Published in 1980. I might have read it as a late teen or early tween, I am unsure. I could be mixing it up with Startide Rising.
Humanity is part of a large universe full of uplifted species. There are patron races (the uplifters) and client races (uplifted). Uplifting another race adds status, being an uplifted client race means being beholden to one‘s patrons and having to be subservient for a certain time. Eventually the client race becomes a patron race as well, is free of its own patrons and can uplift other races. Patron races eventually evolve and disappear.
Humans are the odd ones out. They achieved sentience on their own, without being uplifted by another race. And they in turn uplifted chimpanzees and dolphins, without strings attached, which adds to their status. The galactic equilibrium is disturbed, as this has never happened before — all sentient races have always been uplifted by others.
The basic concept of client races that are uplifted by a patron race is an unusual one. I don‘t think I ever encountered that before.
So much for the background. We meet our main character Jason Demwa, going on a trip to Mercury, where he joins a scientific investigation into „ghosts“ appearing in and around our sun. A sundiver, aka a ship capable of entering the sun‘s outer reaches, will investigate and try to determine if these ghosts are yet another sentient race that hasn‘t been uplifted by any of the patron races. Something fishy is going on and someone is killed. There is strain between the various alien races and the humans as well.
The characters are all pretty silly and two-dimensional. I could not really take any of them seriously and I did not like any of them. The aliens were weird caricatures. The general story telling shows its age.
Apparently this is Brin‘s first novel, so I guess we should cut him some slack, especially since his next novel, Startide Rising, won a Hugo.
This definitely did not work for me. It might have been the audiobook though. The monotonous audio narration made it hard to stay focused. My mind kept wandering off and I was in a confused state throughout the book. I kept backtracking to re-listen to parts of it and kept wondering what the blazes was going on. And, very oddly, you can hear the narrator swallowing between sentences and paragraphs.
2.5/5 ☀️☀️½
I vaguely remember reading Startide Rising and liking it. It‘s set later and with other characters. I might give it another try.
PS: Sundiver was a nominee for the 1981 Locus Award in the First Novel category, finishing in 3rd place.
A year after the Commonwealth won the war with the Theocracy, the interstellar cruise liner Supreme is on its maiden voyage, carrying a host of aristocrats thrilled to be sharing in a wondrous adventure among the stars. The passengers include the owner and his daughters, Angela and Nancy. Growing up with all the luxuries in the world, neither sister has ever known true struggle, but that all changes when a collision with a pirate ship leaves the cruiser powerless and becalmed in hyperspace. And they’re not alone.
A Netgalley backlist title. The prologue did not inspire excitement — a tentacled being crawling through a spaceship. Why no excitement? Because the octopuslike alien sounded like Bob from next door. All the main actors in this story were humans. Humans defined by conservative, old-fashioned gender stereotypes.
A weird aristocratic setup. A destroyed Earth and hierarchical society after religious wars. A cruise ship that sounds like the Titanic. Rich people and the poor peple serving them. Very unlikable characters. One-dimensional clichees. Not that an aristocratic setting can‘t work. It‘s been done well by others, just not here.
Very simple writing style without depth. Very slow pace. Half of the book was set-up with nothing much happening. Based on the book blurb, I had expected horror in space along the lines of S.A. Barnes. Unfortunately, there was nothing of the sort. No suspense, just setup and society blabla.
The characters don‘t communicate like real people and not talking with each other like grown-ups is used as a vehicle to cause drama to further the plot. I really dislike this in romance novels and I didn‘t like it any better here.
Not recommend for anybody who reads Science-Fiction regularly. This is like a bad version of a Star Trek ripoff meeting Titanic or Downton Abbey, with antiquated gender roles written from a very cis-male white perspective, without humour, good plotting or decent suspense.
I skimmed A LOT. Normally I would have DNFd this, but I wanted to know what happens. As a horror novel this fell just as flat. Don‘t waste your time with this. 🚀🚀
I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher or author through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.
My re-read one year later, this time as audio, after having listened to the audiobook of Fuzzy Nation (my GR review / my WordPress review) by John Scalzi. He calls his book “a reimagining of the story and events in Little Fuzzy“ in the introduction of his audiobook.
