| Home | Article List |
This is a short book review for Sundiver by David Brin.
I love to read, and I think this is due in part to my ability to separate the good parts of a book from the bad parts. This skill was especially important for Sundiver, which had some of the best worldbuilding I’ve seen but was plagued by annoying characters and sloppy subplots. To be fully transparent, I did not finish this book. I stopped reading with less than 50 pages to go. It began with a rough start for a couple dozen pages before a solid 250+ pages that I couldn’t stop turning. But the final 1/4 of the book was so terribly bad compared to the first 3/4, I figured it wasn’t worth finishing the story. I was only reading it to get to the highly-regarded and award-winning sequel, Startide Rising, anyways.
As I mentioned before, the worldbuilding is incredible. The central concept of the book is “Uplift”, where advanced “patron” races help promising but primitive “client” races reach intelligence. This is typically done through decades or centuries of genetic enhancements and rigorous training, and is the origin of all intelligent species, with the exception of the earliest known races - the Progenitors - and humans. Mankind’s lack of a guiding patron race or definitive origin is a tense issue among other patron races and humankind themselves. The political and cultural consequences of this controversy are rich, and one of the strongest aspects of this book.
The central plot of the book follows the story of Jacob Demwa, a renowned scientist known for his work in the uplifting of dolphins. His presence and expertise is requested by the captain of the Sundiver, a project where humans use special dome-shaped mirror ships to explore the chromosphere of the sun. Alongside Toroids, an already previously observed species of sun-dwelling aliens that feed on the magnetic fields of sunspots, the team has discovered a new species that appears to threaten them directly. The intense sequences following the encounters with this species are fantastic, with vivid descriptions of the overwhelming beauty and power of the sun alongside incredible descriptions of an impossible alien species. Anytime the crew went on a Sundiver mission, I simply couldn’t stop turning the pages.
Sundiver does something that I really appreciate from the books that try it: it doesn’t try to shove prerequisite exposition down your throat so that you understand every single new concept as it comes. The intergalactic political climate is complex and deep, and it would be far too much to dedicate entire chapters to explaining the intricate details. Instead, it tries to feed you the information slowly, giving helpful context as the plot unfolds. While I appreciate this, it is clearly the author’s first book in that he struggles to understand what parts might not be so clear to the reader just yet. For example, at the beginning of the book he attempts to describe a mechanical whale that the main character is piloting alongside dolphins. It was not until the end of the sequence that I fully understood what the hell was going on, and I was very confused.
David Brin’s descriptive language, while powerful at many points during the story, left a lot to be desired in other segments. A detailed account of Jacob Demwa’s first time seeing the sun and its inhabitants made me feel the same awe as if I were there seeing it myself. At the same time, I still don’t have a great idea of what the Sundiver ships actually look like, as he struggled to translate his mental image into words on paper. I found that his ability to describe the geometry of such an unconventional craft was weak, likely not doing much to serve anyone but the author himself in the description.
Jacob Demwa is a horrible main character. The author glazes him relentlessly, exaggerating everything from his physique and fitness to intelligence and mental fortitude as practically flawless. Numerous times the book takes you through a rather pretentious meditation sequence, flashing brief visions of his epic past that just makes your eyes roll. If you don’t get tired of every female character swooning for him as if he were an endless source of sex hormones, you’ll be exhausted by his childish “alter ego” subplot. That’s right, you don’t just get this super intelligent, holier-than-thou douchebag, you also get his expert thief and martial arts specialist “Mr. Hyde” who takes control of our hero at the most convenient of times. For me, Jacob was nothing more than a vessel to help move the plot. Anything more and I would have stopped reading sooner (that should give you a good idea of what the final portion of the book is about).
Worse yet, the way the book depicts female characters altogether just makes me uncomfortable. I am not one to buy into cancel culture, so I try very hard to remember that this book was written in the 1980s by a physics nerd. With that being said, I genuinely couldn’t help but groan out loud whenever the book introduced a female character or developed an existing one. I’m not opposed to intimate physical descriptions, but that should not be the first thing we get for every single woman in your story, and it shouldn’t be present each time she comes into scene henceforth! It comes across as pervy and immature, and I eventually just dreaded the appearance of women in the story altogether.
Sundiver couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a great book or a bad one. The parts I enjoyed, I enjoyed thoroughly. The parts I didn’t enjoy, I flat out hated. There was very little in between, and I think that is the best possible outcome as this was Brin’s first novel. In the end, I think I would recommend it, as some might have a better time looking past its faults in order to enjoy the brilliant setting. If you are looking for an easy read with a heavy emphasis on politics among humans and aliens, then you will certainly enjoy what this book has to offer. If you are someone who prefers books good enough to read more than once, your time is best spent elsewhere.