Minor Thoughts from me to you

Startide Rising
by David Brin

My rating: ★★★★☆
Read From: 17 July - 21 July

This is the second entry in David Brin's Uplift series. The first book, Sundiver, was a mediocre story in a very interesting universe. This book is a very interesting story in the same very interesting universe.

All races in the Galaxy have been "uplifted" into sentience by a prior alien race, in a chain stretching back to the Progenitors. Humans have even uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees into sentience. But who uplifted humanity? This is a great mystery and the other races are antagonistic towards the "wolfing" human race, without patrons or lineage.

Startide Rising is the story of the first dolphin crewed spaceship. The Streaker made the find of the millenium and was rewarded by hot pursuit from most of the galaxy's inhabitants. After fleeing from a battle, the Streaker crash lands on the water world of Kithrup.

The neo-dolphins must hide from the aliens currently engaged in combat above the planet, attempt to repair their ship, and hope for an opportunity to sneak away again. The resulting adventure deals with dolphin psychology and features an intriguing version of a dolphin language. It also showcases the various alien races and their unique perspectives on the universe and the purpose of life.

This is both a fun read and a chilling one. It's a hostile universe, full of races that would like nothing more than the opportunity to gain power over humanity and tweak and twist our genetic code until they've turned us into something more to their liking. David Brin's universe is interesting but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to live in it.

The book ends on a delightfully unresolved note. We end the book still not knowing what the Streaker found, what its importance is, or what will ultimately happen to Earth and the human race. That's as it should be for a universe with this much scope.