Books by David Brin
Born: 10/06/1950David Brin Biography & Notes
Glen David Brin is a well known American author of science fiction. He is the winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He lives in Southern California and has been both a NASA consultant and a physics professor.
Science Fiction authors are often best-known for their keynote "universe" stories and novels, that share a common projected future history. Although they make up a minority of David Brin's works, his Uplift series has won a large core following in the SF community, twice winning the international Science Fiction Achievement Award (Hugo Award) in the Best Novel category. Consisting of two trilogies that include SUNDIVER, STARTIDE RISING and THE UPLIFT WAR, this future history depicts a huge galactic civilization responsible for "uplifting" all known intelligent forms of oxygen breathing life. In these novels humanity is an anomaly since there is no known "patron" species responsible for their uplift from animal pre-sapience -- though, ironically, they independently have done the uplift "favor" already to dolphins and chimpanzees. As relatively un-educated upstarts humans therefore have limited understanding and appreciation of the subtleties of galactic culture.
The Uplift Series
* Sundiver (1980)
* Startide Rising (1983)
* The Uplift War (1987)
* The Uplift Storm Trilogy:
o Brightness Reef (1995)
o Infinity's Shore (1996)
o Heaven's Reach (1998)
* Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe written with Kevin Lenagh
* There is also an Uplift supplement for the roleplaying game GURPS allowing players to play out adventures in the universe detailed in these novels. Although he did not write it, he did contribute information to it.
Other well-known works by David Brin include his book that completes and ties up all of the loose ends in the legendary Asimov's Foundation Universe:
* Foundation's Triumph (1999)
and his stand alone novels:
* The Practice Effect (1984)
* The Postman (1985) (Filmed by Kevin Costner as a major motion picture with disappointing box-office numbers; Brin has spoken kindly of the film, a generosity shown by few of his fans, who found it deeply disappointing.)
* Heart of the Comet (1986) (with Gregory Benford)
* Earth (1990) (Hugo Award 2nd place)
* Glory Season (1993)
* Kiln People (2002)
o Kiln People (published in the UK as Kil'n People) had the dubious distinction of finishing second in four different awards for best SF/fantasy novel of 2002--the Hugo, the Locus, the John W. Campbell Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award--each time finishing behind a different book.
* Forgiveness (2002) (Graphic novel set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe)
* The Life Eaters (2003) (Graphic novel published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics, art by Scott Hampton)
His short fiction has been collected in:
* The River of Time (1986)
* Otherness (1994)
* Tomorrow Happens (2003)
Brin wrote the storyline for Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.
Several of his novels refer to the fictional Anglic language, a future variety of English.
Brin also wrote a number of critical articles on Star Wars and George Lucas for the website salon.com here. Brin focused on what he called an "agenda" on the part of Lucas, describing how he believed the basis of the Star Wars universe was profoundly anti-democratic. These essays inspired a debate-format book: STAR WARS ON TRIAL which entertainingly clashed "defense vs prosecution" testimony covering a dozen political and philosophical and storytelling charges against the Star Wars Universe.
Brin's work focuses on a number of themes common to contemporary North American science-fiction literature. Speaking of Brin's 'original' works (works not set into pre-existing series or "universes"), his primary focus is the impact on human society of technology man develops for himself. This is obviously most noticeable in The Practice Effect, Glory Season and Kiln People. His Uplift collection, while embracing a wide set of concerns, can also be so characterized: ultimately, the story of the series is Humanity's re-ordering and reconception of the universe through the genetic engineering of dolphins and chimpanzees to sentience.
Also interesting to note is the impact of Brin's Jewish heritage - especially, the concept of Tikkun Olam - "repairing the world" - the notion that persons have a duty to make the world a better place to live in. While originally a religious concept, Brin, like many non-orthodox Jews, has reconfigured this into a secular notion of working, as one can, to aid the general status of the human condition, increase knowledge, and to prevent long-term evils from occurring. Brin has confirmed that this notion in part underscores the notion of humans as "caretakers" of sentient-species-yet-to-be, as he explains in a concluding note at the end of Startide Rising. Another interesting motif is the importance of laws and legality in many of his novels, whether intergalactic law in the Uplift series or the more mundane law of near-future California in Kiln People.
Unlike some sf writers who revel in the extremity of their imagined human societies, while Brin's novels feature profound, fundamental changes to the human condition (wrought by technology change and various events), these changes are always mediated by an intrinsic human instinct towards moderation. In short, these are different worlds but ones where the basic subjectivity of human experience, belief and rationality are easily recognizable as those that have governed most of the liberal West since the Enlightenment.
