H's Reviews > The Uplift War

Maybe 4.25 stars? Not exactly as good as Startide Rising, but close. There was a lot to love about this book but also a little to be annoyed about.

Plot was fun, although sloooow at times. Fiben's adventures were the best part, for me. Fiben was an absolutely fantastic character (I think Brin has said that he's his favourite character from all his books). The chims overall were great, although I think I still prefer the fins from Startide Rising. The exploration of neo-chimpanzee culture was fascinating, especially aspects like their sexual and social organisation. They were just a barrel of fun altogether. The gorillas were fun too, but underutilised. Garth itself (the planet this book is set on) was a great "character", well developed, with a sense about it of a living, breathing world.

The aliens were mostly pretty good. More interesting sexual politics in the Gubru; and Kault the Thennanin was another favourite character for me. The aliens I liked the least were the Tymbrimi. They had good personalities and interesting biology, but psychic aliens are just such a shitty trope. The glyphs and all that other psychic stuff was my least favourite aspect of the book, especially as the biology behind it was so tenuous (or indeed, not explained at all). Some things seemed utterly pointless to me, like Athaclena psychically "borrowing" her father's... what, life essence? For no real reason, it seemed.

All the aliens had good ideas behind them but Brin doesn't really focus on the biology of the alien species. He writes much more about their cultures and behaviour. While that's interesting in of itself, I would kill to read an Uplift novel written by Julie E. Czerneda. She does some of the best alien biology, and she'd really harden up the SF of the Uplift universe.

This book makes a great companion to Startide Rising, and the two books (putting aside Sundiver, which is good too but relatively unrelated to the other books) forms a really good duology about, yes, aliens and galactic culture and all that, but mostly about uplifted animal species and their cultures. Fins and chims. Brilliant.