Rating: 
Summary: a good story well written - great characters
Review: The thing that really made me love this book was the chapter that introduced the dolphin captain, Creikeiki. In a few short pages, Brin paints a picture of a weary, courageous leader, a poet, a genius, a wise and gentle soul. By the end of the chapter I loved Creideiki more than I've cared about most other fictional characters, with the possible exceptions of the Opera Ghost and Ender Wiggin.Other than that, the novel is a very good sci-fi action story. Lost in space, out-of-order and under seige, out-gunned, out-numbered, etc. It's a fun read and all the other characters are three-dimensional and well-developed. I'd give it five stars if the rest of the writing was as fantastic as that first chapter about Creideiki, but it's still high-quality. Brin is a rising star in the world of science ficiton.
Rating: 
Summary: forget the trilogy concept, read this book
Review: The first uplift trilogy isn't. Unilike the second trilogy, all the books in the first stand on their own. Sundiver is a forgettable detective SciFi novel. Startide rising is really the first book of this series, and is in fact the only required reading for the sluggish second trilogy. The Uplift War is a spectacular adventure book that stands on its own and may be more fun to read than Star Tide Rising, but Star Tide Rising is certainly a more important book. Fun, funny, though provoking, alien, and intelligent, it is certainly a must read for anyone who enjoys, claims to understand or still ignores Science Fiction.
Above all, Startide Rising has the most gratifying ending of any book, Science Fiction or otherwise, that I have ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: A very sad disappointment
Review: Again I feel David Brin ideas are great but things are never well explained plus he never tells the whole story. I feel he should back his ideas with certain facts instead of broad and vague statements. An example, he should described and explained how dolphins and chimps started to learn the speech that we humans had understood for centuries, instead of assuming that they just learned it automatically through scienitific research. Explaining the process in detail would have peek my interest and kept me interested. The characters lacked depth and there were way too many to keep track of. I hated to look at the begining of the book each time he mentioned a character or references he had invented. I was told his newer books of this series are alot better maybe I'll read them because of his incredible imagination. I feel he should be focused on one direction instead of compiling it alot of unnecessary components of useless things that had nothing to due with story. In my opinion, he added alot of ideas for filler space because the plot was a little weak. I usually rate books a 5 if I know I'll read it again and this book isn't one of them.
Rating: 
Summary: Good writer but not so good story!!
Review: This book is written alot better than the first, Sundiver. I feel David Brin has brillant ideas but its never well put!! This book actually isn't half bad. I personally was rooting for the Galactics, the fearsome warrior alien race against the humans and thier allies. They seem more ineresting to me than the rest of the story. It was also interesting that the humans found a "Herbie" an ancient alien being that hold possible clues to thier past maybe who "Uplifted" them. Does it really matter who uplifted the humans. This book had way too many characters to follow and some shouldn't have been in the story. There isn't as many loop holes in this book as in Sundiver. I was hoping this book would fill in the gaps that was in Sundiver. I feel this book would of been a masterpiece if it was well thought out and focused into some kind of a direction.
Rating:
Summary: Hugo and Nebula Award
Review: I must say that I am compelled to read every Hugo- and Nebula-winner story for I think that if they were awarded it is because they must have something special. For some time I've been looking to read any book of the Uplift trilogies, and the reader's reviews in [Amazon.com] guided me to Startide Rising, even if it is not the first book of the Uplift trilogy nº1. After reading STR I think Sundiver cannot be better anyway.
