defend humanity.) This gets even more complicated when some plucky scientists reveal that someone is setting fire to oil fields all over the world. This leads into an even bigger storyline about the "cold gods" vs. the "hot gods", who are trying to use global warming to trigger a new ice age which will ensure their dominance.

Phew... and this doesn't even mention the Rebel Alliance -- I mean, the good guys' undersea base... or Loki's scheme to grow the Yggdrasil to evacuate his followers to outer space... or the crazy mechwarrior suit that the SS guy is given by the Allies. There's a lot crammed in and it just spirals out of control, until it just suddenly ends... Part of the book's problem is that each section is focused on a different protagonist, so there's no one to carry the story all the wy through. At the beginning it's an American soldier, in the middle it's an American weatherman, and then at the end it's a renegade SS man. This last person is around for the whole book, but not as the central figure. This lack of focus strips the story of any kind of figure for the reader to rally around. Brin attempts to add a little levity via some supporting characters, but it never feels organic or appropriate to the moment. For example, in part one there's a wise-ass hipster who speaks in beatniky slang -- as if that particular subculture would have evolved if WWII dragged on for 25 years! The book is also very heavy on telling the reader what's going on via lots of expository text crammed in, which never feels quite right.

Hampton's art is also pretty weak on the whole, especially when it comes to people and faces. There are a few nice panels here and there, like in part one, where Thor is shown throwing his hammer through five people in a shower of blood, but for the most part, the lines and coloring aren't compelling at all. It's not a terrible book, but it totally fails to live up to its potential. Part one is certainly solid, and there are a few nice set pieces further on (especially the jungle patrol in part two), but there are far too many missteps, and by the time we reach the dwarves and fairies at the end, one ceases to care. PS. Why is the circa 1960s Egyptian Army attacking en masse with swords?

Kiln People (The Kiln Books)

David Brin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 84 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Just about everyone's had a day when they've wished it were possible to send an alternate self to take care of unpleasant or tedious errands while the real self takes it easy. In Kiln People, David Brin's sci-fi-meets-noir novel, this wish has come true. In Brin's imagined future, folks are able to make inexpensive, disposable clay copies of themselves. These golems or "dittos" live for a single day to serve their creator, who can then choose whether or not to "inload" the memories of the ditto's brief life. But private investigator Albert Morris gets more than he, or his "ditective" copies, bargain for when he signs on to help solve the mysterious disappearance of Universal Kilns' co-founder Yasil Maharal--the father of dittotech.
Brin successfully interweaves plot lines as numerous as our hero's ditectives and doggedly sticks to the rules of his created dittotech while Morris's "realflesh" and clay manifestations slowly unravel the dangerous secret behind Maharal's disappearance. As Brin juggles his multiple protagonists and antagonists, he urges the reader to question notions of memory, individualism, and technology, and to answer the schizoid question "which 'you' is 'you?'" Brin's enjoyment is evident as he plays with his terracotta creations' existential angst and simultaneously deconstructs the familiar streetwise detective meme--complete with a multilayered ending. Overall, Kiln People is a fun read, with a good balance of hard science fiction and pop sensibility. --Jeremy Pugh

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