Science Fiction authors are often best-known for their keynote "universe" stories and novels, that share a common projected future history. Although they make up a minority of David Brin's works, his Uplift series has won a large core following in the SF community, twice winning the international Science Fiction Achievement Award (Hugo Award) in the Best Novel category. Consisting of two trilogies that include SUNDIVER, STARTIDE RISING and THE UPLIFT WAR, this future history depicts a huge galactic civilization responsible for "uplifting" all known intelligent forms of oxygen breathing life. In these novels humanity is an anomaly since there is no known "patron" species responsible for their uplift from animal pre-sapience -- though, ironically, they independently have done the uplift "favor" already to dolphins and chimpanzees. As relatively un-educated upstarts humans therefore have limited understanding and appreciation of the subtleties of galactic culture.
The Uplift Series
* Sundiver (1980)
* Startide Rising (1983)
* The Uplift War (1987)
* The Uplift Storm Trilogy:
o Brightness Reef (1995)
o Infinity's Shore (1996)
o Heaven's Reach (1998)
* Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe written with Kevin Lenagh
* There is also an Uplift supplement for the roleplaying game GURPS allowing players to play out adventures in the universe detailed in these novels. Although he did not write it, he did contribute information to it.
Other well-known works by David Brin include his book that completes and ties up all of the loose ends in the legendary Asimov's Foundation Universe:
* Foundation's Triumph (1999)
and his stand alone novels:
* The Practice Effect (1984)
* The Postman (1985) (Filmed by Kevin Costner as a major motion picture with disappointing box-office numbers; Brin has spoken kindly of the film, a generosity shown by few of his fans, who found it deeply disappointing.)
* Heart of the Comet (1986) (with Gregory Benford)
* Earth (1990) (Hugo Award 2nd place)
* Glory Season (1993)
* Kiln People (2002)
o Kiln People (published in the UK as Kil'n People) had the dubious distinction of finishing second in four different awards for best SF/fantasy novel of 2002--the Hugo, the Locus, the John W. Campbell Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award--each time finishing behind a different book.
* Forgiveness (2002) (Graphic novel set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe)
* The Life Eaters (2003) (Graphic novel published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics, art by Scott Hampton)
His short fiction has been collected in:
* The River of Time (1986)
* Otherness (1994)
* Tomorrow Happens (2003)
Brin wrote the storyline for Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.
Several of his novels refer to the fictional Anglic language, a future variety of English.
Brin also wrote a number of critical articles on Star Wars and George Lucas for the website salon.com here. Brin focused on what he called an "agenda" on the part of Lucas, describing how he believed the basis of the Star Wars universe was profoundly anti-democratic. These essays inspired a debate-format book: STAR WARS ON TRIAL which entertainingly clashed "defense vs prosecution" testimony covering a dozen political and philosophical and storytelling charges against the Star Wars Universe.
Brin's work focuses on a number of themes common to contemporary North American science-fiction literature. Speaking of Brin's 'original' works (works not set into pre-existing series or "universes"), his primary focus is the impact on human society of technology man develops for himself. This is obviously most noticeable in The Practice Effect, Glory Season and Kiln People. His Uplift collection, while embracing a wide set of concerns, can also be so characterized: ultimately, the story of the series is Humanity's re-ordering and reconception of the universe through the genetic engineering of dolphins and chimpanzees to sentience.
Also interesting to note is the impact of Brin's Jewish heritage - especially, the concept of Tikkun Olam - "repairing the world" - the notion that persons have a duty to make the world a better place to live in. While originally a religious concept, Brin, like many non-orthodox Jews, has reconfigured this into a secular notion of working, as one can, to aid the general status of the human condition, increase knowledge, and to prevent long-term evils from occurring. Brin has confirmed that this notion in part underscores the notion of humans as "caretakers" of sentient-species-yet-to-be, as he explains in a concluding note at the end of Startide Rising. Another interesting motif is the importance of laws and legality in many of his novels, whether intergalactic law in the Uplift series or the more mundane law of near-future California in Kiln People.
Unlike some sf writers who revel in the extremity of their imagined human societies, while Brin's novels feature profound, fundamental changes to the human condition (wrought by technology change and various events), these changes are always mediated by an intrinsic human instinct towards moderation. In short, these are different worlds but ones where the basic subjectivity of human experience, belief and rationality are easily recognizable as those that have governed most of the liberal West since the Enlightenment.
