Where Humans Are the New Kids on the Block

Sundiver by David Brin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(This is a reread.)

I like David Brin a lot, and this is the first thing I read by him about 40 years ago. I thought I loved this book a little more on the first read than I probably did. I forgot that it's sluggish at times and has a couple problems, as far as I'm concerned. But it's still fun to read, mostly, and deserves a 4 at least for ideas.

The ideas:

The idea of a ship that can survive the heat and turbulence and gravity of the sun long enough to visit the surface to do science is very cool. The idea of long-lived beings existing on the surface of our sun is also very cool. The idea of a galaxy-spanning library is very cool. And the coolest idea behind the novel, that every sentient race in the universe was uplifted sometime in the past by another race (except maybe humans), is super cool. Younger races are clients of older races, and on earth, chimps and dolphins are being lifted to sentience in a similar way. That uplifting is the basis of the rest of the series, and it's the one that makes this SF setting so exciting. However, it's not the main idea here. The uplift stuff *matters* in this book, but it simmers in the background more than I remembered.

The ending is also a bit off for me. It's okay; I like how the characters come out pretty well. But some of the action amounts to a crime that needs to solved, and the solution doesn't really make sense, and has to be explained to us like Sherlock working through the details for Watson and Scotland Yard. It's clunky, IMO. It's as if he wrote the book, racking his brains till the end for a reason certain characters would do certain inexplicable things...

Anyway, the book is still a good read with interesting ideas. Maybe a 3.5, if you give half-points and don't wanna round up. But it kicks off a series that is better than that, and I'm glad after so long to be getting into it again. I traded all the books in long ago, but that's okay--part of the fun is hunting them all down again.

Recommended for hard science readers. David Brin knows his physics. And he's astute about politics. Worth it just for that.

View all my reviews