KAMN Show #9: Sundiver
Welcome to Show #9!
This week, we discuss Sundiver, the first novel in David Brin’s award-winning Uplift series. The first book of the first trilogy, the one that started it all.
Dave, Summer and Joe have varying opinions of the story, which always makes for a lively chat.
We didn’t go into some of Brin’s other works, most notably some essays he wrote for Salon Magazine… one that raised the ire of many a Star Wars fan, and another that made him a target of Tolkien fans. Links below if you’ve never heard of or read them before. The Ninjas might talk about them later, but we haven’t decided on that yet.
This week’s Old School Anime Reviews for Your Ears, by Aaron from Weekly Anime Review, is about the series that began the mecha craze in the USA, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross!
Books mentioned:
Promos and Links:
Promo: The Babylon Podcast
Promo: Variant Frequencies
Promo: SciFi Dig Podcast
Link: Raven’s Reviews: Sundiver
Link: Review: Sundiver
Link: David Brin’s Uplift Universe
Link: David Brin Essay: “Star Wars” despots vs. “Star Trek” populists (6/1999)
Link: David Brin Essay: J.R.R. Tolkien — enemy of progress (12/2002)
Great show as usual, guys!
In partial defense of how Brin deveoloped the story in Sundiver, it was his first novel, not just the first novel in the uplift saga.
And it’s first novels like this and “Eye of the World” that make me wonder how the ideas were pitched and accepted, and paid their advances.
I want an advance so I can pay some bills while I’m finishing my first novel. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
Great show guys! KAMN is the best podcast running.
Looking forward to show 10.
Woops forgot to mention there’s a couple of MP3 podcast lectures available this week that discuss “The Uplift War” by David Brin.
http://www.sffaudio.com/2006/02/sf-has-influence-in-real-world.html
>In partial defense of how Brin deveoloped the story in Sundiver, it was his first novel, not just the first novel in the uplift saga.
ERM- I wanted to finish! – The first novel will only excuse but so many problems. but the SF mystery/action novel Brin attempts in Sundiver, he achieves quite gloriously in Kiln People.
Summer, I so don’t get your hatred of “Eye of the World.” I absolutely loved that book. Granted, Jordan’s books have gotten exponentially crappier with each additional one, especially after book four. But I loves me the first one.
Joe, I have never ever said that I hated “Eye of the World”. I enjoyed the Jordan books until #6, when nothing happened after 900 pages. After that, I began reading better stories, and realized just how overrated everything after book #5 is.
My fascination with EOTW stems from two things: 1) it takes 200+ pages for things to get going, and 2) I wanna know how he queried and sold the series based on that book’s slow-ass start.
It took me three years and four retries to get through EOTW. It was easier once the fan began redistributing the splatter, but it takes so freaking long to get there!
Yes, I wants me the big bucks for my stories, too, so I want to know what magic they wrought in their pitches and queries, because I apparently haven’t figured out that particular spell yet.
It’s been ages since I read Sundiver. Y’all are gonna make me go out and read it again. I agree that it’s not as good a book as Startide Rising (my personal favorite of the Brin books). But mixing mystery and SF has a long and honorable tradition. Remember Asimov’s “The Caves of Steel” where the detective was a robot? My memory is telling me that he did other sf mysteries also, but it’s failing to bring up titles.
I admit to not phrasing my displeasure as clearly as I could have.
I don’t mind genre mixing… these days it’s hard not to run across a story that doesn’t have a mix of a few things in it. I guess what bugged me is that it did turn into an all out chase movie sequence sandwiched in between a lot of expository SF.
I guess my gripe is that the two could have been mixed better, but as others have pointed out, it is a first novel, so more slack I shall have to give it. But only a tiny bit
Great job, once again, guys!
One thing, though: I think Dave made too much out of “book one of six”. While Sundiver *is* the first book in the first trilogy, it really has very little to do with the overall Uplift saga.
It is also my least favorite book in the series. I can certainly understand why you, Summer, and Joe didn’t really care for the book.
While this book is the obvious place to start in the series–i.e. book one–I think it is the wrong place to start: “Startide Rising” is a much better book and deals with the Uplift universe in a much better way.
Also, the first trilogy, isn’t really what most people consider a trilogy in that the 3 books are, for the most part, stand-alone books with only the last 2 books being somewhat related.
“Startide” is usually cited as people’s favorite and it is a shame that you have to wait to near the end of the entire series to find out what happens to the crew.
The second trilogy is basically one big book that is quite good.
I really wish you guys had ignored “Sundiver” and started with “Startide”. Oh well. Here’s hoping you do a review of *that* book.
Interesting show! I loved Uplift War and Startide Rising. Sundiver, not so much.
Thanks for playing our promo! Hope you’ll come and give us a listen.
Sundiver: First novel, not really “the first in the first trilogy”. First in a series, yes. So the ideas were developed/fleshed out by the second, third, etc.
How much impact did the book have? Well, in the dark days when the internet was Arpanet and KAMN was a usenet group called “SF-Lovers”, we voted it one of our favorites. But there were a few less books back then! It did generate a lot of conversation, as I recall.
First novel: So how much did his editor have in problems in the book? For example, for his second in the series (Startide Rising) there are two editions of the book: one has a chunk restored.
I would recommend a look at his “Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin’s Uplift Universe”, sort of a “non-fiction” book on the series. You really can see all the relationships between the alien races and how, for example, some races were uplifted basically so they could be evolved in a certain way and be doomed to be servants for their whole racial lives.
I have a feeling that the McGuffin in “Startide Rising” (the progenitor fleet that the “Streaker” discovers) essentially gave Brin a headache–he set up a situation which is mentioned in “The Uplift War” (and leads to what drives some of that story), and brings us the trilogy, but taking the story further–he may have written himself into such a corner that he can’t go out, so we haven’t seen anything else in the series (other than some short stories).