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    Startide Rising
    Startide Rising
    Startide Rising
    Audiobook17 hours

    Startide Rising

    Written by David Brin

    Narrated by George Wilson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    When Streaker-the first starship designed and crewed by dolphins-discovers a derelict ancient armada with evidence of the first sentient species ever, she sets off a war between dozens of galactic races eager to use the information for their own advancement. New York Times best-selling author David Brin's novels stretch the imagination while providing action and thrills galore. Packed with exotic aliens and ancient mysteries, Startide Rising delivers breath-taking adventure in the grandest tradition of space opera.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 18, 2008
    ISBN9781436121125
    Author

    David Brin

    David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international-bestselling novels include Earth, Existence, Startide Rising, and The Postman, which was adapted into a film in 1998. Brin serves on several advisory boards, including NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, and speaks or consults on topics ranging from AI, SETI, privacy, and invention to national security. His nonfiction book about the information age, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin’s latest nonfiction work is Polemical Judo. Visit him at www.davidbrin.com.

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    Reviews for Startide Rising

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This is my review of David Brin’s ‘Startide Rising’, copyrighted in 1982 and published by Bantam in 1985, and according to the copyright notice parts of the story were published in May 1981’s Analog. So, parts of this story are almost forty years old as at the date of this review! It’s the second book in Brin’s Uplift series and you can catch up with my other reviews of books in this series through the links at the end of this video. In terms of genre, Startide Rising is pretty much Space Opera/Military Science Fiction, with a bit of mystery thrown into the mix. The crew of the Streaker, the Terran starship, who are at the centre of the story are mainly uplifted Dolphins, along with a small number of their human patrons and an uplifted chimp. The Streaker’s mission was basically to go out into the greater galaxy and see what was there and see how it compared to what their Library unit said should be there. What they found in an out of the way spot was a fleet. A very, very old fleet. And some very, very old, and very, very dead bodies. All this is off-screen, as it were, and our first encounter with the Streaker is after the ship has sought sanctuary after suffering a series of ambushes as it tries to flee back to Terra with one of those bodies hidden aboard. The discovery of the fleet and the ambushes are mentioned in enough detail in flash-back to make it clear why the Streaker has gone into hiding on the water world of Kithrup where her captain not only hopes to make repairs to the damage caused by those ambushes but to hide from the massed battlefleets of the various alien races who have followed the Streaker to the system, in the metal rich waters of the planetary ocean. The book is broken down into various sections, with the first one looking at events on board the Streaker and in the alien fleets fighting for an advantage above the planet, with the chapters themselves told from the point of view of various characters aboard the Streaker, or from the aliens. The chapters written from the aliens’ points of view are in italics, presumably to indicate that they are separate from the main flow of the story. We cycle through the characters aboard the Streaker reasonable regularly, though there are a few favoured characters, and we do tend to see things from the same alien commanders (where they survive!). As the book continues and we get to different sections, it becomes clear that the crew of the Streaker are almost as divided as the aliens. This starts off being a disagreement between those who believe that the aliens were reasonable and would allow the Streaker to go if they handed over all the things they’d found in that fleet. Other members of the crew, including their captain weren’t that… naïve, and when an alien ship crashed on the planet, they came up with a, well, one has to admit it, wild arsed escape plan, but this meant stripping the Streaker of all the most competent crewfen and those left behind