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The Age of Wonders Tales from the Near Future by David Brin ( 2000) |
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Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, David Brin ( 2005) The classic apocalyptic novel that stunned the world. |
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Beyond Thirty by Edgar Rice Burroughs ( 2001) |
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Brightness Reef by David Brin ( 1996)
David Brin's Uplift novels--Sundiver, Hugo award winner The Uplift War, and Hugo and Nebula winner Startide Rising--are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction tales ever written. Now David Brin returns to this future universe for a new Uplift trilogy, packed with adventure, passion and wit.The planet Jijo is forbidden to settlers, its ecology protected by guardians of the Five Galaxies. But over the centuries it has been resettled, populated by refugees of six intelligent races. Together they have woven a new society in the wilderness, drawn together by their fear of Judgment Day, when the Five Galaxies will discover their illegal colony. Then a strange starship arrives on Jijo. Does it bring the long-dreaded judgment, or worse--a band of criminals willing to destroy the six races of Jijo in order to cover their own crimes?
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Contacting Aliens An Illustrated Guide to David Brin's Uplift Universe by David Brin, Kevin Lenagh ( 2002)
A richly illustrated compendium of information about the complex worlds captured in Brin's Nebula and Hugo Award-winning novels about the Uplift universe, depicting the various alien races that populate the series, including the reptilian Soro, the avian Gubru, and the mysterious Kanten. Original.
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Earth by David Brin ( 1991)
The long-awaited new novel by the award-winning, bestselling author of Startide Rising and The Uplift War--an epic novel set fifty years from tomorrow, a carefully-reasoned, scientifically faithful tale of the fate of our world. "One hell of a novel . . . has what sci-fi readers want these days; intelligence, action, and an epic scale".--Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Line drawings.
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Earthclan by David Brin ( 1986)
An omnibus of the first two books of the acclaimed "Uplift" series, "Sundiver" and "Startide Rising".
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Extraterrestrial Civilization by David Brin, Thomas Kuiper ( 1989) |
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Foundations Triumph by David Brin ( 2000)
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Glory Season by David Brin ( 1996)
Hugo and Nebula award-winning author David Brin is one of the most eloquent, imaginative voices in science fiction. Now he returns with a new novel rich in texture, universal in theme, monumental in scope--pushing the genre to new heights.Young Maia is fast approaching a turning point in her life. As a half-caste var, she must leave the clan home of her privileged half sisters and seek her fortune in the world. With her twin sister, Leie, she searches the docks of Port Sanger for an apprenticeship aboard the vessels that sail the trade routes of the Stratoin oceans.On her far-reaching, perilous journey of discovery, Maia will endure hardship and hunger, imprisonment and loneliness, bloody battles with pirates and separation from her twin. And along the way, she will meet a traveler who has come an unimaginable distance--and who threatens the delicate balance of the Stratoins' carefully maintained, perfect society....Both exciting and insightful, Glory Season is a major novel, a transcendent saga of the human spirit.
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Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford ( 1995) |
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Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford, David Brin ( 1986)
In the middle of the twenty-first century, the multinational crew of scientists stationed on Halley's Comet set aside personal prejudices and unite to survive in the bleak, ice-covered environment and transform it into a source of life.
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Heaven's Reach The Final Book of the Uplift Trilogy by David Brin ( 1999)
Fans of David Brin have come to know the planet Jijo--a nightmarish world ruled by criminals and warmongers. Now, a small band of pilgrims and adventurers have escaped, chased into the inhabited universe. But these newcomers suddenly realize that the fate of galaxies rests on their narrow shoulders, as they are the guardians of a billion-year-old secret that could change the course of civilization.
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Infinity's Shore Book Two by David Brin ( 1997)
Nebula and Hugo award-winning author David Brin continues his bestselling Uplift series in this second novel of a bold new trilogy. Imaginative, inventive, and filled with Brins trademark mix of adventure, passion, and wit, Infinity's Shore carries us further than ever before into the heart of the most beloved and extraordinary science fiction sagas ever written.For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must make heroic--and terrifying--choices. A scientist must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventure--imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain--leads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge. Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies first spawned intelligence--a secret that could mean salvation for the planet and its inhabitants...or their ultimate annihilation.
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Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne ( 2003)
The intrepid Professor Lindenbrock embarks upon the strangest expedition of the nineteenth century: a journey down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the Earth’s very core. In his quest to penetrate the planet’s primordial secrets, the geologist—together with his quaking nephew Axel and their devoted guide, Hans—discovers an astonishing subterranean menagerie of prehistoric proportions. Verne’s imaginative tale is at once the ultimate science fiction adventure and a reflection on the perfectibility of human understanding and the psychology of the questor. As David Brin notes in his Introduction, though Verne never knew the term “science fiction,” Journey to the Centre of the Earth is “inarguably one of the wellsprings from which it all began.”
