by
David Brin
ISBN: 0-553-10174-9 Order from: Amazon.com
This rushed conclusion to the (second) Uplift trilogy is filled with fantastic science, space opera-like and conspiracy theories.
Reviewed by David on August 26, 1998
Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera)
Synopsis: A conclusion to many (not all) storylines of the Uplift Universe, with the Terraclan human-dolphin ship Streaker, the planet Jijo, and countless civilizations of the Five Galaxies all fighting for advantage and survival.
Full Review:
David Brin has created a fascinating universe. A universe where sapient life, over almost 2 billion years, has "uplifted" others through genetic engineering, education, forced evolution and conditioning to sentience. Since the first, mythical Progenitors, every race in the five galaxies connected through hyperspace shortcuts has gone through the progression of animal, to client race, to an independent civilization, to being a patron of other primitive but promising sophonts. Only the Progenitors, half-forgotten but worshipped almost as gods, had developed the star-faring culture themselves.
Until the humans come along. Primitive, arrogant, clumsy, their slow and inefficient starships have stumbled upon the ancient civilizations of the connected galaxies, and claimed the "immaculate uplift"—evolution without assistance. Even worse, without knowing any better, they have manipulated the chimpanzees and the dolphins to increase their intelligence, in effect becoming a patron race without even serving the hundreds of thousands of years of cultural apprenticeship. Some of the older races are amused by the arrogance of the young wolfling race. Others see opportunities for manipulation and profit in the humans' naivete. Some are fanatically determined to destroy the race, for daring to claim the Progenitor's inheritance.
Brin's excellent novel Sundiver introduced this perilous but fascinating universe. The very good The Uplift War has continued the saga of the young Earthclan (humans, chims and dolphins) in the ancient and mostly hostile universe of the five galaxies.
Despite the subtitle ("The Final Book of the New Uplift Trilogy"), Heaven's Reach is actually the fourth book in the "Uplift Storm" series. There are also so many lose ends, that I suspect that "final" part is no more accurate.
This series started in Startide Rising, when an Earth ship crewed mostly by dolphins has stumbled upon ancient remains that may shed light upon the mysterious (and canonized) Progenitors, causing galaxy-wide struggle of religious crusaders, military imperialists and economic hegemonies. In the process, the ship, and the whole Earthclan are poised on the edge of destruction by the hostile aliens enormously more advanced and powerful than Earth or even her few Galactic allies.
In Brightness Reef the author introduced Jijo, a planet in the fourth galaxy illegally settled by several waves of beings, usually escaping from prosecution. The last wave, coming only a few centuries ago and wreaking the largest changes on the hiding society, were the humans. After millennia of fearing discovery by the implacable Immigration Institute, the fragile union of six species is endangered when powerful Galactics arrive on Jijo, prepared to rob and murder the illegal, low-tech colony. Their desperate struggle with the armed might of the great invaders gets an unexpected ally from a fugitive Earth ship—the Streaker, hiding in Jijo's ocean from the powerful enemies bent on capturing the dolphins' amazing discoveries. In Infinity's Shore, the crew of Streaker joins the fray. Having fought numerous battles, and leaving lovers and friends scattered through the universe—dead, injured or lost, the exhausted and confused crew continue their desperate struggle for survival, fulfilling the Earth's last order, before the fleets of fanatics blockaded the Solar System: make sure that the Progenitors' secrets are handed over to neutral authorities.
Heaven's Reach continues immediately after Infinity's Shore. It follows Streaker, as a few of Jijo's multi-cultural natives, dolphins, humans and chimps flee from the ever-more powerful enemies bent on seizing the Streaker's precious cargo. In the process, a space calamity more destructive than anything in the last 230 million years is threatening the existence of hyperspace—the fabric linking the five galaxies and allowing interstellar civilization.