I enjoyed Fuzzy Nation, it‘s very entertaining and well done. But the original has a lot more depth and details. The plot is more complex. Yes, it‘s a little dated. And the imagined future is not all that imaginative. A slightly advanced lie-detector and some fancier flying machines is almost it. And Jack Holloway is a less interesting and developed character than in Fuzzy Nation. Still, I like the original better.
5/5 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
Review from 2022:
Jack is a prospector on a colony planet. One day a little bipedal fuzzy guy shows up in his camp. They become friends and Jack starts to wonder if the little guy is more than a very smart animal. Which would throw a very large wrench into the plans of The Big Bad Company with a majority interest in exploiting the natural resources of the presumably uninhabited planet.
The Fuzzies are very cute, the story is well plotted and has some shocking elements. Characters are well developed—even the lone female character, which this time around is an actual person with dialogue. Other than that we are still very much in the 1960s with classic gender stereotypes. Other than that the cast of characters is diverse. Bizarrely everybody seems to be smoking nonstop and people drink a lot of highballs. I honestly don‘t see why this is categorized as Young Adult.
Besides those idiosyncrasies I had a lot of fun and really liked the story. The prevailing theme of this novella (novel?) is the definition of sentience/sapience and to a smaller extent the rights of indigenous people. I can see why this was nominated for a Hugo in 1963.
I might continue with the sequels. John Scalzi wrote a reboot of this story, Fuzzy Nation. I might have a look at it to see what he made of this 50 years later. His version received an Audie Award in 2012, so the audiobook might be the way to go…
Scalzi calls this a “a reimagining of the story and events in Little Fuzzy, the 1962 Hugo-nominated novel by H. Beam Piper“ in the introduction of the audiobook.
The general story is still Jack Holloway as a prospector for a large mining corporation on the planet Zarathustra. He prospects for sunstones, the rarest precious stones of them all. It is very big business. One day he is visited by a little, fuzzy, bipedal creature. Eventually it dawns on him that this cute, catlike pet is smarter than expected.
I am pretty sure that Jack is a more complex character here than in the original—which I now have to re-read to kindle my memory—because he is kind of an asshole, looking for his own maximum gains and he really sucks at dealing with his ex. He is also pretty ambivalent at first about the potential sentience of the Fuzzies, as long as he can cut a deal for a lot of money.
The reboot characters also might have more depth and are better developed than in the original. There are definitely more women, more diverse characters and nobody smokes or knocks back Highballs all the time. Welcome to the 21st century!
I enjoyed the more elaborate court proceedings towards the end, but I am missing some of the action that I recall from the original (yep, reading it again). Nicely done. 🐱🐱🐱🐱
5/5 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱. It lingered on my shelf for four years and I was really glad to have finally picked it up.
Fuzzy Nation was fun, obviously more diverse and modern, but I also felt that it maybe was more streamlined towards being a predominately entertaining read. I was missing the environmental commentary and exploration of what it means to be sentient of the original story. To make sure that I wasn‘t imagining things, I decided to re-read the original. This time I went for the audiobook as well. I‘m in chapter one right now and it already feels quite different. Full, updated review to come!
It was ok. We are still dealing with the repercussions of the uprising against Tabini-aiji. Bren returns to his home at the coast, where he is reunited with Toby and Barb. Cajeiri runs off to be with Bren and Ilisidi follows. Rebels have infiltrated the neighbourhood and they all end up in another violent conflict.
A bit of a middle book, with a touch too much filler. Yes, there is the shooting and the kidnapping—very exciting!—, but the rest is a bit same-old-same-old. When will the aliens arrive?
One of the perks of this book are the relationships, not only between humans and Atevi, but also between those conservative, planetary Atevi and Cajeiri & the modern Atevi who have been in space.
