You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
hopeful
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Brin created a fascinating world, a knack he's pretty good at. Like in Earth, he's extended modern trends and concerns and made something believable and interesting.
But that's the best part of the book. I really enjoyed learning more about the alien crystals and the suggested answers to the Fermi paradox, but after a while the story about the probes just kind of... stopped. Just like how a few other plot threads just... stopped. After jumping ahead, we get a bare perspective of what happened, but it felt like it was violating one of the first rules of storytelling - show, don't tell. All of that telling, and we didn't seem to get anywhere. What's the point of giving us all these different perspectives, even the alien perspectives, if all it does is create more questions (and dangling plot threads)?
Half-way through, I was very invested in what was going on, but we never seemed to actually find out. Which might make it more like our real existence, but it doesn't make for a satisfying story.
But that's the best part of the book. I really enjoyed learning more about the alien crystals and the suggested answers to the Fermi paradox, but after a while the story about the probes just kind of... stopped. Just like how a few other plot threads just... stopped. After jumping ahead, we get a bare perspective of what happened, but it felt like it was violating one of the first rules of storytelling - show, don't tell. All of that telling, and we didn't seem to get anywhere. What's the point of giving us all these different perspectives, even the alien perspectives, if all it does is create more questions (and dangling plot threads)?
Half-way through, I was very invested in what was going on, but we never seemed to actually find out. Which might make it more like our real existence, but it doesn't make for a satisfying story.
Existence is a book that you should read right now, although that's mostly because it's soaking in early-2010s references which you may not get in 5 years time. It takes about half the book for the plot to spin up, then once it does it inexplicably jumps past the bit it was apparently building towards, and then promptly finishes without tying up several tantalising loose ends. Also has the annoying habit of having the characters realise something and not share it with the reader, the cheeky sods. For all that, it's a pretty good book and a refreshing bit of classic-style sci-fi. It has some really neat ideas (and I mean really neat) and once it did get going it had me up until 2 in the morning finishing it. And that was on a school night too.
Epic. Might have made it to 5 stars if there had been a little more showing instead of telling. Never really believed the discontent brewing in the backround. Some of the jumps between books were jarring. Wondrous extrapolation. Incredibly hopeful. Leaves you feeling proud to be human.
Ten hours into the audiobook, and I may abandon this. I wouldn't normally quit after spending so much time on a book, but the endless repetition and lack of anything resembling characterization keep me from getting invested, and when I found myself fast-forwarding through the latest appearance of one of the several irritatingly accented background characters, I wondered why I was even bothering. The world he's created has promise, but if there is a plot, it's progressing at a snail's pace.
Existence by David Brin is a thought-provoking novel, full of believable ideas on things like technological advancement on Earth and the possibility of life amongst the stars. It's a 'hard' science fiction - meaning, it's based on real science & theory - so it's definitely not for everybody. But I really must recommend it, as it's one of the most rewarding novels I've read in a long time.
I've long pondered the Fermi Paradox and it's implications, so Brin's novel seems engineered specifically to me. Why, he asks, if the universe is SO LARGE and SO OLD (and our little sun relatively new), do we not see any evidence of intelligent life? Why are we alone in the Universe? In detail throughout the novel, Brin gives numerous explanations for The Problem: life is rarer than we thought, they are hiding from us, we might not be able to recognise their forms of communication, etc. But the Big One, the explanation that we fear most of all is that all civilizations eventually die.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. Somehow, after reading some 600 pages of intense terror and excitement, the reader is left with the confusing feeling of hope. That if we are careful and aware of the dangers that confront us, then we can fix them. An example of this is shown in the handling of the Artificial Intelligence problem. By raising AIs as human children, making them citizens of the world and sending them to schools, we manage to instill love and loyalty in beings that would otherwise overwhelm us.
I've talked a little about the themes of Existence but I won't tell you the plot as it would be a shame to ruin all the revelations and twists that await you.
I've long pondered the Fermi Paradox and it's implications, so Brin's novel seems engineered specifically to me. Why, he asks, if the universe is SO LARGE and SO OLD (and our little sun relatively new), do we not see any evidence of intelligent life? Why are we alone in the Universe? In detail throughout the novel, Brin gives numerous explanations for The Problem: life is rarer than we thought, they are hiding from us, we might not be able to recognise their forms of communication, etc. But the Big One, the explanation that we fear most of all is that all civilizations eventually die.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. Somehow, after reading some 600 pages of intense terror and excitement, the reader is left with the confusing feeling of hope. That if we are careful and aware of the dangers that confront us, then we can fix them. An example of this is shown in the handling of the Artificial Intelligence problem. By raising AIs as human children, making them citizens of the world and sending them to schools, we manage to instill love and loyalty in beings that would otherwise overwhelm us.
I've talked a little about the themes of Existence but I won't tell you the plot as it would be a shame to ruin all the revelations and twists that await you.
Fascinating premise, and the first 2/3 of the book is fascinating. Once the timeline starts to jump around, all of the momentum seems to drop out of it and I had to make myself finish it. It's a pity because I've loved a lot of Brin's work.
Mind-blowing, challenging, and disturbing at times, David Brin's view of the future is more comprehensive and more diverse than any other writer's. The thing I love about this book is that it doesn't shy away from discussing hard truths, like the myriad failure-modes humanity can enter. However, it accompanies this discussion with a constant sense that, if it's possible, humanity will find a way.
Existence is a sci-fi novel for the Internet Age. This shows through in the way the novel plays with the idea of multi-tasking. First, Brin attacks the attention deficit we all possess head-on by showing how augmented reality and constant stimulation have been taken to their logical conclusions in the world he has crafted. On a higher level, chapters tend to be short and jumpy, often leaving the reader frustrated, mirroring our frenetic culture. In the end though, Brin manages to make it work, weaving a quilt of stories that slowly but surely come together together into a coherent worlds-spanning narrative.
What truly sets this novel apart from many classic sci-fi novels are the characters. Brin's characters are nuanced, defying good or evil archetypes for the most part. While there obviously are characters who we root for throughout the novel, other characters start off as hateable, and become characters with whom we feel kinship.
I can't recommend Existence enough, both as a glimpse of the future of humanity and a piece of modern literature.
Existence is a sci-fi novel for the Internet Age. This shows through in the way the novel plays with the idea of multi-tasking. First, Brin attacks the attention deficit we all possess head-on by showing how augmented reality and constant stimulation have been taken to their logical conclusions in the world he has crafted. On a higher level, chapters tend to be short and jumpy, often leaving the reader frustrated, mirroring our frenetic culture. In the end though, Brin manages to make it work, weaving a quilt of stories that slowly but surely come together together into a coherent worlds-spanning narrative.
What truly sets this novel apart from many classic sci-fi novels are the characters. Brin's characters are nuanced, defying good or evil archetypes for the most part. While there obviously are characters who we root for throughout the novel, other characters start off as hateable, and become characters with whom we feel kinship.
I can't recommend Existence enough, both as a glimpse of the future of humanity and a piece of modern literature.
Brin is an SF staple, and he still has a lot of good ideas to share. Unfortunately, he tried to share all of them in this book. This book could have easily been a trilogy, and began to feel like one when the story inexplicably leapt forward in time in two spots. The interstitial material that frequently broke up the mostly well-written story could be ignored, but it felt like a ham-handed way to include ideas that don't fit into the plot. Several plot lines felt unceremoniously abandoned, but the ending somehow still worked well enough. Not Brin's best work, but worth the read if you like Brin or your SF reading list is bare.