38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Book 4 of a Great Saga, November 18, 2004
Currently, there are six books in Brin's Uplift saga. It's kind of hard to categorize these books as elements of a series, though. The first three books in the saga, "Sundiver," "Startide Rising," and "The Uplift War," are not really a trilogy or a series in the normal sense. Instead, "Sundiver" relates to the rest of the saga as Tolkien's "The Hobbit" relates to his "Lord of the Rings:" it sets the stage for all the rest of the books in the saga. "Startide Rising" and "The Uplift War" describe completely different plotlines originating from the same event far distant, time wise and space wise, from "Sundiver". In a pinch, you could read these books in any order and not really miss anything. They describe different points in time and space of the same Universe. Of course, the best order is the one listed, above.
Unlike the first three books in the saga, the second three books DO form a series. The first of this trilogy, "Brightness Reef," picks up with yet another totally independent plotline and brand new characters. However, it does contain a central character who ties the first three books into this set. Unfortunately, Brin doesn't say, specifically, who that character is until the very end of the book. Even worse, the last time the character was used was so far back in the saga that it's hard to remember anything about him. The remaining two books, "Infinity's Shore" and "Heaven's Reach," continue sequentially from the first and form a tightly knit trilogy with no breaks in time.
None of these books is "happy" or "light reading." For the most part, they're all intense, heavily detailed and fully characterized books. "Sundiver" is the least "heavy" and most lacking in the realistic feel of the rest of the books. But, for the most part, if you like "Sundiver," you'll definitely want to continue with the rest of the saga. Even if you don't like "Sundiver," I highly recommend you read at least "Startide Rising:" it has an entirely different feel to it and might be more to your liking. This saga is just too important to miss out on. As a whole, it's one of the great works of science fiction and one of the few pieces of science fiction that belong in the class of true literature.
The following are some comments on the individual books:
Sundiver: Somewhat different from the other books in the saga in that it's more of a science fiction mystery than a science fiction drama. This book sets the stage for the rest of the saga as it chronicles events that happen several hundred years before what happens in the other books. About the only thing negative I can come up with is that I wish Brin had written several prequels to it so we could read about the earlier adventures of Jacob Demwa that are referenced in this book.
Startide Rising: This book focuses on the group that starts all the other events noted in the remaining books of the saga. Though the main characters start off in a very bad way, Brin does a good job of moving them forward, and upward, throughout the book.
The Uplift War: The events in this book start from the same event that kicks off "Startide Rising." But, other than that, the two books are totally independent. Like "Startide Rising," Brin produced a gripping plot, great character development, and a good progression towards a positive goal.
Brightness Reef: This is definitely not a happy book. It starts out with many non-pleasant activities and fights its way forward from there. The biggest problem I have with it is that it's very hard to see how anything good or positive is going to happen to the main characters, no matter how much they try.
Infinity's Shore: First, the negative: once this book starts, it's very apparent that a whole lot of relevant stuff has been happening elsewhere that we missed. Essentially, there's at least one entire book that sounds extremely interesting that's missing from the saga. Brin fills in most of this back-story during this book and "Heaven's Reach." But, I'd sure like to have read that missing book. On the positive side, this book re-introduces us to old friends and subtly changes the focus to them. Everything's still happening in the same place with mostly the same characters, but the attitude changes and becomes more can-do.
Heaven's Reach: One difficulty with this book is due to how it continues from the previous book. It's merely a change of venue instead of a new set of adventures. A quote from one of the main characters near the end of this book sort of sums up my feelings about it: "...what will one more worry matter? I've long passed the point where I stopped counting them." Essentially, by the time this book and saga starts winding down (and even at the point of that quotation, it really hasn't started that yet), the reader is totally fatigued by never-ending problems. I really like these works, but the lack of a tie-up between "Infinity's Shore" and this book is grinding.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Startide Declining, February 21, 2001
By A Customer
The following is a review of the entire Uplift Storm trilogy, not just Brightness Reef.
David Brin has turned out superior sci-fi in the past; Startide Rising was excellent and The Uplift War was not far behind. Unfortunately these three books do not quite measure up to those previous efforts. While frequently entertaining, they nevertheless suffer from significant faults.
The biggest problem with these books is that they are overlong and plodding. This "trilogy" needed a firm hand at the editor's desk. This story could have been told in a more satisfying way in probably about 60% of the total number of pages Brin used.
Brightness Reef starts us off with a new setting on Jijo and an entirely new cast of characters, which is OK except that Brin takes forever to develop the story and move things along. Consequently, the reader has a hard time feeling a connection with Jijo and the society that Brin paints for us there. Everytime it seems things are beginning to click, Brin goes off on another tangent and fails to bring any urgency to the story. Infinity's Shore delivers more of the same, with perhaps some marginal improvement due to the reappearance of some characters that will be familiar to readers of the prior Uplift books.
By the end of two books, I finally began to feel caught up in the story of Jijo and was looking forward to the concluding volume. So what does Brin do but give us a third book that spends zero time on Jijo. OK, he does still follow the principal characters from the first two books, but he spent an enormous amount of time in those books effectively making Jijo into a character, which he then essentially abandons. Even worse, he sets a frantic pace that despite all the havoc fails to impart much urgency or tension. The only real suspense was whether Brin would somehow salvage a coherent finale to the trilogy. The answer is no.
The pacing of these books is terribly uneven, both internally and (especially) as between the first two and the finale. The story wanders badly. The reader is left with the feeling that Brin had no idea of where he was taking the story and just writing chapters on the fly. Many loose ends, large and small, are left hanging. The final result is a disorganized, unconvincing story that fails to deliver on its promise.
I still give this set reasonable marks though, as Brin has delivered some wonderfully inventive ideas and the books certainly do have their entertaining moments. But Brin has done better, and these books could have been truly outstanding. As it is, I recommend them only for serious fans.
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