Otherness

Rating:
Summary: excellent visionary
Review: I picked up Brin's _Earth_ when it first came out, I got through about 80-90 pages before I put it down out of utter boredom. I hadn't touched a Brin book since. However, I picked up _Otherness_ on a whim, and was awesomely pleased. The ideas and quality of writing in the stories are excellent. Brin has won me back as a fan. These stories show he is a gifted visionary and an excellent world and character builder.

Rating:
Summary: Good, provocative and unexpected
Review: I've tried to read David Brin books before and found them either too subtle for me, or just plain boring. Though, I have read the blurbs on many of his books, and always thought he had some surprising ideas -- as if he'd been practicing those lateral-thinking puzzles for years. I was quite surprised to find a great collection of very provocative ideas that kept me interested all the way through. From a Japanese culture where the ultimate work-ethic means babies are tutored within the womb and are hooked up to computers at their birth, to "organic humans" discovering themselves useful again after years of uselessness in a culture and society of ultimate "cryo-mechanical humans": I was impressed. He even touches on theories of the existence of the entire universe(s) in a highly entertaining way. My recommendation is forget his longer (and long-winded) novels and devour his short-fiction. The ideas/stories in this collection are crystalised and involving. This one may actually cause me to look more closely at his other novels...

Rating:
Summary: Waiting for the next "Startide"
Review: Startide Rising is not only my favorite Brin book, but also one of my top 3 favorite SF books--period..I bought Otherness because the themes of the book seemed related in a way to Startide...Otherness turned out to be a generally good read, but only one story stood out as one I'd read a second time..."Shhh". This snippett of a story seems worthy of a novel of its own...It raises the question...Are humans special at all or is it only our belief that we are unique that keeps us striving to grow? Some of the other short stories seem to -almost humorously- illustrate one man's (Brin's!)struggle to understand the "otherness" of women. Oh well, I give him credit for trying.

Rating:
Summary: Humanitarian view of science, scientific view of humanity
Review: The ideas flow freely, however there is a central theme. DB obviously had babies in mind when writing / compiling this book!

What makes this collection different is his essays on 'otherness', which I sometimes found more stimulating than the stories that they separate.

His last essay, however, I found off beam. The conjectures he offers didn't quite hit the mark, and I felt they needed more development - as Mr Brin would ordinarily do to his short fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Otherness is a Good Tittle
Review: This book was great. I had to read it for a project in Chemistry. I loved the colection of stories in it. My favorite was The Giving Plague. I want ot deal with things like this in the future and I liked the story line. I also liked Dr. Pek's Preschool. I like how it brought every one to this place to have their children used to help man kind. I have always thought that the fetus is the best time to ask questions. They have no preconceptions of anything and David Brin sees that too. This is an excelent book and I would/have recomended it to others. For I am a nerd and I know this but this book would interest anyone.

Rating:
Summary: By Gosh, He's Done it Again!
Review: While sifting through the rows of paperbacks on my dusty bookshelf, I came across Otherness. It had been given to me for one of my birthday's a few years ago, but I'd never read it. Too busy to venture into a new author, I had stuck it on my shelf. However, one day, looking for something to read, I found this book, and on a whim, picked it up and started it. And boy was I entranced! From the first few stories I was hooked. Later, however, my entusiasum died down I and puttered through, to be picked up again at the end. It was a great book. Full of insightful thought provoking observations or statements that really make you ask yourself, "What if that was true?". Purely, one of the best short story coladborations I have read. I'd reccomend it to anyone with a mind that thinks out of the box. Thought it was a little slow in the middle, one is rewarded at the end. I give it five stars for its in-depth thinking, and especially the putting of American views into a Dogma, the Dogma of Otherness. Excellent! Wonderful! A+. By Gosh, he's done it again!

Rating:
Summary: Stretch your mind
Review: Years after reading this collection, it stays with me. A treatise on natural selection, even to universes. I've read SF from all the eras. For provoking thought, this is the best.