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

Great Story!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes hard scifi, with credible aliens and strong plots. David Brin doesn't hold your hand or explain his jokes--he treats you as an intelligent reader, capable of figuring out by yourself the humor of a situation. A rare thing in SF.

What other book might you compare Sundiver to and why?

There are elements of Sundiver (and of the whold Uplift trilogy) that remind me of Asimov's Foundation series, in the sense that a "band of curious and investigative humans" are set against a backdrop of complacency and intellectual conformism. Otherwise, it's hard to compare Brin's books to anyone else's--few authors are as lucidly optimistic about the human race and its future.

Which scene was your favorite?

The story is riveting and the premise intriguing: there's a spaceship, and it dives into the sun, which humans suspect is haunted. I may not have a specific favorite scene, but let's not kid around, here--this by itself is a fascinating and gripping premise.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Overall, while I may not have cried or laughed while listening to this, the whole "universe" and backdrop kept me interested from beginning to end. The whole status of the human race as (potentially) a self-evolved race (rather than being uplifted) is a very clever concept and made me feel oddly proud of my race and its achievements. This is something very rare in modern SF, where human-bashing is the norm. Brin stands against that and offers a refreshing view of ourselves.

Great story, well told

This imaginative story is fantastic. I couldn’t stop listening and the reader is very expressive and good at telling the story.

I had forgotten just how good Brin is.

I bought all of the Uplift books from the Science Fiction book club a very long time ago.

i read the books out of order. lol.

listened to the 2nd book first, 3rd book 2nd; and found this one wonderful! Enjoy

Had trouble following

I'm usually a fan of classic sci-fi, but this just didn't hit rught. I had trouble paying attention (rare for me) or keeping the plot. Also, a lot of weird-yet-dated sexism that seems par for the time period written. Many interesting concepts and I heard it gets better after book 1, so I might continue.

The very best!

If you enjoy AC Clarke, Brim will thrill you. One of the greatest true science fiction writers I have read in the last 25 years.
His awards through the years are ssoooo well deserved. The more you are aquainted with real science, the more you will love Brim's works!

Not what I thought it was but good

Well let me first say that this wasn't what I expected it to be like, it was good contained some surprises and overall was worthy of reading.

There are some things about this story that are a little unexplained or maybe poorly explained, you can understand whats happening but its not until the end that you really get what is going on and then there are more questions.

So there are these "things" in the sun that people have seen when going into the surface of the sun doing observations for science. The Aliens don't understand this because there is a "galactic library" that holds everything one needs to know so there is no reason to do research like that anymore but being the suborn Humans we are we are doing it anyways - well things are seen in there that look to be sentient life and its the research vessel that goes into the sun to research these things and report back because the "galactic library" doesn't have anything on what they could be so some suspect that they have been lied to and the copy of the library that we humans have is not complete or maybe deliberately missing stuff

If you know who Erich Von Daniken is and his book from 1986 called "Chariots of the Gods" and latter works you know about the "uplift theory" where by aliens have "uplifted" humans in the distant past that's why we cant find the so called "missing link" in the evolutionary tract and why we have jumped so far in such a short time, this is sorta the concept of the books back story.

In this book we Humans have uplifted dolphins and chimps to full sentient as in able to think like a human can or at least at the same intellectual level which results in chimps and dolphins talking to humans and helping them do tasks like any other human would except for dolphins can do underwater stuff better - its a cool concept and according to the galactic library almost every single race was "uplifted" by another race leading all the way back to the start with some group of races that isn't explained completely , but humans don't seem to have a "up-lifter" which is a little strange to many aliens

The Humans here think that maybe the beings in the sun could actually be the uplifters of humanity, and will the Aliens help them to understand it or maybe do something even worse?

There isn't much about this book I didn't like other than it was missing some better explanations and maybe a nice pre-story for a chapter or so to get you into the world thats created but it was good, I am going on to the next book so check my reviews for that one to see if it is as good as this one was

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.