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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I read this years ago but it was good to re-read and see all the fine details I hadn't remembered. This is a space mystery with aliens and a future version of Sherlock Holmes. Lovely!
I love Brin's notion that all sentient races have to be "uplifted" by other sentient races, and that no one knows who uplifted humans, or even if they were uplifted at all or if they managed just through evolution and natural selection alone. Brin's not the world's best writer, but his ideas are entertaining and well worth reading. I wish this book had been more about answers and thought-provoking discussion and less a sort of glorified murder-mystery, but I enjoyed it anyway.
Really 3.5 stars. I enjoyed this hard sci-fi/murder mystery. For a book written 45-ish years ago, the science remains sound. the idea that evolution cannot proceed without external (alien) help is well fleshed out and interesting. I look forward to rereading the sequels. (It's been a few decades)
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Some excellent ideas held back by characterisation and some lovely 80s sexism - not the worst I've seen in the genre by any means! I like the relationship between humanity and the other species in the galaxy, who have all been Uplifted by previous Precursor races and are thus bound to hundreds, if not thousands of years of service. The non-human aliens are truly that, no humanoid shapes here. The plot moves at a steady clip, but I didn't really love Brin's writing style, and the main character is a serious self-insert.
Whilst I found the book readable for the worldbuilding of Uplift with its Clients and Patrons, the main character was a Gary Stu of epic proportions "... this unwillingness to join with him to create the near ubermensch he once had been", and sadly I could not mentally picture the Sundiver ship and so the final battle at the end was rendered unintelligible.
Things get better with Startide Rising however, so I'm looking forward to my re-read of that book.
Things get better with Startide Rising however, so I'm looking forward to my re-read of that book.
I found the style sort of clunky and Old Sk00l SF, and some concepts seemed very dated, but it was first published in 1980, so I suppose that's only to be expected. Sundiver's pretty much a detective story in a SF setting, with astro physics-y bits thrown in (which makes sense, considering his day job). Apparently the 2 other books in the Uplift Saga both won Hugos, so maybe he improved with time, but I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to pick up the other two. Sundiver seems okay to read as a standalone novel.
Sundiver does not hold up well upon reread. The lead, Jacob, comes off as too much of a Marty Stu and the women are all fairly one-dimensional and suffer from a serious case of male gaze. Brin has some good ideas in here (uplifted species, traveling to the sun) but this plays out more like a whodunnit in space and I don't think it's worth revisiting with so much excellent science fiction out there.