Hey, how come no-one’s mentioned Douglas Adams’ “Restaurant at the End of the Universe”? Case in point.
I read “Hitchhiker’s Guide” a long ass time ago. I’d like to pick it, and the rest of the series, up somewhere and read through them all.
Five, I didn’t even notice your suggestion earlier, and started reading EarthClan, which is “Startide Rising” and “Uplift War” in one. I read all the way through “Startide Rising”, but gave up 10 pages into “Uplift War.”
It has a good premise, I really like Herbie and Tom and Niss and the Library, but the whole Dolphin thing is kinda dumb.
Also, IIRC, Kara, the Soro, says in the sixth or seventh chapter that the Soro had uplifted the humans long, long ago, but abandoned them in great shame, and spent much time and money covering up any evidence.
I gave it up because it was all fluff, and no substance. He went on for four hundred pages about dragging the damn ship up out of the water, but I never learned enough to satisfy me about Niss or the mini Libraries or the abos. Screw that.
–Tim
Is it just me, or did nobody mention Philip K. Dick? Granted, his books don’t necessarily deal with the theme mentioned in the OP, but his stuff is really worth reading. If you haven’t had a chance to read any of it, allow me to suggest a few titles:
VALIS
The Divine Invasion
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
A Scanner… Darkly
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich
Clans of the Alphane Moon
And I would like to thank this thread for allowing me to post for the 25th time. It feels like a meaningful milestone, somehow.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the “Stainless Steel Rat” series by Harry Harrison. In these books they refer to the legendary home of humanity “dirt”. Not exactly hard sci-fi and doesn’t really focus on this aspect, but they are really fun. In a more serious vein there is “The Heritage Trilogy” by Ian Douglas. These books are a lot more serious and focus on marine involvement in protecting discoveries on mars, the moon and europa. I think they are very well done and thoroughly engaging. That’s all I can think of here at work. I will see if I can findanything when I get home. Enjoy the reading!
Just did. Except that last one he published a few years ago. I don’t have it and didn’t like it anyway.
Mostly Harmless. Yeah, I always wondered what the point was. How dare they make the last book without me… errrr… without Zaphod or Marvin? It does have some funny bits, but it feels like Adams was just trying to bring a conclusion to the story, somehow.
I doubt anyone is going to read the Demu Trilogy, so this spoiler seems less evil…
Actually, the humans were a ‘lost race’ - sorta. As you may recall, in the end they were revealed to be half of the genetic code of a much more advanced race which split itself to avoid a mysterious universal disaster. Barton (yeah, half the source for my handle) and the others find the other half, and… ok, that’s enough.
On the other note, I agree, the rest of the Demu stuff drops off remarkably fast. In fact, sometimes I’m convinced Busby had some kind of strange brain fart when he wrote ‘TCAM’. Nothing else of his has the same bite.
zaphod, the book WAS pointless, but it added to the most inacuratly named trilogy of douglas adams.
I would love to help you homer, but I can’t remember if what I have read is fantasy or sci-fi or what.
Homer:
Agreed. While I enjoy Brin’s writing, his books are usually two or even three times as long as they should be. He needs a stern editor.
More specifically about the Uplift books (and incidentally, I’ve only read through The Uplift War myself; I’ve heard the second trilogy is even more interminably verbose and meandering) it irritates me that the obvious ethical questions about genetic uplift never occur to any of the books’ characters. And it’s completely implausible that you’d adopt dolphins for such a program, especially with the goal of making them spacefarers. It’s hard enough to air inside a starship, let alone seawater!
On the other hand, the climax of Startide Rising, where the Streaker escapes from the planet and eludes the armada, was just spectacular and well worth the buildup (this isn’t a spoiler, since the real thrill is in how the ship does this).
I don’t remember this, but it’s been awhile. Are you sure this was presented as reliable information? Legends, exaggeration and outright lying seem pretty common among the alien community Brin depicts.
Homer,
I recommend reconsidering the Uplift books by Brin. Yes, Brin needs an editor. Boy, does he need an editor. But the very things you’re complaining about do more or less get resolved in the recent trilogy, the name of which escapes me. That trilogy also deals with a set of humans who think the humans are a “lost tribe.” My advice? Skim.
<mini-hijack>If I remember correctly, the humans in the Uplift series had begun modifying the dolphins before interstellar contact had been made. I doubt the humans would have started mucking with them to specifically create a space-faring species. Also, the Soros was lying like a rug. <mini-hijack>