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King Kong Is Back! by David Brin ( 2005) |
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The Life Eaters by David Brin, Scott Hampton ( 2003) |
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The Life Eaters by David Brin ( 2004) |
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Murasaki by Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford ( 1993)
Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Frederik Pohl, and other masters of the genre collaborate on a novel in which human explorers enter into the battle between the planets Genji and Chujo. Reprint. NYT.
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Otherness Collected Stories by a Modern Master of Science Fiction by David Brin ( 1994)
From multiple award-winning author David Brin comes this extraordinary collection of tales and essays of the near and distant future, as humans and aliens encounter the secrets of the cosmos--and of their own existence. In "Dr. Pak's Preschool" a woman discovers that her baby has been called upon to work while still in the womb. In "NatuLife" a married couple finds their relationship threatened by the wonders of sex by simulation. In "Sshhh . . . " the arrival of benevolent aliens on Earth leads to frenzy, madness . . . and unimaginable joy. In "Bubbles" a sentient starcraft reaches the limits of the universe--and dares to go beyond. These are but a few of the challenging speculations in Otherness, from the pen of an author whose urgent and compelling imaginative fiction challenges us to wonder at the shape and the nature of the universe--as well as at its future.
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The Postman by David Brin ( 1990)
This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brins The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, from a modern master of science fiction.He was a survivor--a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter's day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect himself from the cold. The old, worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope, and with it he begins to weave his greatest tale, of a nation on the road to recovery.
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The Practice Effect by David Brin ( 1997)
Dennis Nuel, a physicist, travels to an anomoly world, where the laws of science are unpredictable, via the zievatron in order to find out what is wrong with the device's return mechanism.
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The River of Time by David Brin ( 1987)
Eleven stories deal with a team searching for extraterrestrials, a strange epidemic, parallel worlds, space exploration, a memory drug, androids, and a man hunted by aliens.
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The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner ( 2003)
An enduring classic, this book offers a dramatic and prophetic look at the potential consequences of the escalating destruction of Earth. In this nightmare society, air pollution is so bad that gas masks are commonplace. Infant mortality is up, and everyone seems to suffer from some form of ailment. The water is polluted, and only the poor drink from the tap. The government is ineffectual, and corporate interests scramble to make a profit from water purifiers, gas masks, and organic foods. Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The Trainites, environmental activists and sometime terrorists, want him to lead their movement. The government wants him in jail, or preferably, executed. The media wants a circus. Everyone has a plan for Train, but Train has a plan of his own. This suspenseful science fiction drama is now available to a new generation of enthusiasts.
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Sky Horizon by David Brin ( 2007) |
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Star Trek the Next Generation Forgiveness by David Brin, Scott Hampton, Jeff Mariotte ( 2001)
The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise detect a stray transporter beam in deep space and when they realize that there's a living being inside the wayward beam--that being Colin Blakeney, the twenty-first century inventor of the transporter and holodeck--they bring it aboard and encounter a mystery for the ages. A Graphic Novel.
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Star Wars on Trial Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time by David Brin ( 2006) |
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Startide Rising by David Brin ( 1993)
David Brins Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret--the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.
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Sundiver by David Brin ( 1996)
No species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron--except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? Circling the sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in history--a journey into the boiling inferno of the sun.
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Through Stranger Eyes Reviews, Introductions, Tributes & Iconoclastic Essays by David Brin ( 2008) |
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The Transparent Society Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom by David Brin ( 1999)
In The Transparent Society, award-winning author David Brin details the startling argument that privacy, far from being a right, hampers the real foundation of a civil society: accountability. Using examples as disparate as security cameras in Scotland and Gay Pride events in Tucson, Brin shows that openness is far more liberating than secrecy and advocates for a society in which everyone (not just the government and not just the rich) could look over everyone else's shoulders. The biggest threat to our society, he warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people not by too many.
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Tribes It's 50,000 B.C. Where Are Your Children? by Steve Jackson, David Brin ( 1998) |
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The Uplift War by David Brin ( 1996)
David Brins Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brins tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth. The various uplifted inhabitants of Garth must battle their overlords or face ultimate extinction. At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth, and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies. Sweeping, brilliantly crafted, inventive and dramatic, The Uplift War is an unforgettable story of adventure and wonder from one of today's science fiction greats.
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