“Above the airlock, in at least twenty different human and non-human languages, a faded sign read, Management Not Responsible For Losses Due to Depressurization or Alien Interference. Fergus Ferguson considered, not for the first time, whether the life choices that had brought him to this place had been entirely sound.”
first paragraph
Enjoyable caper/heist story. Some bad guy has stolen a mindship and Fergus is sent by the ship builders to find the ship and steal it back. His trip takes him to a conglomerate of human habitats surrounding a Dyson sphere* and a hodge-podge of humanity, post-humans, arms dealers, religious lunatics, asteroid miners and then some. With him he brings his own personal baggage. Shortly after jumping in-system, things start to seriously go wrong and from that moment onwards Fergus is on the run and trying to McGyver his way through a complicated and dangerous power struggle, while trying hard not to get attached to anybody. Oh yes, there are some mysterious aliens as well, looming in the background over everything. There is quite a lot of Depressurization or Alien Interference.
*reading some other reviews I am increasingly unsure about the Dyson sphere.
I enjoyed the beginning of this book very much. Great fun. The rest was good as well, but I started to slow down, struggling just slightly to keep up my initial enthusiasm. Well written, but I could have done with a slightly shorter book. Perhaps it was the pacing and maybe there was just one too many plot developments. Still, good book! Extra points for making me laugh.
Will I continue with the series? Probably not The book blurbs of the sequels did not really draw me in.
Above the airlock, in at least twenty different human and non-human languages, a faded sign read, Management Not Responsible For Losses Due to Depressurization or Alien Interference.
first sentence
I only read the first 20 pages last night, so I can‘t say much yet. But I like it a whole lot more than I did Revenger at that point.
Parts of the book blurb:
From Hugo Award-winning debut author Suzanne Palmer comes an action-packed sci-fi caper starring Fergus Ferguson, interstellar repo man and professional finder.
His latest job should be simple. Find the spacecraft Venetia’s Sword and steal it back from Arum Gilger, ex-nobleman turned power-hungry trade boss.
Fergus locates both Gilger and the ship in the farthest corner of human-inhabited space, a gas-giant-harvesting colony called Cernee. But Fergus’ arrival at the colony is anything but simple…
It doesn’t help that a dangerous alien species thought mythical prove unsettlingly real, and their ominous triangle ships keep following Fergus around.
Foolhardy. Eccentric. Reckless. Whatever he’s called, Fergus will need all the help he can get…
Obviously things don‘t go as planned and Fergus is in a lot of trouble right away… and I was entertained from the first page. Promising!
The beginning made me think of all those dystopian YA novels, where teenagers are trained brutally to fight for something or other and gain a better life for themselves or their family. Kyr has been trained as a super soldier all her life, together with her unit, all teenaged girls. The enemies have destroyed Earth and Gaea Station is the last bastion of humans fighting back. Society on the station is repressive, abusive and frankly horrible. Kyr‘s brother is sent on a mission that will kill him and she is given a future detail to endlessly bear children for the station, instead of fighting the enemy. She likes neither and decides to break out to save her brother.
There is a great twist to the linear storyline. Try to avoid spoilers. The concept of what the Wisdom can do was a great one. Mind-bending material, nicely done, great idea. I get why my reading buddies loved this.
There were parts of the story that I liked, mostly when the alien made an appearance, but overall the story did not grab me. It did take a while to get going, but really needed the set-up. It felt very YA, although it isn‘t. Kyr is self-centered and unlikeable, but a product of her upbringing. Some other characters showed glimpses of being interesting, but generally were pretty flat. The setting of Gaea Station with the forced pregnancies, the implied rapes, child abuse, etc.—none of this made me a fan of the story. I get that all of this is intentional and that I was supposed to struggle with the horribleness of it all, but it didn‘t make for an attractive read.
I liked the alien a lot. And the audio was well done. The ending is a hopeful one, but felt somewhat anticlimactic and left me with a „That was it?“ It was overly easy and did not deliver after the stronger middle part of the book. This really wasn’t for me, but I am still giving it three stars for the mind-bending scope. 🚀🚀🚀
“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.“ Head over there to link your TTT, if you take part!
