Scanned from FAR HORIZONS (edited by Robert Silverberg) [story 04]

THE UPLIFT UNIVERSE

David Brin

Sundiver (1980) 
Startide Rising (1983) 
The Uplift War (1987) 
Brightness Reef (1995) 
Infinity's Shore (1996) 
Heaven's Reach (1998)

Some people say you can't have everything. For instance, if a story offers action, it must lack philosophy. If it involves science, character must suffer. This has especially been said about one of the core types of science fiction, the genre sometimes called space opera. Is it possible to depict grand adventures and heroic struggles cascading across lavish future settings—complete with exploding planets and vivid special effects—while still coming up with something worth calling a novel?
I'm one of those who believe it's worth a try—and have attempted it in the Uplift novels, which are set several hundred years into a dangerous future, in a cosmos that poor humans barely comprehend.
I begin with the plausible notion that people may start genetically altering dolphins and chimpanzees, giving those bright animals the final boost they need to become our peers and partners. In my debut work, Sundiver, \ depicted all three of Earth's sapient races discovering that an ancient and powerful interstellar civilization has been doing the same thing for a very long time. Following an ancient prescription, each starfaring clan in the Civilization of Five Galaxies looks for promising newcomers to "uplift." In return for this favor, the new client species owes its patrons an interval of service, then starts looking for someone else to receive the gift of intelligence.
This benign pattern conceals a series of ominous secrets which get peeled away in subsequent stories. Startide Rising and The Uplift War—both winners of the Hugo Award for best novel—depict shock waves rocking Galactic society when a humble earthship, Streaker, staffed by a hundred neo-dolphins and a few humans—uncovers clues to a billion-year-old conspiracy.
My goal has been to stock the series with elements that science-fiction lovers enjoy—for instance, there's not just one way to surpass the Einsteinian limitation on faster-than-light travel, but half a dozen. I use five galaxies as the stage for the series, with more waiting in the wings. The cast of characters—dolphins, chimps, and aliens—has been chosen to offer a wide range of sympathetic moments and, I hope, memorable ideas.
After a hiatus of several years while I worked on other projects, I returned to this broad canvas with the new Uplift Storm trilogy, consisting of three connected novels, Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach. These works continue exploring the adventures and trials of the Streaker crew, but also delve into a unique, multiracial society on Jijo, a world in isolated Galaxy Four that was declared "fallow," or off-limits to sapient beings in order to let its biosphere recover. Despite this well-intended law, a series of sneakships have come to the forbidden world, bringing illegal colonists from half a dozen races, each with desperate reasons to flee growing danger back home. After initial struggles and misunderstandings, the Six Races of Jijo—including exiled humans—made peace, joining to create a decent shared culture, sharing their beloved world while hiding from the cosmos . . . until one day all their troubles came crashing from the sky.
A Time of Changes has commenced, rocking the complacent Civilization of Five Galaxies. Nobody is safe, and nothing is certain anymore. Not history, law, biology, or even trusty physics.
Something is happening to the universe, and all bets about our destiny are off.
In this new story, "Temptation," I peel back yet another layer in the unfolding saga, and show a small group of fugitive dolphins learning how perilous it can be to be offered exactly what you always wished for.
—David Brin