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swashbucklr 's review for:
Existence
by David Brin
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.