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Brightness Reef
- The Uplift Trilogy, Book 1
- Narrated by: George Wilson
- Length: 25 hrs and 48 mins
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Best-selling science fiction superstars Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle combine their talents with those of Steven Barnes in an extraordinary adventure of humankind’s first outpost in the farthest reaches of space. Light years from Earth, colonists land on a planet they name Avalon. It seems like a paradise—until native creatures savagely attack. It will take every bit of intelligence, courage, and military-style discipline to survive.
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Great read!
- By Thomas on 12-05-12
By: Larry Niven, and others
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A Shadow on the Glass
- By: Ian Irvine
- Narrated by: Grant Cartwright
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Once there were three worlds, each with their own human species. Then, fleeing out of the void came a fourth species, the Charon. Desperate, on the edge of extinction, they changed the balance between the worlds forever. Karan, a sensitive with a troubled heritage, is forced to steal an ancient relic in repayment of a debt. It turns out to be the Mirror of Aachan, a twisted, deceitful thing that remembers everything it has ever seen.
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Not quite good enough.
- By Scott S. on 03-13-12
By: Ian Irvine
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Survival
- Species Imperative, Book 1
- By: Julie E. Czerneda
- Narrated by: Angele Masters
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Herself a biologist, Julie E. Czerneda has earned a reputation in science fiction circles for her ability to create beautifully crafted, imaginative, yet believably realized alien races. In Survival, the first novel in her new series, Species Imperative, she draws upon this talent to build races, characters, and a universe which will draw listeners into a magnificent tale of interstellar intrigue, as an Earth scientist is caught up in a terrifying interspecies conflict.
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I study salmon!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-05-20
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The Practice Effect
- By: David Brin
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Physicist Dennis Nuel was the first human to probe the strange realms called anomaly worlds - alternate universes where the laws of science were unpredictably changed. But the world Dennis discovered seemed almost like our own - with one perplexing difference. To his astonishment, he was hailed as a wizard and found himself fighting beside a beautiful woman with strange powers against a mysterious warlord as he struggles to solve the riddle of this baffling world.
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This book was doomed to fail
- By Joshua on 11-16-12
By: David Brin
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An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors
- The Risen Kingdoms, Book 1
- By: Curtis Craddock
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Born with a deformed hand and an utter lack of the family's blood magic, Isabelle is despised by her cruel father. She is happy to be neglected so she can secretly pursue her illicit passion for math and science. Then, a surprising offer of an arranged royal marriage blows her life wide open and launches her and Jeane-Claude on an adventure that will take them from the Isle des Zephyrs in l'Empire Céleste to the very different Kingdom of Aragoth, where magic deals not with blood but with mirrors.
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Can't recommend it enough!
- By A Miller on 06-26-18
By: Curtis Craddock
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Geomancer
- By: Ian Irvine
- Narrated by: Grant Cartwright
- Length: 23 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Two hundred years after the Forbidding was broken, Santhenar is locked in war with the lyrinx - intelligent, winged predators who will do anything to gain their own world. Despite the development of battle clankers and mastery of the crystals that power them, humanity is losing. Tiaan, a lonely crystal worker in a clanker manufactory, is experimenting with an entirely new kind of crystal when she begins to have extraordinary visions.
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About As Satisfying as Coitus Interruptus
- By Craig G. Clark on 07-26-13
By: Ian Irvine
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Finding Real Magic
- Relic Diver, Book 1
- By: Shawn Keys
- Narrated by: Erin Bateman
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Zahn’s life has been anything but ordinary. While hunting archaic relics infused with magic from continent to continent, his latest search brings him to Hollywood, and then face-to-face with a movie star he has idolized for years. Until now, he has only cared about the quest. But as lust and love break into his life, Zahn is caught up in a violent competition to retrieve one of the most powerful magical creations of all time from its ancient resting place.
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Pretty good
- By Andrew M. S. on 05-26-20
By: Shawn Keys
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Keeping It Real
- Quantum Gravity, Book 1
- By: Justina Robson
- Narrated by: Khristine Hvam
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2015 the Quantum Bomb exploded. An accident at an atom-smasher has fractured reality and opened Earth - now called Otopia - to waves of immigration from other dimensions, home to demons, fairies, elves and elementals. It is now 2021 and Lila Black, a special operative condemned to live as a cyborg after losing her limbs on a dangerous mission, has been assigned as bodyguard to Zal, a charismatic elven rock star.