either had their own agendas or were just not up to the pressures their new responsibilities put on them, with a few exceptions – mainly the Captain, Creideiki. When an accident severely injured Creideiki, this left Takkata-Jim, his vice-captain, in charge. Takkata-Jim allies with Dr Metz, a human civilian uplift specialist who had got his place on the ship to see how well the dolphins got along but who’d also sneaked his own special gene spliced fen on board, that wouldn’t necessarily pass the recommendations of the Terragens Uplift Board – well, let’s be honest, would have been outright rejected, for excellent reasons as it turned out… Takkata-Jim and bosun K’tha-jon being a couple of his hidden upgrades. There are a few strange things about the planet, not the least was the fact it hadn’t been surveyed for literal eons after it should have been. Of more immediate interest to the Streaker’s crew was the pre-sentient species one of their midshipmen had found when the alien ship crash landed. Then there was an unusually dense amount of archaeotech on the plate boundaries – a traditional dumping ground for deserted planets but given the length of time this planet had been supposedly deserted they should have been long gone. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough resources to investigate anything that wasn’t related to pure survival. Or those presentients. As it turned out, that may have been a mistake, but with only Charles Dart on the Streaker a qualified geologist, the full scale of this anomaly was overlooked until it was almost too late… Will the Streaker succeed in its plan to escape yet again, or will the aliens gain their prize? Well, we won’t find out in this book, but you do care about whether they do succeed or not, so it’s on to book three in the series. Did I like this? Yes! In particular I liked the way he managed to switch between a varied cast of characters and give them their own feel, which is something that can be difficult to manage. To be fair, Brin doesn’t have that many different characters as compared to other authors I could mention, and the swap between them is well documented. Although it’s clearly set in the same universe as Sundiver, there’s no direct continuation so you can read this without having read the first book though some of the later books in the series do tie into this book fairly directly.It’s probably the second best of Brin’s books in my opinion, just because of some of the scenes with Creideiki originally looked to me to be a bit too spiritual for my tastes, and while this reread didn’t affect me so much that way this time, but it’s still something I’m not that keen on. Most people seem to prefer this to most of his other books and on publication it won the 1983 Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel, which is very impressive ?
    • 3/5
      STARTIDE RISING, rereading:Interesting, but not the greatest. Too hard to credit a multi-millennial civilization of any kind, much less one with enforcement of its rules, however slipshod.
    • 3/5
      I don't really like Brin's style - everyone, without exception, is plotting and scheming. Some of them are plotting for the good of the group and some for their own advantage, but they're all plotting. It makes reading hard, when I dislike everyone I'm reading about (some more than others, but even the middie gets annoying). When things finally start to happen it drew me in at last - that's the final quarter or less of the book, though. Some interesting philosophy, as far as I understood it - but I'm with Gillian, that's too abstract for what's going on. Magic (that is, highly improbable) survival of (almost) all the good guys. I've read it, I'll read the third of the trilogy, but it's far from a favorite.
    • 4/5
      I like this book well enough but I feel like I should like it more than I do, it has everything a good sf novel should have. Vastly imaginative, epic, some humor and good characters. Unfortunately I have a problem with the structure of this book, the cast of characters is too big and the author switches character POV too frequently. This type of structure reminds me of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books, except that the GRRM books are longer and the characters are better developed. Also most of the chapters are short and some are super-short (like a single paragraph). The way it is done here is quite disorienting for me, every time he does it I become a little detached from the story because I have to keep a tally of who is who and doing what.

      While reading the first few chapters I thought that characterization was going to be a problem with this book because I didn't get the feel of any of them. As I read on however I began to realize that the characterization is actually quite good, the problem is that there are just so many important characters and it takes time to attune to any of them. The large number of plot stands and the short chapters make the novel seem fragmented.

      With all that said I love the concept of the Uplift universe and can not help but plan to read more. Hopefully the structure of other volumes is not so fragmented.
    • 4/5
      David Brin's Startide Rising is pretty much everything you'd want from a space opera. The book features a variety of characters who at first appear to be on the same side, but in actuality, many of them are working toward their own ends. The plotting is fast-paced and features a good bit of action without moving so fast that the reader can't keep up. What I like most is the background wonder and awe that permeates the story, not only with the derelict fleet, but also with the mysteries present on Kithrup. I do wish the book had a little bit more of an epilogue, as I really wanted to know where many of the plots went in the long term, but I guess I'll just have to read the next book...
    • 4/5
      My fourth Brin and the best so far.In Startide Rising, the viewpoint shifts between a fairly large cast of characters. Good guys, bad guys, and many others in between. As a result, it takes a few chapters to get your bearings. Once things start to fall into place however, the story really gets moving.The scenario: In the future, humanity, after 'uplifting' first chimpanzees and dolphins to sentient status, have joined a galaxy-wide community - but their status is tenuous at best. All other known alien cultures, at some time in their own history, have been 'uplifted' by another race, thereby forcing them into indentured servitude to their 'sponsors' for a minimum of 100,000 years. Humans, because they uplifted other species before being discovered by the galactic community at large, are immediately considered a sponsor race and can therefore not be forced to serve others. As a result, a lot of aliens are angry at and offended by humans.Now, a Terran starship - crewed mostly by neo-dolphins, a few humans, and a self-centered neo-chimpanzee - has made a momentous discovery. With an armada of ET ships hot on their tail, they barely escape immediate capture and, with a damaged ship, are currently in hiding on a metal-rich oceanic planet somewhere at the edge of the galaxy. As the enemy closes in, things go from bad to worse as disagreeing factions threaten to tear the crew apart. But the planet itself is an enigma that holds secrets that may help - if only the crew can hold it together and unravel the mystery in time.The many tendrils of this story are slowly and inexorably drawn together. Brin weaves a unique and masterful tale that fully deserves the awards and accolades it received.Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      So much potential, so poor execution. I can understand why this book won a Hugo award. The idea of the uplift is really cool. But the story just fell so flat. Plot was too slow - just seemed to drag on and on. Plot had too many "huh?" moments- holes in plot that don't make sense. Too many characters - makes it really hard to keep track of everyone. Too many one-dimensional characters- only the bad guys seemed to have any personality; all the good guys seemed like cardboard clones. Not sure I'll read another David Brin if this is representative.
    • 3/5
      Earthlings have raised chimps and dolphins to sapient status as they voyage to the stars. There are many other races however of patrons and clients - almost all are hostile to Earth. The earthlings discovers something of great value and the other races try to take it away from them. I enjoyed it and might read more in this series.
    • 5/5
      This is the second book in David Brin's Uplift Saga. It provides a good introduction to the aliens and galactic politics. In this story, a small ship, crewed by dolphis, a few humans, and a chimp, stumble across a fleet of derelict starships from a lost race. The prize is valued by many species, and the Earthling crew has to struggle for survival as the powerful races fight over the right to capture them to learn the fleet's location. The characters are well developed, including a number of the bad guys who were interesting and creative. The personalities of the dolphins seemed appropriate and well though out. They have unique characteristics that makes them feel a bit alien yet very familiar to us. There was one weak point that bothered me. One of the bad guys had to explain everything to a person he was about to kill. It felt a lot like a gimmick, ok, it was a gimmick. It was a message to the reader and a minor plot device. I expect better from good authors. This flaw did not really affect the reading in my opinion. Overall the book moves at a good pace; the writing is good and the story inviting. The story has interesting politics and characters. It is a good read for anyone who mildly likes science fiction.
    • 2/5
      A storyteller, not a writer. This one sparks the imagination. Pity about his recent paperweights and doorstops.

    • 5/5
      i give it 5 stars just because it is orders of magnitude better than sundiver which i gave 4 stars. a bit too long, but the science was interesting and kept me going. i thought the narrative could have benefited from a POV off world, rather than just imply there were battles raging "out there". would have made a great space opera!
    • 3/5
      Don't take my 3 star to mean that I don't recommend this book. It was wonderful, but ultimately something about it kept me from loving it. I am intrigued by the concept of uplifts, and found the story to be surprisingly engaging (it was clear at the beginning of the book that there wasn't much distance to go plot-wise, so I was surprised when most of the book was still more than stuffing).
    • 4/5
      * Creideiki leads us- Is our master * Yet we imagine- Secret orders * Tom sighed. There it was again, the suspicion that Earth would never let the first dolphin-commanded vessel go out without disguised human supervision. Naturally, most of the rumors centered around himself. It was bothersome, because Creideiki was an excellent captain. Also, it detracted from one of the purposes of the mission, to make a demonstration that would boost neo-fin self-confidence for a generation. The first ship commanded and crewed by uplifted dolphins, has discovered an ancient fleet of derelict spaceships that may be linked to the Progenitors, and has crashed on an ocean-covered planet while attempting to evade the Galactics who are determined to discover the secret of its location. As the Galactics fight a space battle other above the planet, making and breaking alliances in their efforts to come out on top, surprising discoveries are taking place on the planet below, which has supposedly been uninhabited for millions of years. It was easy to sympathise with the neo-dolphin crew, with their tendency to revert to atavistic behaviour when stressed, and often exhibiting a lack of confidence in their own abilities, and deferring to the few humans on board. There seems to be a bit of anti-scientist theme, as Dr Metz's tinkering with the make-up of the crew leads to disaster, and the neo-chimp planetologist Charles Dart is equally as arrogant, obsessive and self-absorbed. "Startide Rising" is a much better story than the first book in the series, being both more exciting and more complex rather than a straight mystery story, but it's still a good idea to read "Sundiver" first, as it explains about uplift and man's status in the the galactic civilisation as a wolfling species without a patron. And it is their wolfling attitude, refusing to use any galactic technology that they are unable to understand, and using initiative rather the age old tactics documented in the Galactic Library, that gives the Streaker's crew the edge.
    • 4/5
      Quite a complex work about a mostly dolphin crewed starship that discovers an ancient derelict fleet on the fringes of the galaxy and has to evade several enemy fleets to protect their find. They hide on a water world (pretty convenient) and use some clever tactics to escape after a major space battle. This book sets up the rest of the Uplift series. The length was a bit much, but by the time the book was finished, I had really learned alot about the characters and their interactions with each other and with the few humans on the 'Streaker'. Hopefully the rest of the series is as involved and interesting as this one.
    • 3/5
      Jul10:Well, this series got better. The first part of this book was rough, but then it smoothed out and got me to care.Plot: Pretty darn good. I really liked the war backdrop in the cosmos. I actually cared about many of the characters. The villains were memorable.Style: Definitely improving. Seemed to distance itself from classic SciFi and bring in some more character development. I grew to enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      This dual Hugo/Nebula Award winning science fiction novel certainly takes the cake for originality. A spaceship captained and piloted by dolphins? The premise of this work is that sentient species are scattered throughout the galaxy, seeded by a mysterious group referred to as The Progenitors. As each species attains a certain level of “consciousness”, they are able to “uplift” other species to a level of sentience through genetic engineering, hence the dolphin and chimpanzee, which are “client” species, with humans their “patrons”. The political/social/military relationships between and among the different “patron” species and their “clients” are what make up the bulk of this novel.This is actually the second novel in the Startide series, though I have been assured that it can be read independent of the original and has generated far more acclaim than the others. I never felt that I needed any more background information than was provided within the text of this book.I can’t say that the writing was poor, or that the plot and characters were in any way deficient. However, I really never felt like I was pulled into the story. Others may disagree and reinforce the awards that this novel has earned, but I don’t rate it in the upper tier of science fiction novels I’ve read recently.
    • 5/5
      A complex story of selfish, galactic civilisations competing for status by "uplifting" promising species. Brin pieces together a wonderful array of self absorbed "clans" interacting and sabotaging eachother within conventions that make the United Nations genaral assemblies look like at tea party. Erik von Daniken lives again in the pages of this series, as the "wofling" humans try to slip the leases of greedy superpower races.
    • 1/5
      my friend lent me this and i had to put it down, I'm not sure why the author felt it necessary to reitterate the differences between bottlenose and steno dolphins every couple pages, but did not decide to endure the rest of the book to find out
    • 4/5
      aka Dolphins in Space. Sounds stupid but this book is a cracker. Dont waste your time with the rest of the series. This one is the bomb.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Sci-Fi books. You are just plopped into the middle of this immense saga without warning. The sheer array of aliens is boggling and each one has a totally different motivation. The shifting alliances, vast battles, and human drama just drew me in and would not let me go. The crew of the Streeker trying to survive on cunning against odds a Vegas card shark would never even consider.
    • 5/5
      By far the best book of this series, Startide Rising can be read independently if you choose.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed Startide Rising. It follows the adventures of a crew of humans, "neo-dolphins," and a "neo-chimp" as they explore a planet, repair their damaged ship, and try to figure out how to escape from the much more powerful galactic fleets that are battling it out overhead for the right to capture them and the big galactic secret they accidentally stumbled upon. At its best, it is pure space opera, entertaining and suspenseful. I enjoyed the neo-dolphin characters, who struggle to integrate a dreamy, instinctual way of looking at things with the practical, logical though process of man (frequently the characters end up speaking in haiku). I thought that the aborigines were poorly developed, and that the human characters were generally less compelling that the dolphins. And I guess that I am skeptical about the general structure of the uplift universe (which Brin has gone on to develop in other books). Nevertheless, this is an entertaining read and well worth your time.
    • 5/5
      Hey! A book sublimeDolphins talking in Haiku rhymeUplift
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this story somewhat, but I don't feel compelled to read any sequels. I admired the creatvity of the author in creating many non-humanoid alien races, and also in the treatment of the "uplifted" dolphins and chimp. It is a good read for the intrigue and psychology of a crew stranded and beseiged on an alien world.
    • 4/5
      Love this book. Wonderful characters and the different plotlines are woven well.
    • 4/5
      A sequel to "The Uplift War," I also enjoyed this book. Where the former concentrated on chimpanzees as the client race, this story concerns dolphins and human.