"Brightness Reef" by David Brin is the first book of his second Uplift trilogy. I give it a definite +, and will get a hold of "Infinity's Shore," the next one in line.
You don't really have to know anything about the first trilogy or Brin's Uplift Universe to appreciate Brightness Reef. (I know, because I enjoyed BR, and I read the previous trilogy so long ago t hat I don't really remember the details!)
For the uninitiated, Brin's Uplift Universe is fascinating. In this Universe, intelligence doesn't just evolve. It is common for Darwinian evolution to proceed as usual on many planets, until the creatures evolve to the point of "pre-sentience," when they are about at the level of apes, chimps, or dolphins. To make that final leap to being a language-using, starfaring race, they must be "uplifted" by an intelligent race that is already part of the starfaring community. The terminology is that "patrons" uplife "clients." The first time it happened was a billion years ago, when the Progenitors first started uplifting promising pre-sentient races across many Galaxies.
The process of uplifting involves both training and genetic manipulation until the client species is of sufficient intelligence and culture to start functioning on its own in the starfaring community. Patron races get to play god in making clients resemble themselves in some cultural/physical traits, but they are also responsible for some of the actions of their clients, like parents are partially responsible for what their children do.
This creates a complex web of "families" in the Five Galaxies-- who has uplifted whom, what lineage they come from, etc. Status is gained by seniority and by uplifting younger races. Ie, a client race becomes fully "adult" when they continue the cycle by uplifting another race.
Humans, of course, screw everything up. They appear to have achieved sentience all by themselves!! Shocking!! Unheard of!! They are known as the "wolfling" race, and have low status even though they have gone on to uplift chimps and dolphins since joining the starfaring community. That was largely the subject of the first trilogy.
BR is about a backwater planet that has been set aside by the races of the Five Galaxies for future settlement, sort of like leaving a field fallow. It used to be occupied by the Buyur, an advanced starfaring race, but they abandoned it, destroying all their technology, in order for it to regenerate a bit. That was many thousands of years ago. It is illegal for anyone to be living there in the meantime.
However, there is a small colony squatting there. It consists of six diverse races, who all came on separate ships at various times, fleeing persecution or otherwise trying to escape life in the Five Galaxies (they each have their own reasons, and some are lost in history, and some are lying, and it's all very complex). For whatever reason, each of the Six has chosen to sink their starship in the sea in order to avoid detection, choosing a simpler life in a limited region so as to minimize ecological impact.
It's hard to describe this in just a few paragraphs. There is a deeply contradictory philosophy going on in these people's minds. They know they are criminals for living on the fallow planet, and if they are caught, they are in Big Trouble. So they want to avoid being seen by the inevitable scout ships that come now and then.
But they still have some deep hope of flying among the stars again-- perhaps their distant children will get that chance. So there has arisen a complex religious doctrine called The Path of Redemption, which involves giving up everything relating to starfaring, returning to a simpler state (literally! like giving up langauge and tool use), and hoping to be uplifted again by some superior race. There is a strong feeling of having failed their patrons by living as sooners, and yet, they have hope of arising again (with help, of course. Remember that no one believes you can get to the stars on your own!).
And yet, they must survive. They must learn and adapt on this planet, and have children to continue along The Path of Redemption. So there is this weird contradictory philosphy of working toward a future of devolution, not advancement. Surviving, but minimizing ecological impact.
The history is similarly complex. There have been wars, but now they have achieved The Great Peace. There are many religious factions that argue about how to achieve redemption. There are heretics and radicals and fanatics.
As if that weren't complicated enough, everything gets torn asunder when.... a ship arrives. The religious scrolls they live by tell of Judgment Day, when the starfarers will arrive and judge how well they have followed The Path of Redemption. Or maybe it's a scout ship, and they ought to set off all the dynamite that they keep around to destroy their houses and dams and tools in case of emergency.
What to do? I'll let you read the book and find out....
My only objection is that Brin doens't finish the book! He's always written "stand-alone" books in the past, even when they were part of a larger series. But this one just ends, almost arbitrarily. It's right in the middle of several exciting threads! He clearly just decided to stop.
Now I have to read the next one before I forget what's going on (but of course, I'm going to get distracted). grump. Anyway, it's a +.
Copyright © Kim Allen 2000