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I made to the end....barely
- By pakkmom on 04-14-09
By: Justina Robson
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Shadows of Aggar: Amazons Unite Edition
- The Amazons of Aggar, Book 1
- By: Chris Anne Wolfe
- Narrated by: J. Evans
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Diana n'Athena is an Amazon working for the Terran Empire on the medieval planet of Aggar. Her mission is to rescue a downed pilot/spy from Aggar's wilds. But when the Council demands she be bonded to a Shadow in order to be allowed to make the journey, things get interesting. Shadows are exceptional guides and fighters, but Elana is something more - she has the gift of the Blue Sight. As the two women race against time to prevent an all-out intergalactic war, they become erotically entangled, complicating both their lives and putting their mission in danger.
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Cannot Believe Audible has this!
- By T on 07-12-15
By: Chris Anne Wolfe
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good, but flawed
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Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an "alien artifact".
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Will its universe envelop you?
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He was a survivor - a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery. This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth.
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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night
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Alliance Space
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Loved the books
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Kiln People
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In a perilous future where disposable duplicate bodies fulfill every legal and illicit whim of their decadent masters, life is cheap. No one knows that better than Albert Morris, a brash investigator with a knack for trouble, who has sent his own duplicates into deadly peril more times than he cares to remember. But when Morris takes on a ring of bootleggers making illegal copies of a famous actress, he stumbles upon a secret so explosive it has incited open warfare on the streets of Dittotown.
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Interesting Premise, Disappointing Execution
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Sundiver
- The Uplift Saga, Book 1
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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?
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good, but flawed
- By J Michael on 04-16-08
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Earth
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The long-awaited new novel by the award-winning, best-selling author of Startide Rising and The Uplift War- an epic novel set 50 years from tomorrow, a carefully-reasoned, scientifically faithful tale of the fate of our world.
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David has an inside line on the future
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Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an "alien artifact".
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Will its universe envelop you?
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He was a survivor - a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery. This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth.
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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night
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Loved the books
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Kiln People
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In a perilous future where disposable duplicate bodies fulfill every legal and illicit whim of their decadent masters, life is cheap. No one knows that better than Albert Morris, a brash investigator with a knack for trouble, who has sent his own duplicates into deadly peril more times than he cares to remember. But when Morris takes on a ring of bootleggers making illegal copies of a famous actress, he stumbles upon a secret so explosive it has incited open warfare on the streets of Dittotown.
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Interesting Premise, Disappointing Execution
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Young Maia is fast approaching a turning point in her life. As a half-caste var, she must leave the clan home of her privileged half-sisters and seek her fortune in the world. With her twin sister, Leie, she searches the docks of Port Sanger for an apprenticeship aboard the vessels that sail the trade routes of the Stratoin oceans. On her far-reaching, perilous journey of discovery, Maia will endure hardship and hunger, imprisonment and loneliness, bloody battles with pirates and separation from her twin.
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Not bad, but definitely not Brin at his best.
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In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.
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Finally on Audible!! My favorite Hamilton series!
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Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose—innocent or evil—of the Riverworld....
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Great concept, dated writing.
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The Practice Effect
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Physicist Dennis Nuel was the first human to probe the strange realms called anomaly worlds - alternate universes where the laws of science were unpredictably changed. But the world Dennis discovered seemed almost like our own - with one perplexing difference. To his astonishment, he was hailed as a wizard and found himself fighting beside a beautiful woman with strange powers against a mysterious warlord as he struggles to solve the riddle of this baffling world.
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This book was doomed to fail
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River of Time
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The River of Time brings together 12 of David Brin's stories, including "The Crystal Spheres", which won the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story in 1985. Here are powerful tales of heroism and humanity, playful excursions into realms of fancy, and profound meditations on time, memory, and our place in the universe. Who guides our fate? And can we ever hope to wrest control for ourselves?
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Love this book
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By: David Brin
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Darwin's Radio
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In a cave high in the Alps, a renegade anthropologist discovers a frozen Neanderthal couple with a Homo sapiens baby. Meanwhile, in southern Russia, the U.N. investigation of a mysterious mass grave is cut short. One of the investigators, molecular biologist Kaye Lang, returns home to the U.S. to learn that her theory on human retroviruses has been verified with the discovery of SHEVA, a virus that has slept in our DNA for millions of years and is now waking up.
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A huge let-down
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Steel Beach
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Fleeing Earth after an alien invasion, the human race stands on the threshold of evolution. Their new home is Luna, a moon colony blessed with creature comforts, prolonged lifespans, digital memories, and instant sex changes. But the people of Luna are bored, restless, suicidal - and so is the computer that monitors their existence.
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Top notch writing; Voice actor needs some work
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Timescape
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In a future wracked by environmental catastrophe and social instability, physicist John Renfrew devises a longshot plan to use tachyons - strange, time-traveling particles - to send a warning to the past. In 1962, Gordon Bernstein, a California researcher, gets Renfrew's message as a strange pattern of interference in an experiment he's conducting.
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An enjoyable book with problems
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By: Gregory Benford
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Mechanical Failure
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The 200 years' (and counting) peace was a time of tranquility that hasn't been seen since...well, ever. Mankind in the Galactic Age had finally conquered war, so what was left for the military to do but drink and barbecue? That's the kind of military that Sergeant R. Wilson Rogers lived in before he left the fleet to become a smuggler. But it turns out that smuggling is hard. Like getting-arrested-for-dealing-with-pirates-and-forced-back-into-service kind of hard.
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This book helped save my job!
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Changelings
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Nebula Award-winning duo Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough add another thrilling chapter to their sweeping Petaybee saga with Changelings. Yana and Sean are beside themselves with joy over the arrival of their twins Ronan and Murel. But the children's shape-changing abilities attract unwanted attention from an off-world scientist. Now Yana and Sean will do anything to protect their precocious youths from danger.
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not like Pern books
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The Faded Sun Trilogy
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Collected in one volume is all three books in C. J. Cherryh's epic The Faded Sun trilogy: Kesrith, Shon'jir, and Kutath.
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always check with the author
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By: C. J. Cherryh
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The Disturbance
- The Disturbance, Book 1
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No one has ever ventured deeper into space than the four astronauts of Shepherd-1. The aim of their mission is to witness the creation of the cosmos. Using the sun as a lens, they are to align a flock of probes in such a way that the moment of the Big Bang becomes visible. For astronomer Christine, this is a dream come true. So she is bitterly disappointed when the first images are obscured by a kind of veil that prevents any insight. She works obsessively to find a solution, but when she finally succeeds in lifting the veil, she sees something that would have been better kept hidden...
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I always enjoy BQM’s stories!
- By LoriA on 05-15-23
What listeners say about Brightness Reef
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Frank Montgomery
- 03-03-15
I am sorry to say I did not give this book a fair chance.
I am sorry to say that I did not give this book a fair chance. I could not continue to listen to it, it was driving me insane and I couldn't take that chance!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Samuel Zylstra
- 11-14-22
Worthy Voice Acting
This story is a masterpiece, plain and simple. It is epic in scope and deeply entertaining in its combined storylines. But best of all is the voices used for the various characters involved, and I cannot give enough credit to George Wilson for his work here. Excellently done!
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Overall
- Root VanDorn
- 03-05-10
Director/Sound Engineer is a real job
Most people like certain NARRATORS and certain AUTHORS but they never think about the Directors or Sound Engineers. This audiobook is an example of a GREAT AUTHOR with fantastic characters, a TERRIFIC NARRATOR who can distinquish alien creature voices and make them so believable and a crappy Director and/or Sound Engineer. Apparently she thought her job was just to press the record button and go home. I have a recording studio and I was saddened by the lack of professionalism. You can hear Mr. Wilson gulping after readng difficult passages as an alien voice and even getting some words incorrect "Revered Mother" and "windy road". This is not his fault but should have been caught by the Director, Abigal McCue and the sound engineer. Despite that, it is a WONDERFUL story and amazingly told. GEORGE K. WILSON NEEDS AN OSCAR for these cast of characters he is able to bring to life. It definately left me with a desire to read the rest of the trilogy and to read some of the prequel books.
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14 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Aaron
- 12-12-10
Not for the novice sci-fi reader
This is a great story that takes time to develop. The patient reader is rewarded.
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4 people found this helpful
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- grant
- 02-22-18
great story, slow reveal of larger purpose
great story, set in a backwoods planet.. felt incredibly slow on its overall purpose and place in brins larger universe till nearly the end
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Overall
- Chas
- 05-14-10
Hard Core Sci-Fi at it's best!
I've seen a lot of bad reviews for this book, and frankly I don't understand why. Perhaps some readers are not used to hard-core, traditional sci-fi writing. So much of today's contemporary sci-fi writers are more into action and less into the classic philosophical aspects that began with epic writers like Herbert and Asimov.
Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and feel it is a masterpiece in classic sci-fi form. David Brin knows how to sink the hook in and keep you guessing until the very end. He is a master at storybuilding from various alien perspectives, which may throw some people off because of the change in thought process/focus from one alien race to another, but I found it captivating and ingenious.
I recommend this series to anyone who enjoys Frank Herbert, Peter F. Hamilton, Larry Niven, Orson Scott Card and other masters.
However, one caution to casual sci-fi readers that prefer straight forward stories full of action and special effects: you will get action, you will be thrilled, you will be surprised, but you will not be satisfied unless you are a fan of classic sci-fi writing techniques. This is not a shallow, no-brainer entertainment for the masses. This is a thought provoking work with complex plots/sub-plots that provide surprising twists and turns that are hard to predict compared to a lot of other literature in the genre these days.
I hope you enjoy!
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32 people found this helpful
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- Angus
- 11-27-15
Book Four labeled as Book One.
This is book 1 of the Uplift Trilogy and book 4 of the Uplift Saga. I read the first three books of the Uplift Saga when I was in high school uncountable unmentionables ago. It seems time makes memory fuzzy yet I'm going to state that this book has a rocky start for the reader until you are several chapters into the work. Let's lay the basis.
Uplift – a patron species that has already achieved star travel arrives and selects advanced pre-sentient species to genetically advance so that they are capable of traveling the stars. Each patron species ranking in galactic culture is based on how many species they have uplifted and whether or not an interstellar war was the result.
During the time frame of this book there are six master patron species forming the Galactic Council. They have laid down rules on how to treat planets and where species are allowed to colonize. They have stamped their approval on seven standardized Galactic languages and created a draconian entity, The Galactic Library. Any squatter or Sooner colonies on off limits worlds are subject to immediate judgment by the Library Enforcers and the penalty is sterilization...maybe.
See, the colonies established on Jijo by six Sooner species tribes including humans are out of touch. The Humans got there by way of a massive ship called the Tabernacle three hundred years prior to this story. Their methods of keeping knowledge alive is through an order of Sages and printing technology that would make Gutenberg sigh in disgust.
The story.
A human is discovered wandering out of marshland with a gaping hole in his skull. The Sage Arianna embarks on a journey with her assistant Sarah to the cave known as Biblios where they expect to get help figuring out who this guy is. Elsewhere, a research station of “Star Humans” are employing locals to help them illicitly gather wild DNA which they will implant on other worlds and eventually hope to reap Upliftable species. In another broad stroke you have the bunch that always exists who do not like where this is going and have machinations running to subvert being: destroyed, sterilized, outed to the Galactic Council...
There is a lot to this story and I can not even hope to spoil it in the space of this review. Did I like the story? Yes. Was I ticked at the choices the author made in arranging the first several chapters? Yes. Was the narration a good fit? Yes. How was the World building? Really imaginative, diverse and overwhelming at times but then it would revert to the human mindset imposed on non-human species.
This book should be read in close succession with the first three books from the Uplift Saga. I am giving this a three out of five as a stand alone read. Enjoy.
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- Scott M. Nash
- 02-24-18
My All Time Favorite!
Warning, this book and its sequels are my favorite books. I truly adore them. Brilliantly complex, rich characters, mind blowing technology and concepts, weird and wonderful creatures. It has everything. I was afraid the read would not be as good as the books I’ve always loved, but it was perfect too.
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- Matt
- 04-08-22
Slow can be good...
TL;DR: don't read this book before Startide Rising.
There's nothing wrong with slow fiction; the issue comes when there is very little to pull the reader through the slowness.
I think the primary sin of this book is that it doesn't generate a sense of anticipation. A slow story is tolerable (welcome, even) when it takes its time to increase anticipation and delicately unravel each moment in a journey.
Having read Startide Rising and The Uplift War, I was able to generate my own expectations and predictions about *why* any of the goings-on in Brightness Reef were remotely dramatic. The book sure didn't do it for me.
The lack of intense climax at the end is forgiven since it is the first in a trilogy.
The narration is ok, the alien accents are consistent but come at the expense of emotive intonation.
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- Kent
- 02-21-20
Not really a fan of the narration
Non-terran voices = slow, slurred, singsong and surprisingly similar to one another. I'm being nitpicky, but the characters just don't sound right. They all sound like Goofy on quaaludes.
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