This has to be one of my all-time favourite books. Well-written from many viewpoints (both alien and 'earth origin', incredible depth to the story, tense, at the edge of your seat with action for action junkies (myself included!). I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the previous, Startide Rising, and would recommend it to any readers. ( )

The Uplift War - David Brin

The senior races which make up Galactic civilization are engaged in a dangerous struggle for power, which is accumulated by becoming patrons of client races, uplifting them to sentience and thereafter binding them in servitude for many thousands of years before permitting them to exist in their own right. Some of these senior patron races are highly displeased when human 'wolflings' appear on the scene and in no time at all acquire two clients of their own, dolphins and chimpanzees. To make matters worse, these upstart humans apparently bootstrapped themselves into sentience, something which is considered impossible by all Galactic races.

The title of the book may lead some to imagine that this is a work of military science fiction, but that would be an incorrect assumption. So, what war is referred to here? Firstly, there is the general warring between the Galactics for status and the right to uplift other races, and then there is the specific war which becomes the focus of this story. This is the conflict between the avian Gubru and humans who have been granted a charter to care for the ecology of a backwater planet named Garth. The Gubru intend to employ superior military force and their detailed knowledge of Galactic Law to demonstrate that humans are not qualified to serve as a patron race to the sentient chimps, and they are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to take those clients and the planet Garth away from mankind. So, while it is true that certain battles are described in some detail, the overall emphasis is always on the process and implications of Uplift rather than on military technology and strategy.

One of the strengths of Startide Rising and its sequel The Uplift War is the outstanding quality of David Brin’s world-building. Each alien race has its own rich culture, thought patterns and foibles. They all find it almost impossible to comprehend one another. One of the few alien civilizations which is openly friendly to humanity is that of the Tymbrimi, who are known for their highly-developed and rather wicked sense of humor. And since the narrative alternates between several protagonists, we get to view what is happening through alien eyes, as well as through those of humans and uplifted chimps.

A reader expecting this book to answer the questions raised in Startide Rising regarding the Dolphin starship Streaker and the ancient derelict fleet it discovered may well feel somewhat disappointed. I think it is natural to hope that a sequel would provide more information on the mythical progenitors, which patron race originally uplifted humanity, and why they disappeared. However, David Brin fails to do the obvious by satisfying the reader's curiosity on those points, and perhaps this in a sense makes the story more realistic.

There is a lot of science in this book, and some of the fields drawn on include linguistics, biology, chemistry, and environmental science. Although it certainly contains many fantastic elements, The Uplift War can still be considered hard science fiction because many of the plot drivers involve plausible scientific and technological developments.

One main theme seems to be this: In the same way that humans consider themselves vastly superior to animals, the Galactic patron races consider themselves infinitely more advanced than humans and client races. However, throughout The Uplift War, we see that all walk a fine line between rational behavior on the one hand and purely instinctive responses to situations on the other. In Startide Rising, we saw how the senior patron races of the Soro and the Tandu frequently act in vicious and animalistic ways, and how many of these Galactics are tainted by religious fanaticism. Now, in the sequel we see how the Gubru are almost completely bound by convention, ritual and genetic programming. Readers can draw their own conclusions from this, but what the author intended is hinted at in a postscript at the end of the book.







( )

