Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga Book 2)

The book is great, but the author shares the ending in his intro. I think it’s definitely a Hugo winner though.

Startide Rising is the second book in the Uplift Saga series by David Brin.The first book introduced us to aliens and to uplifted chimpanzees ("chims") and dolphins ("fins"). This book embeds in the crew of the first star ship crewed primarily by dolphins.This book seemed slower paced than the first book but part of that might've been the large cast of dolphinic characters (which break down into two varieties: Tursiops and Stenos) plus several dolphin languages. In addition, there was at least one dolphin in the crew with Orca genes spliced in. One language in particular seems like a continuous haiku and reading poetry always slows down my reading (so "pace" might be especially subjective for this novel). Among the Galactics themselves, at least twelve Galactic languages were mentioned (gratefully without examples).The humans in the crew are primarily there for reasons of observation and council.The Galactic alien races seems almost childish, aligning, betraying, aligning, and betraying in the midst of a battle of the planet Kithrup until nearly the entire fleet was destroyed. I would've expected mature, patron races to behave with more maturity.There were more typos in this book that I would've expected. That was distracting (to me).Despite all of this, I *am* looking forward to the next book in the series.

David Brin second book in the series of one of the best out there to read. I hope someone will make it into a move so others can know how wonderful this entire series is.

This is classic "hard" science fiction at its best, combined with a tale of human and dolphin (uplifted Neo Dolphin) respect, cooperation and, sadly, envy and discord, during an interstellar survey that should have been brief but stretches into years of dodging and running. They travel on a small spaceship, "Streaker", that carried them before the story opens to a galaxy far, far away, discovering something that may shake the universe to its foundations--and none of the crew know why they are being pursued by hostile forces. They do know they are under attack, and hide in the deep ocean of a nearly all-water planet, Kithrup, that holds many surprises. Brin is an exciting but leisurely writer, who takes time to let us know the main characters, human, dolphin and a Neo Chimp scientist, their attackers, and the mysterious creatures of Kithrup. Brin's imagining of Neo Dolphin mythology, poetry, humor and a technology that allows them to manipulate with artificial hands is nothing short of stunning, The humans must compromise, too, by living in a highly modified spaceship of water-filled spaces and humidity. If there is a villain it isn't so much the distant alien races who out of their own terror pursue Streaker, but a human scientist who goes too far in his attempt to hurry the uplift of a tribe of dolphins not yet ready, and hides negative evidence until it is too late--and even he is plausible. (Brin, a physicist at MIT, probably based that man's troubled ethics on someone he knows.) The book follows two love stories, of humans Gillian and Tom, and dolphins Creideiki and Hikahi, and the perils that they meet--as well as friendships between humans and dolphins. Tom is a genuine hero, battered but unbowed, who with many others plan a daring, perilous, and personally tragic escape from Kithrup's waters. Read this great novel to find our how, and whether, they planned well enough to succeed!

If you haven't read any entries in David Brin's "Uplift" series prior to this, don't worry.As far as I can tell, the original "Uplift" trilogy is one of those weird sagas where you can read any of the books in any given order, as there is not a single book that is required to understand the others. As such, please go ahead and read "Startide Rising." No, really, I shouldn't even have to explain in too much detail why this book is held in such high regard, and why it utterly devoured the major sci-fi awards back in the day. Sci-fi literature, even some of the best out there, has garnered a stigma for not focusing on character development as much as other genres tend to, but if "Startide Rising" has a major component in its favor it's the fact that the book is brimming with likable characters. About half of said characters are highly evolved dolphins from space, but that kind of thing comes with the territory."Startide Rising" is the second book in the original "Uplift" trilogy, and unlike its brethren it's a space opera adventure of the highest caliber. The strange thing I noticed when reading this novel was that despite having a plot which encompasses hundreds of light-years, most of the action that we see takes place on a little metallic, oceanic planet where our brave heroes find themselves having to get out of Dodge before the enemy fleets close in. Naturally, a lot lays on the line, and while the villains seem distant from the ground-level action, they act like a shadow that never leaves. Of course, some of the dolphins also have agendas of their own, and so a mostly-dolphin starship (with seven humans and a ditzy chimp) must try to work against enemies from the inside as well as outside.A true classic of the genre, and arguably David Brin's magnum opus.

Great idea to write the novel from the perspective of a water based animal. Also, Brin tries to explore the different psychology of non-human species. It is a refreshing approach to Sci-Fi, which can sometimes be two dimensional, when authors fail to consider the 'soft', people related aspects and rely solely on technology. Very good in the way that it brings out the dangers in unrestricted genetic manipulation, and how egotistical behaviour by various individual characters causes unexpected results and consequences. I don't know how I never managed to come across Brin before, but I will buy another of his books. Clearly, this book is one of a series and it hints at mysteries and parallel story lines which will come out in other books.

I thought this was really engaging, and also quite silly to try and imagine sentient animals piloting spacecraft. That being said it is very creative, well paced, and very well written.

It's one of the best sci if books I have ever read. First read it in the 90s and could not put it down. Awesome book. The description of a galaxy full of crazy eaties fighting to get to a damaged earth ship at the bottom of an alien ocean is frankly outstanding. Read it now.

Dated, original, lifting clever animals to sentience. Good exciting story line that keeps you gripped to the very end!

The book itself is excellent, but there are enough formatting errors and spelling mistakes in the Kindle version to be annoying. It looks as though it has been OCR'd.