Sundiver

The Uplift Saga, Book 1

By: David Brin

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling, highly regarded works of contemporary science fiction. Beginning with Sundiver, Brin provides an intriguing exploration of humanity's future in the universe.

For nearly a billion years, every known sentient species in the universe has been the result of genetic and cultural guidance - or "uplifting" - by a previously uplifted patron race. Then humans are discovered. Having already uplifted chimps and dolphins, humanity clearly qualifies as an intelligent species, but did they actually evolve their own intelligence, or did some mysterious patron race begin the process, then suddenly abandon Earth? The answer to this mystery might be as close as our own sun, but it will take a daring dive into its fiery interior to know for sure.

Sundiver begins David Brin's thoughtful, exhilarating exploration of a future filled with an imaginative array of strange alien races, dazzling scientific achievements, and age-old enigmas.

©1980 David Brin (P)2001 Recorded Books

meh

not that great not once did i think this is awesome or worth the purchase.

Good in a Series of Greats

Not as good as Startide Rising, but very comparable. See my review for the aforementioned for more detail.

Interesting premise for the world - a little borin

Any additional comments?

The setup and premise of this series of books is pretty good But this particular book was often pretty boring. It had some good part at the end but overall it was hard to get through. Glad I listened to it at 1.25X. I heard the next book in the series is much better. Probably be a while until I actually read it though - still not recovered from this books slow pacing.

Great concepts, but damn narrator's mouth noises!

Classic great scifi. Credible source. Unexpected sophistication. Great science explanations. Good ethical considerations. Less relevant than contemporary transhumanism, but in the neighborhood.

Narrators mouth noises anger me. I don't pay to hear you swallow. You just cost the author my continued listening of this series.

Vassalage through uplift: book for hard s/f fans

Any additional comments?

I guess I'm too young to have read Brin when his Uplift books were first published. I discovered him through his much more recent Existence and wanted to check out his earlier work. I was not disappointed.

While the premise of the story revolves around humans "lifting" animal species to sentience, this is a minor subplot of the book. The novel belongs to the hard sci-fi gene, with numerous alien spaces, new technologies, societies and ideas. The reader is early introduced to the concept that most species in the universe was "lifted" and that feudal-like hierarchies exist around the facts about who lifted whom.The ambiguous and controversial position of humanity in this hierarchy is the real kernel of the book and is the theme around which the intrigue revolves.

The book will appeal to anyone who is into hard sci-fi, like me. While his recent Existence did remind me a bit of writer like Asimov, Sundiver is even closer to Asimov's style of writing and story development. Still, I would say Brin's characters are slightly more developed than the generic male superheroes in Asimov. Most of Brin's personae are actually quite interesting and believable, I particularly enjoy his depictions of alien individuals and their difficulties with human behavior.

1980 is 34 years ago and while the novel's ideas and premises do not feel dated, some of the gendered interaction does. It strikes me how far contemporary sci-fi has come in depicting gender-equal societies, when a writer like Brin still struggled with this aspect in 1980. Helene deSilva is captain of a starship, but goes irrational and submissive when she falls for the protagonist, a male ubermensch who "couldn't be broken by anything". And when some aliens seem to lack gender, they are simply called "he", even though human authorities prefer to have women as space explorers. Oh, well...

If you can ignore these gendered tell-tale signs of its age and if you like space opera/hard sci-fi, you will like Sundiver. I am looking forward to reading the other books in the Uplift saga and hope that they will approach the excellence I found in Existence. I would not say Sundiver reaches those heights, but it is an early work by the author and the book is still pretty darn good.

Slow start of a great Saga

Like the first book in most Sagas (like Fellowship), there are large amounts of world building going on, so it can be a bit of a slough at times, I absolutely love the Uplift universe.

A dated story line with 1980 cliches

The era that this book was written clearly shows with lasers being the advanced technology and teletypes used for space messages. The book was entertaining at times and slow at others. Characters named "Bubba Cub" and references or comparisons of mankind's relationship to aliens like, the American Indian never learned to assimilate with the white man's ways and therefore never obtained even a piece of what he had accomplished....- paraphrased here but you get the idea...this line of thinking is very dated with poor originality at best, a bit racist at worst, and didn't fit in with the sci-fi theme of the book..alien characters were poorly developed takes on monkeys, dolphins, or Sun aliens like herding animals...sadly I won't be continuing with this series. Perhaps the other books in the series improved but they weren't worth the use of a credit to find out...

It's OK, but that's all

Review requries 15 workds so this is my 15 workds for the reviewwhich is a lame ruel

Bad editing

I'm pretty sure it's not an unreasonable amount of work to cut an audiobook into chapters correctly. The "chapters" in here have nothing to do with the book chapters. In fact, parts of the book start in the middle of "audible" chapters. It's very annoying and disrespectful to the listeners.

Interesting but not gripping

The ideas were interesting but unfortunately the characters were two dimensional and story telling lackluster. Made it difficult to become invested in the story. Some parts were difficult to follow, not because of complexity but insufficient prose.