This is my review of David Brin’s ‘The Uplift War’, the third entry in his Uplift Universe series. The story itself is also copyrighted 1987 as well. Although it didn’t quite manage the triple crown winning streak of its predecessor, ‘Startide Rising’, being nominated for, but not winning, the 1987 Nebula award, it did win the 1988 Hugo and Locus Awards, and slightly less importantly, is my favourite book in the series. In terms of genre, like its immediate predecessor, Startide Rising, this is military science fiction, and unlike the earlier book, it doesn’t have as much of the philosophical musings, and there is more active combat. Still, quite a lot of the combat still takes place off screen – and particularly the bloodshed.
Like ‘Startide Rising’, this book is broken down into various sections, and told from multiple points of view. Unlike the earlier book, though, this book actually has chapters from the Gubru and other alien points of view, including our first Tymbrimi, the father/daughter combination Uthacalthing and Athaclena. The various sections are broken down into the Prelude, which is entirely told from the Gubru’s point of view and gives us a brief introduction to both the reasons behind the invasion and the Gubru themselves. The official part one is subtitled Invasion and introduces us to some of the leading characters on the Earth Clan side of the invasion including one of the leading chims, Fiben Bolger who is a member of the planetary defence forces and Ambassador Uthacalthing, who is considered rather a joker by the more sober members of the diplomatic representatives on Garth, most of whom are running away from the soon to be invested planet. As the title of the section suggests, it deals with the initial arrival of the Gubru and their landing on the planet, plus a bit of exploration of the interaction between Athaclena and Robert Oneagle, the son of the planetary administrator, at this stage, a rather tentative ‘getting to know you, oh my, how strange they are!’ kind of interaction and this has the potential of all sorts of misunderstandings to liven things up. We also learn that the rather abortive attempts of Earth Clan to defend their colony forces the head of the priestly faction of the Gubru occupation forces to maintain a nominal separation from the planet’s surface – it had vowed not to touch Garth’s surface until opposition had come to an end.
As Part 2, Patriots, opens, the Gubru are more-or-less in charge of the planet and they reckon they’ve taken the planet, but they’re not versed in wolfling psychology, being more used to dealing with the highly stylised undertakings of the galactic Great Clans, so fail to take into account the growing guerrilla operations in the countryside, though it’s quite amusing to read the passages where those guerrillas work out why the Gubru military forces are able to track the guerrillas when they make their strikes, and the understanding of the time scales on which their opponents have been operating – although it’s clear that Garth has been designated a target in the prelude, we don’t have any idea how long before the opening shots this is.
Part 3. Garthlings, focuses quite often on both Uthacalthing, and his companion in exile, Kraut, who’s a Thennanin, supposedly one oh Earth Clan’s enemies, as they track through the swampy wastes. Thanks to a bodged colonisation attempt many eons previously by a supposedly properly Uplifted species, Garth has no lifeforms bigger than domestic cats, and Uthacalthing has planned a jest on Kault to pretend that a larger, near-sentient species had survived this winnowing. Thennanin are known as one of the more serious races in the Five Galaxies, though, and Kault is proving resistant to these carefully planted clues. The Gubru prove more credulous and launch mission after mission to hunt down this mythical species – all patron races are driven by the need for more clients, after all. Except Earth Clan, who are barred from uplifting more proto-sapients from Earth. Both Athaclena and Robert begin growing up and find that a form of love can cross species boundaries.
Throughout the book, much gets made of the problems raised by the process of uplift, that leave a lot of chims that miss out on the benefits of Uplift by what they see as marginal points, in a position to be exploited by the occupation forces. Fiben and the leader of the urban guerrillas find this out first-hand as they are treated to the probies’ ideas of hospitality after the urban operations were completely routed. Poor old Fiben is treated as the character who gets most of the bad stuff dumped on him,, and as a rather comedic character, but he does get to come good at the end of the story. Part 4, Traitors covers much of Fiben and Gailet’s imprisonment, but Robert and Athaclena also find they have some decisions to make that wouldn’t necessarily find favour with their supposed superiors. Throughout the various sections, there is trouble in the Gubru high command. Always a balancing of power and policies between the three leaders, an emerging consensus was broken when the original Suzerain of Cost and Caution – effectively the accountants and bureaucrats boss – was killed in a terrorist attack. For a while Beam and Talon gained the ascendancy, but the balance gradually tips towards Propriety, though this ascendancy may not give answers to the questions the Gubru wanted answering. It’s also in this section, we get to see the power of the Institute of Uplift as they enforce a ceasefire on the warring groups.
Parts 5 and 6 see things coming to a head in both the Gubru and guerrilla camps and, as is often the case when a society is willing to pay the cost, the high tech Gubru roll up the guerrilla forces until Athaclena, now in firm command of the guerrillas, decides that a principled Last Stand is their best option, and it looks bleak for Earth clan until the madness of the Suzerain of Beam and Talon led to his execution by his Second in Command saving the insurgents. Back in the capital, the Gubru Uplift ceremony for the chimps led to an explosive climax as the Gubru backed Irongrip fights for his position against our hero Fiben. However, in probably the most mystical part of the book, the partially uplifted gorillas sense something going on and make their own march on Port Helena and the Uplift Mound to bring an unexpected ally to Earth Clan and their Tymbrimi allies.
The final parts of the book do get a bit airy fairy, but it’s basically well grounded in the physical realities of its universe. This is probably the place to wonder, as well, whether this desire to fiddle with the genetics of a species is something that will ever come to pass or is just something that was part of Brin’s hopes for the future. Certainly, even basic genetic modification of food crops is something that’s not thought of as A Good Thing currently so I can’t see messing about with the genetics of other species considerably ‘cuddlier’ than wheat or maize ever being acceptable. ( )

(see "Startide Rising")

David Brin just keeps becoming a better and better writer.

The Uplift War is the third novel of the first Uplift trilogy. It follows the invasion of the planet Garth by the avian Gubru, who seek to hold humans hostage to find more information about the NeoFins and the discovery of the Streaker

The plot is solid. Told from multiple perspectives, both antagonists and protagonists alive, the story unfolds as a wonderful web of relationships and politics. There are multiple twists and surprises. The only issue I had with it was pacing: the middle dragged a bit and the climax came and went very fast, which I felt lessened the impact of it.

Like with the other books, the non-human characters are the most fleshed out, layered, and compelling. The NeoChimps were a blast to read, particularly Fiben, and had full arcs in the story. The enigmatic Tymbrimi, fox-like humanoids with psychic face tentacles, felt a little flat. The Gubru were the most alien of the Galactics. The bits of the story from their perspective were a bit challenging as they used no names, just long, similar titles. Their politics, relationships, and viewpoints shifted a lot over the course of the novel, and working out how this impacted the Garth invasion (and the character's gender development) was a bit like a Sudoku puzzle.

This novel does not stand alone as well as Sundiver and Startide Rising. This is not bad, it just means one needs to commit a little to the series before diving into this novel. Overall, this felt like a solid installment for the series.

TL;DR: Despite some pacing issues, this book is a solid installment of the series, a worthy use of time for Uplift fans, and evidence that Brin's writing chops continue to improve. ( )