I had never read anything about David Brin, but being an author who has received so much praise I expected much from him. Well, he didn't disappoint me. Startide Rising is one of the most original sci-fi stories I've ever run into, and I put the thinking behind the writing in the "Amazing" category, along "Foundation" and "End of Eternity" by Asimov and "Rendezvous with Rama" by Clarcke. The story is like this: in the future, man has been able to "elevate" intelligent animal species like the chimpanzee and the dolphin to a kind of consciousness similar to humans themselves. The Universe is defined by The Five Galaxies, and in these galaxies there are a grand number of other Star-Traveling Species. Each one of these alien species has, each in its turn, being a low form of life, and has been developed by a sponsor species. Nobody knows who the original sponsors species were, and no one knows which species developed humankind. The "Streaker" is a spaceship commanded an crewd by dolphins, humans and a scientist chimp. When the story begins, they are hidding in a non-charted acquatic world. They're hiding because they found a space-caravan of very, very old ships, as big as moons. These enormous ships are thought to belong to a long-vanished species, which can be the "Progenitors", creators of all other species. Inside on of these ships was found the body of an alien, and it becomes the prize every species in the five galaxies want to retrieve. While the Streaker is fighting against time to be repaired and depart the strange world of Kithrup, the aliens fight among themselves to reach the dead body the humans have. Brin writes in a most dettached way. He doesn't have to explain in detail the sci-fi stuff contained in the book, because he writes it in self-explaining sentences and paragraphs, not to mention the Glossary he included in the start of the story. The chapters are named after their main characters, so the reader can be deeply acquainted with every character in the book. The relations between dophins and humans are really well-developed and obviously constant during the lenght of the book. There's even a mistery plot (why are some of the dolphins wilder than others?), plenty of suspense and the linking to other books in the series. Brin has created a sci-fi masterpiece, and all awards he received were well deserved. Grade ...
Rating:
Summary: A bold and colorful vision of humanity's future
Review: "Startide Rising," by David Brin, is a science fiction novel that takes place about 250 years after humanity's first contact with a vast galactic civilization. In Brin's future humans, together with genetically modified, intelligent chimpanzees and dolphins, have established themselves as an interstellar spacefaring race. "Startide" deals with an adventure of the "Streaker," a starship manned by dolphins, humans, and one chimpanzee scientist. After making a monumental discovery, the "Streaker" is pursued by hostile aliens and takes refuge on the water world of Kithrup, where interpersonal struggles and further discoveries await them. This is a fascinating portrayal of a complex multispecies community. Brin deals interestingly with the implications of genetic engineering and language as he explores the relationships among the ship's diverse crew. A central idea in Brin's tale is the concept of Uplift: that each intelligent species had a "patron" race that raised it to sentience, thus creating a chain of interspecies relationships that binds together galactic civilization. Brin fills the book with intriguing characters, action, technical information, and plot twists. Overall, I enjoyed, and was even enriched by, "Startide Rising." But I did feel at times that Brin was packing into the book perhaps a little too much minutia for minutia's sake; it seemed like he was just trying too hard to create a Tolkienesque total world. And at times his prose got rather overripe, and seemed almost like a parody of a science fiction novel. But these flaws aside, "Startide" is a fascinating novel with a lot to offer the serious science fiction fan.
Rating:
Summary: NEVER SO LATE.
Review: I am sorry that I havent read this and other Uplift books before. But better to read late than never. In this book with the background given in SUN DIVER (First book of Uplift Saga), you find yourself in a forgotton corner of the uplift universe. With the dolphins and man as a team (though it is weird for the ancient galactics to work as a team for the clients and masters) earthlings are against all universe. Usually when reading a book you put yourself in the place of the main character. In this book in each chapter you view the galaxy with the eyes of one of the characters. Though it is sometimes tiresome to try to reach the speed of the events, David Brin made it fantastically wonderful. Also the thought mechanisms of eatiees and uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees are well plotted. Time to time I asked myself whether David Brin live among those eatiees.
It is a MUST BE READ book for not only sci-fi lovers only but fiction lovers as well.
Rating:
Summary: The beginning of an end?
Review: For those who have read Brin's SUNDIVER, and only SUNDIVER, this second book in the Uplift series will likely come as a bit of a shift in tactics. However, the style of the second book is far more representative of Brin's writing overall in a number of ways. To start, we have continually shifting focal points throughout the book. That is, the eyes through which we see things changes with each chapter. This in itself is fine, and the technique is used effectively to add that much more tension to the story, however it feels a bit over, and at times carelessly, used. Although the focal point changes continually, time progresses without relent. This seems to give way to a few possible inconsistencies in the story which a person may notice around the more climactic sections. Also, the coninual suspense brought about when the scenes shift from an involved battle to a quiet corner of an island to under the sea to... can get a bit wearing at times. The parts of the Uplift universe that are brought into light in this episode point to much larger intregues, no doubt to be addressed later in the series. This added to Brin's ability to depict individual scenes and scenarios make it worth the read, although likely best handled in small sessions at a time.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Brilliant!