Brin draws on a massive scale. He constantly switches viewpoints between at least a dozen characters, mostly of different species. There are aliens, hydrogen single-cell organisms, mysterious but well-meaning machines (not to mention mischievous computers), compound conical beings with split personalities (literally), cat-like client races, etc, etc. Not to mention the three Earth races.
There are powerful and malevolent aliens; even more powerful, seemingly apathetic but treacherous Old Ones; the legendary Harrower; the god-like and manipulative Transcendent races. The point of view shifts every couple of pages. Brin's great skill is that despite that, so many of the viewpoint characters are sympathetic and interesting. But even the skill of the author cannot save this novel from the discontinuity and the amazing welter of new inventions. New scientific curiosities pop up in every short chapter: new orders of beings, creatures of pure ideas; quantum beings; fractal Dyson spheres (Criswell structures); new hyper-space mathematics and distributed brain operation; impervious ship coverings and heat exhaust lasers. Some of these inventions are so implausible (hyper-space mice?) they seem more appropriate to a humorous book like The Practice Effect than a sequel to Sundiver.
The space opera has been gathering steam over the last few books, and has reached a pace too hard for the suspension of disbelief.
Another, common complaint, is the rather unconvincing behavior of developed races. The fruits of ancient civilization seem almost non-existent. The author states immense sophistication, but the actions show a curiously flattened space of intelligence and development.
While the humans, and most of the other Terrans are refreshingly rational (I rather like the Brin's invention of an efficient inter-species Terragens council), the more powerful races, like the religious fanatics, the Jophur, the Soros, etc. seem downright childish. Even more so, the Old Ones, with hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and able to calculate the future, behave in a cruel and inefficient way. Why can't a race like this design a simple high-gravity probe ship to check out their fears in the Embrace of Tides? Why seize an improbably lucky discovery of the Streaker and torture the primitive Terrans in the slim hope that their cargo has the answers apparently unknown (and unsought!) for 2 billion years? It is also puzzling that all old races seem to be addicted to the high gravity environments: the higher the better. In fact, they seem more like lemming than ultra-powerful Retired Clans. Even of there was a conspiracy to design the sentient life for such addiction, if the twentieth century science is close to mapping a human genome, surely at least some of the million-year old cultures would figure out such programming in their own bodies and correct it? The same goes for the apparent programming for unification of different orders of life.
Worst of all, the god-like Transcendent race, guarding the entrance to the deep gravity wells should be able to send its own probes of much higher sophistication than the poor Earth ship. A ship, furthermore, that just fortuitously fell into their "hands" at the last possible moment. If nothing else, a race that has been around for 230 million years could easily manufacture a few trillion automated, self-replicating ships and send them at high sublight speed toward distant galaxies instead of sacrificing needlessly trillions of retired sapients. Instead, in a massive conspiracy, they exert their hidden influence to suppress discovery of basic hyperspace mechanics.
In another implausible episode, Streaker takes part in a battle with Transcendent defense cover. If the Transcendent Order is really advanced, Streaker should have been completely invulnerable. On the other hand, if the defense system had been poor, the hostile Galactic fleets should have easily vaporized the primitive Earth ship. Instead, Streaker and her crew survived by the skin of their teeth. Such perfect matching of offense and defense may be possible in a single-race war, but utterly unbelievable when the weapons come from cultures differing in sophistication by many orders of magnitude.
The novel is full of ever older and more powerful beings behaving just like the previous set of enemies.
This is a frustratingly flawed novel from a very skilled and articulate author. The Uplift Universe, fascinating in concept, has been getting more complicated and less coherent with each successive book, and even at the end of this one, there are too many unanswered questions. Perhaps it is time for Mr. Brin to turn his talents to other creations.
Universe: Uplift Universe
Overall: 5.5; Plot: 4; Characters: 6; Style: 5.5; World-building: 6; Originality: 6;
Copyright date 1998, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group (Bantam Spectra), June 1998, Cloth, 447 pages
ISBN: 0-553-10174-9 Order from: Amazon.com