Ocean of Fire

A few months back I bought the first 3 of The Uplift Series by David Bryn. I reviewed The Postman a while back by Brin as well. In fact The Uplift Series is why I bought Postman. The store didn’t have the Uplift Series, so I bought TP, so I would remember his name. Later I found the first 3 books, and while reading this one I went ahead and purchased the next three. That probably tells you a fair amount about Sundiver already. Well if you want to know more I’ll probably ramble on about it some.

I don’t consider this next part to be spoilers, because I knew it ahead of time myself.

Sundiver takes place several centuries into the future. The world and world politics have changed quite a bit by then. Man has taken to the stars and has made great strides in technology and stewardship of the Earth. One of the biggest changes is that Man knows he is no longer alone in the galaxy. When we went out, we made contact with peoples that told us of a galactic consortium of sorts. Really it’s a series of organizations that are supposed to keep everything somewhat orderly. Much of the interactions of the different sophonts in the galaxy are governed by a hierarchy of, essentially, prestige. Prestige based on lineage and accomplishment.

And that is where the problem lies. Humanity doesn’t fit into the system very well at all. All the races in known existence were raised to sentience with the help of an already advanced, patron, race. Well that is everyone except these upstart Humans. But even that is suspect. All the galactic knowledge and activities are stored in The Library. The galactics can’t fathom that a race achieved intelligence through evolution, because their great Library says it has never happened in hundreds of millions of years if not longer. All of the races that have popped up unexpectedly turn out to have been abandoned by a patron race, something that is frowned upon. The Library has always found an origin for them. That is until humanity stood up and said, “Hi.” The Library has no clue as to where we came from. The galactics can’t fathom our origin, and don’t know what to make of us in the order of the galaxy. Humanity has done a lot of things in its past that the galactics frown upon and normally the patron race would not have let happen, or the patron race would have been punished along with the new race. But humans had no guidance in this. In fact much of the damage we did to our own planet, especially extinctions of potential sophont species, would have been grounds for summary extermination, but for one saving grace we were essentially put under observation. Humanity had already begun raising two species, chimpanzees and dolphins to sentience before contact was made. In fact Sundiver has an intelligent chimp as one of the ship pilots. That fact threw a very large wrench into where this wolfling race of humans sat in the grand order of galactic politics. And lots of people don’t like wrenches in their systems of order.

This part has a bit of a spoiler to it.

Anyway, that’s a good background for the book. The actual book itself turned out to be different from what I was expecting. The whole galactic political situation unfolds as a backdrop and driving force behind what is essentially a mystery novel. A brilliant but troubled human named Jacob is asked by his alien plant based friend Fagin to assist him in looking into something. Jacob reluctantly is drawn into an affair that entwines murder, science, interstellar political maneuvering, and the fate of two peoples around the discovery of something the great Library has no record of. Life has been discovered on our sun.

And you know what? I liked it. I’ve never really read any honest to goodness plain old mystery novels. I’ve thought about it, and would probably like them given the TV shows I like to watch. But I really liked this one. And it does an excellent job of introducing politics and humanity’s place in the galaxy. I understand the rest aren’t like that. Oh well, but I’m still looking forward to reading the other 5 books.