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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
A hard-ish sci-fi whodunnit space opera. Feels culturally a bit dated, understandable since it's almost 40 years old.
I was faintly bored throughout most of the book and read it very slowly. It's essentially a detective novel on a spaceship. It has interesting-sounding setting but that isn't really capitalised on. Not sci-fi enough for me, I guess!
adventurous
mysterious
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A fun SF concept (exploring into the sun’s photosphere) that turns into an Agatha Christie-ish mystery (lampshaded with a “parlor scene” with evidence and accusations), all against a wider background seemingly based off the idea of “what if Erich von Däniken was right?”, which surprised and amused me.
adventurous
medium-paced
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book has been sitting on my physical bookshelves since 2007. I'm pretty sure I got it from my mother as an example of "classic science fiction." I love the concept of this book--that every intelligent species became intelligent through intervention by a more advanced alien species. There's so many cool ideas floating through this simple idea, many of which aren't especially well executed here in this first book. I've heard that the series improves in the next couple of books. The second book won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. The third book also won the Hugo.
In addition to the clever idea of uplift, this book also plays around with mystery tropes. There's a big reveal scene similar to what you'd find in a Hercule Poirot novel, but it's clearly referential and Brin makes the trope his own. In fact, I might have liked this book better if it had ended with the solving of the mystery instead of continuing on for what felt like two or three more possible endings.
I listened to the audiobook and wasn't overly impressed with the narrator. If it's the same narrator for other books in the series, I may need to switch to print. Overall, this book should have translated well enough to audio format, but I don't recommend this narration.
In addition to the clever idea of uplift, this book also plays around with mystery tropes. There's a big reveal scene similar to what you'd find in a Hercule Poirot novel, but it's clearly referential and Brin makes the trope his own. In fact, I might have liked this book better if it had ended with the solving of the mystery instead of continuing on for what felt like two or three more possible endings.
I listened to the audiobook and wasn't overly impressed with the narrator. If it's the same narrator for other books in the series, I may need to switch to print. Overall, this book should have translated well enough to audio format, but I don't recommend this narration.
Removing stars because of shitty female characters... I've seen plain paper with better characterization than this
People will be like "OH SILLY ANGRY FEMINIST" and whatever. I like books I can relate to. And part of that is realistic female characters.
Not to say I can't relate to male characters, 90% of the books I own have male characters. It's just nice to read about women every now and then. I can imagine men would not be able to stop whining if all of a sudden every single male fantasy/sci fi book/series/movie only had women in it. And I dont mean sexy, scantily clad women like Seven of Nine, I mean like smart, intelligent, and thoughtful women like Dr Beverly Crusher, Uhura, Donna Noble, Galadriel ETC.
I probably wouldn't be ranting about this if the two (kind of three) women in this novel aren't total stereotypes.
1. The dead former girlfriend (who the protagonist spends the novel thinking bout in a wistful yet painful way)
2. The sexy and scantily clad scientist lady (who male protagonist never thinks about in terms of a scientist, but as a hot piece of ass)
3. The neurotic and manipulative woman (Who male protagonist thinks is manipulating people and poisoning them and even when it turns out she wasn't he still can't think about her nicely)
I really want to say this series is awesome and refreshing (doesn't revolve around computers and robots and wormholes and earth being AMAZING AT EVERYTHING)and innovative, because that's what science fiction should be! But it's hard to overlook the sexism issue, hopefully it will get better in the next book
People will be like "OH SILLY ANGRY FEMINIST" and whatever. I like books I can relate to. And part of that is realistic female characters.
Not to say I can't relate to male characters, 90% of the books I own have male characters. It's just nice to read about women every now and then. I can imagine men would not be able to stop whining if all of a sudden every single male fantasy/sci fi book/series/movie only had women in it. And I dont mean sexy, scantily clad women like Seven of Nine, I mean like smart, intelligent, and thoughtful women like Dr Beverly Crusher, Uhura, Donna Noble, Galadriel ETC.
I probably wouldn't be ranting about this if the two (kind of three) women in this novel aren't total stereotypes.
1. The dead former girlfriend (who the protagonist spends the novel thinking bout in a wistful yet painful way)
2. The sexy and scantily clad scientist lady (who male protagonist never thinks about in terms of a scientist, but as a hot piece of ass)
3. The neurotic and manipulative woman (Who male protagonist thinks is manipulating people and poisoning them and even when it turns out she wasn't he still can't think about her nicely)
I really want to say this series is awesome and refreshing (doesn't revolve around computers and robots and wormholes and earth being AMAZING AT EVERYTHING)and innovative, because that's what science fiction should be! But it's hard to overlook the sexism issue, hopefully it will get better in the next book
"Sundiver" has made me resolve not to read any more Science Fiction that is older than I am. It has charming elements: a voyage to the sun, vivid descriptions of plausible scientific advancements, and a clever whodunnit murder mystery. While the physics and engineering of the sunship are well described the 1980 imagining of other future tech is amusingly quaint. For instance, there is nothing resembling a cell phones in this future world, and wireless computers in general are absent. I could have loved this book, if not for the characters. The main character is a scientific researcher who has worked on raising chimpanzees and dolphins to human intelligence. He is also a tall, dark, handsome, incredibly fit, combat-ready, crack shot, pickpocket, detective. When the love of his life died tragically he sealed away the adventerous troublemaking side of himself, but the dark side of his split personality soon becomes his only hope of solving the mystery. The cliche is a bit painful.
Then there's the beatiful young ship captain who flirts with the protagonist, and what do you know later on she breaks down crying into Mr. Protagonist's shoulder and she just wants to have his babies. I disapproved strongly of this character, and I thought her relationship with the protagonist was unjustified, uninteresting, and gratuitious.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they're specifically interested in the history and development of the Sci-Fi genre.
Then there's the beatiful young ship captain who flirts with the protagonist, and what do you know later on she breaks down crying into Mr. Protagonist's shoulder and she just wants to have his babies. I disapproved strongly of this character, and I thought her relationship with the protagonist was unjustified, uninteresting, and gratuitious.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they're specifically interested in the history and development of the Sci-Fi genre.
I really liked the big idea in the universe that David Brin created for this book. Brin introduces the idea that there are multiple, sentient, alien species. Each was "uplifted" from animals by a preceding alien specie, in a chain that stretches all the way back to "the Progenitors". Each uplifted species is a client to their patrons, bound to servitude for tens of thousands of years. Humanity is a possibly unique exception. Humanity has no known patron and has uplifted two species of their own: chimpanzees and dolphins. As such, they're not bound to servitude but they're also not very well liked.
I think this is a great setting for a story. Unfortunately, this is not a great story. It was somewhat interesting but the characters never really grabbed me, making the events seem less interesting. A bit of a misfire, overall.
I think this is a great setting for a story. Unfortunately, this is not a great story. It was somewhat interesting but the characters never really grabbed me, making the events seem less interesting. A bit of a misfire, overall.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated