This is not always the case with older scifi, but it is definitely what happened here, the story was too weak to support the setting, and the book was obviously written to express the setting. This book attempts to stress the Science in Science Fiction, but the science is so dated that it gave the story a shelf-life. In the entire first half of the book (8 hours) there is only one action scene, there is no real significant character dialogue, and I wasn't invested in the characters. However, I only listened to the first when I realized I would not be listening to anymore. I bought the trilogy after the repeated recommendation of a friend.
All in all, I was very happy I'd bought and listened to it, and I have bought the other two in the series on the strength of my impressions of the first.īought all three listened to only this one I found the voices - which didn't seem silly to me at all - very helpful for keeping the panoply of aliens straight in my head. Personally, I found it very well executed. I also must respectfully disagree with the criticisms of the narrator's reading. Like many, many sci-fi novels, I think it could have done with a slightly firmer editor's pen but, given the genre, I thoroughly enjoyed it. His inventiveness and descriptive powers of an environment as unlikely as the surface of the sun were excellent. Brin's universe is one filled with political intrigue and trans-species rivalry. I downloaded this book on the recommendation of someone who had read the printed version and did so noting some of the earlier criticisms of this particular reading and the narrator. Execpt that "Startide Rising" is continued in the next "trilogy". The "trilogy" is really 3 unconnected books set in the same universe. Unless you are a Brin fan I'd advise getting "The Uplift War" instead.
Talk about earning your pay! That said, the first 4 hours are a real obsticle. The narrator is terrific- especially considering he has to do 3 alien species, a dolphin, and a chimp. elements, and the world-building, there is a mystery- a pretty good whodunit- and the questions about what the aliens are up to, what's going on with the Solarians, and the revelations about Jacob's character. To make matters worse Jacob is grief-stricken, making him detatched from humans, and has a kind of splintered personality so there isn't any character development either. The main character, Jacob, goes from one place to another and talks to people and that's about it. Nothing much happens beyond finding out what "uplift" means. The first 4 hours of this book are pretty bad.
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