Review: I just read Startide Rising for the second time, and again I was blown away by how fantastic it really is. This book is full of the ideas that make science fiction what it is: Interesting characters who have actual personalities instead of cookie-cutter mannerisms, a premise whose most intriguing elements are revealed slowly, pulling the reader along (I hate books that read like a bad made for tv movie!), and oh, about a hundred other things that make Startide a compulsively readable joy, more than worthy of the awards it has won (in spite of what Brin's detractors may say, they don't give Hugos and Nebulas to also-rans and bad writers). The basic plot is this: The neo-dolphin-crewed Earthship, Streaker, has put down on the ocean world of Kithrup to make repairs. Streaker is being chased by a fractious, infighting consortium of galactics, who are after the potentially explosive cargo Streaker carries: possible evidence of the so-called Progenitors, who supposedly began the "Uplift" process which created all sapient beings in the known universe. (For those unfamiliar with Brin, Uplifting is the genetic engineering of presentient or near-sentient creatures, creating from basic root-stock intelligent, starfaring races. All starfaring races have uplift "patrons" -- except Terrans, which rankles the so-called galactics no end. For a more detailed explanation of all this, read the book!) Kithrup is a hostile world; its seas contain heavy mineral salts which irritate the dolphins' skin. Worse, their situation is so tense that some of the dolphins are beginning to go primal -- that is, to revert to their wild state. It is up to Streaker's command crew, plus human assistants Gillian Baskin and Tom Orley, and chimpanzee scientist Charles Dart, to effect repairs on the ship, somehow escape the vast armada battling for the right to their cargo, and make it back to Earth. That's the plot, and it seems kind of goofy on the face of it, doesn't it? Nothing could be futher from the truth, in fact! David Brin is a writer of immense skill and artistry, and turns what could have been a farce in lesser hands into a grand, fantastic, idea-rich story, a space opera worthy of the name. Startide is complex, full of plots and subplots, motives and murder, humor and heroics, and I've rarely read a better book, in any genre, in my life. As just one example, since my time is short and my space is limited, let me offer the character of Captain Creideiki, the dolphin leader of the Streaker crew. Creideiki is one of the most fascinating characters ever created in a science fiction novel. He is a strong leader, wise and brave, with a metaphysical bent that nevertheless does not interfere when practical matters need taking care of. He is as complex and well-rendered as any of the human characters in Startide -- such as the impressively-rendered Toshio, or the Terragens Council agent Tom Orley, on whose heroics everything hinges ... but back to Credeiki. It is his journey through the story that is the most compelling, and kept me flipping through page after page -- more than anything, almost more than Streaker's fate, I wanted to know what happened to Creideiki next! It is rare for me to care so much about the fate of a non-human character, and that Brin was able to pull this off speaks volumes for his abilities as a writer. I could go on and on -- one of the problems with writing about Startide is that it's SO rich in events and ideas, that it's simply impossible to cover everything I want to cover. From the incredible secret of Kithrup to the secret hidden by a select few of the Streaker dolphins, Startide Rising contains surprise after astonishing surprise, and it is no less rich the second time around than it was the first. I have little doubt that in fifty years or so, Startide (as well as the rest of the Uplift Saga) will be mentioned in the same breath as the Foundation Series, the Rama series, and the Dune saga. It's that good -- no, strike that. It's that great. (Postscript: I've learned from Brin's home page that Startide has been optioned for a film adaptation! I can't imagine how anybody could pull that off without turning it into a glorified version of Flipper -- but even though I'm sure nothing good will come of it, I'm hoping whoever makes the attempt will prove me wrong. Remain In Light -- Phrodoe.)
Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: "Startide Rising" was the first book I read by David Brin (picked at random from a bookstore shelf). I hadn't even read the first book in the series but I couldn't put it down, because the idea of "Uplift" and humanity's role in this new universe just grabbed my attention. I recommend it to anyone, whether or not you have read any of Brin's other books. If you like science-fiction, I think you'd like this book.
|
