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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!tekcad!keithl
From: keithl@tekcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Get STARTIDE RISING and read it NOW
Message-ID: <46@tekcad.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 00:22:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekcad.46
Posted: Tue Sep 27 00:22:34 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Sep-83 23:17:38 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 57


   I just finished reading STARTIDE RISING by David Brin. Exciting. Thought
provoking.  Well constructed.  Your basic masterpiece.
Stop reading this now and go out and buy it.

   Oh, so you're going to need more convincing?  OK, here goes.  This is NOT
a spoiler, just a taste of the frosting on top:

   In Brin's universe the galaxy is populated by PATRON and CLIENT races.
Patron races find semi-sentient races, and raise them to full sentience through
genetic manipulation, education, coercion and enslavement.  The Client races,
after finishing their indenture (lasting hundreds of thousands of years) are
then free to become Patrons and find their own Clients.  The process has been
repeated for billions of years, back to the legendary PROGENITORS.  All races
in the galaxy have developed through this process. 

   Except humanity.  There is a debate as to whether we were abandoned by our
Patrons, or that we evolved into intelligence ourselves.  The second view is
considered unlikely by the Galactics who have never seen this happen before.
We built our own starships and genetically manipulated the chimpanzees and the
dolphins into full intelligence, without apparent help.  When we came in
contact with the Galactics, we were reluctantly granted Patron status, but are
relatively powerless to deal with the great competing power blocks in the 
galaxy.

   The human-dolphin crewed starship Streaker was sent out on a research
mission, to sample-check the accuracy of the LIBRARY, a multi-copy database
system containing recorded information from the beginning of recorded history,
for the entire galaxy (sort of a cross between the Library of Congress and the
Hitchhiker's Guide).  We find discrepancies, but more importantly, we find a
vast fleet of ships that may be the Progenitors.  All the religious fanatics
in the galaxy attack Streaker (but mostly each other), to find the whereabouts
of the fleet.  The damaged Streaker hides in the ocean of the planet Kithrup,
with the crew planning it's escape.  A battle rages overhead.

   No spoilers here;  this much of the plot is revealed in the first few
pages.  About half-a-dozen subplots intertwine through the book, with
brilliant imagery, dolphin haiku, machiavellian alien scheming, betrayals,
personal growth, space battles, audacious plans, ad glorious infinitem.

   Unless something even more marvelous happens between now and January,
this book is DEFINITELY getting my HUGO vote.  Brin has written another
(only "good") book in this universe, with different characters.  I hope
for many more.

   A word of warning:  don't pick up the book after 6 PM.  You may want
to savor it's 460 pages, and you will not want to put it down.  I finished
at 3 AM.  Take a day off from work instead.  Don't wait for the weekend.
Be COMPULSIVE!

From the tired but happy fingers of:
-- 
Keith Lofstrom
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