Startide Rising by David Brin – Cams #7

Startide Rising by David Brin is number 7 on my all-time top 10 list of Science Fiction stories you need to read. Written in 1983 it won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and is the second book set in Brin’s Uplift Universe. This novel spawned a whole sequel trilogy (that I haven’t read yet) and is almost universally on everyone’s top 10 list.

Why not? Who could want more than sentient dolphins and monkeys flying space ships and being chased by aliens because they have managed to discover something that millions of years worth of sentient races managed to miss?

Summary: A tight and well written story set in a very interesting universe. Fast paced, exciting and intelligent, Brin manages to meld excellent ideas with superb characters.

I seriously considered putting Startide Rising closer to #4 or #5, but as you’ll see there are still a few that are better than this.

If you can’t read the first novel in the series, Sundiver, then here is the short and sweet summary of the Uplift Universe:

1. All sentient species start out with pre-sentient intelligence, then are helped and guided to sentience in a careful and methodical way.
2. It is widely believed that it is impossible for sentience to develop without outside influence and no one knows how the first species managed to attain it.
3. All uplifted species are indebted to their uplift elder race for a period of thousands of years — basically as slaves.
4. Humans are ‘discovered’ by the galactic civilization and since we already have sentience it is assumed that some elder species started the process then abandoned us millennia earlier, thus no one has claim over our us.

5. Humans scoff at the practice of slavery and set our uplifted monkeys and dolphins free immediately, further upsetting the other races in the universe.

This novel is not a sequel to Sundiver and the third book, the Uplift War, isn’t a sequel to this one. They are all set in the above universe and each explores the consequences of the five points mentioned above.

In Startide Rising the space ship Streaker manages to stumble upon a derelict group of ships that are thought to have once belonged to the first sentient race. After quietly leaving the discovery with some basic information, the Streaker, captained by a dolphin, seeks the advice of the elder humans. His transmission is intercepted and the ship is hunted by the other alien races. They hope to force the information out of the crew before the humans can send reinforcements. The Streaker hides on a water world and the story begins.

As many of you know, I love novels with deep and flawed characters. Despite the fact that the majority of the characters in this story are not human, Brin manages to evoke empathy from the reader and tells a wonderful, fast-paced, thriller of a story. I can’t go into much detail without giving away key twists and turns, but this is an excellent story for the intermediate science fiction geek.

It can be hard to follow at times if you’re not paying careful attention, so this is not a good book to read right before bedtime.