August 8: Books I’ve Read/Want to Read Because of Top Ten Tuesday (books you discovered through Top Ten Tuesday, or they kept appearing in top tens and you got intrigued) (submitted by Ellie at Curiosity Killed the Bookworm)
I have to confess that I rarely find books through TTT. Not on purpose, it just hasn‘t happened. Book recommendations usually come through my reading buddies. And as I need frequent reminders of the things I add to my shelves, I will look at books I recently added to my want-to-read-shelf or TBR pile…
Let‘s start with a book that I only added to my shelf yesterday. My reading buddy had it on his July wrap-up list and apparently really liked it:
Isn‘t that a cool cover? It looks as if she has a tiny cat‘s head in her throat, but I think it‘s just a bunch of teeth. Why I added this novella?
A sensuous and strange horror novella full of creeping dread and delicious gore, twisting mermaid myths into something sharp, dangerous, and hungry, … they stumble across a village where children hunt each other for sport, sacrificing one of their own at the behest of three surgeons… To save the children from their fates, … the mermaid must embrace the darkest parts of her true nature.
The culprit in this case is the newsletter from Rebellion Publishing. They gave it away for 99 p, because….
The nominees for this year’s World Fantasy Awards have been announced and we’re beyond excited to share the news that Saint Death’s Daughter by C. S. E. Cooney is nominated for Best Novel!
The winners will be announced at the 2023 World Fantasy Convention, which is due to take place at the Sheraton Crown Center in Kansis City, MO from 26-29 October 2023.
It‘s a doorstopper and YA—so not me—but it involves a necromancer—that‘s more me—and one of my buddies said she would buddy read it…., so I jumped in regardless. We plan to read it in October….
I added this funny sounding book to my shelf, because one of my buddies wants to read it:
When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.
And another buddy recommended this as great medieval fiction:
Hild is the king’s youngest niece. She has the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world—of studying nature, of matching cause with effect, of observing human nature and predicting what will happen next—that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her. She establishes herself as the king’s seer. And she is indispensable—until she should ever lead the king astray. The stakes are life and death: for Hild, her family, her loved ones, and the increasing numbers who seek the protection of the strange girl who can read the world and see the future.
And I added this, because everybody seems to be reading it:
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.
On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra’s family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.
I mean… who can resist a demon-possessed chicken? 🐔
And another one that I added, because everybody is reading and recommending it:
In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots–fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They’re a family, hidden and safe.
Not sure, actually. I think I will have reached my robot-saturation-point soon!
And another one coming highly recommended by various reading buddies, something slightly older though:
In a distant future, no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. These are the offspring of humanity’s genius-animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings. The Fant are one such species: anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets.
Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. When the new baronet—his old lover—agrees to testify against Joss’s sister, Joss acts fast to stop him. Their reunion is anything but happy, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. Soon, all Joss and Gareth want is the chance to be together. But the bleak, bare Marsh holds deadly secrets. And when Gareth finds himself threatened from every side, the gentleman and the smuggler must trust one another not just with their hearts, but with their lives.
I actually have the first 7 books of the crime series on my shelf, handed over by my parents… The series has been adapted for German TV and has been translated into English as well. The first book starts in Berlin in 1929, I believe the last one is set in the late 1930s. So the series seems to give a good look into Germany between the two world wars. About time I got to this…
And last, but not least, we also dive into non-fiction and recommend stuff with dinosaurs and extinction events to each other…
For fans of Sapiens, Your Inner Fish, The Sixth Extinction, and I Contain Multitudes, a sweeping narrative scientific history—the only one of its kind—that tells the epic story of the dinosaurs, examining their origins, their habitats, their extinction, and their living legacy, from one of the most accomplished young paleontologists in the world today.
We are on a planet with a tentacled, slug-like, cute looking, intelligent, but short-lived species. One of them figures out that there is more to life than fetching rocks and growing algae… Unsurprisingly, our species is on their planet trying to enrich themselves. And our intelligent slug plays into the game of the humans by presumably bettering the lives of its own species.
28 pages, pretty short. 4/5 🐌🐌🐌🐌
A list of all six Far Reaches stories is here. For Amazon Prime members free as ebook or audio (at the moment).
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 