A review by stephen_coulon
Startide Rising by David Brin

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This one follows the first spacecraft crewed almost entirely by “uplifted” dolphins from Earth (there are a few humans and an “uplifted” chimpanzee on board as well). This ship makes a remarkable discovery that triggers the start of an intergalactic war. Most of the book zooms in on the interpersonal intrigue aboard the ship as the crew struggles to survive being hunted by several technologically superior galactic warships. The inherent difficulty the novel faces is the goofy imagery of imagining dolphins walking around in prosthetic robot suits, having a spacecraft filled with water, talking out of their blow-holes, etc. Dolphins just aren’t a naturally anthropomorphizable species without cartoonifying them. Brin gets credit for characterizing them so well you can almost get over the silly imagery, but he really shines in imagining a future dolphin culture conjecturing on what we know about dolphin behavior today. There are several subplots in the novel, and it gets to be a bit much to keep track of, but it does come together satisfyingly in the end just before it gets too tiring. I liked it enough, along with Sundiver, to reserve the third in the series, and I’m hoping to see more uplifted chimps in that one, as only two have appeared in the series so fa