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book review: Heaven’s Reach

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by: David Brin

THERE’S MORE TO SEE HERE.

That’s pretty much the takeaway from this.   Brin “owes” us one more Uplift book or trilogy… right?  I mean, he never got back to the half of the cast he left behind in Startide Rising.  Maybe that’s just how he rolls but still.

HARSH.

STILL.

That closing paragraph.   Grrr.

I built this one up a bit too much internally, I think.  It couldn’t live up to what I what I wanted.  That or it wasn’t quite as good as it should have been.  A little of both, most likely.  Most series finales leave me with more than this one did.   I mean, we get most of the resolutions… but some of them felt pretty rushed: what the hydros did to some of the oxys  (I mean, is it transcendence if it’s forced?  That doesn’t seem right at all) and the Streaker’s portion of the finale, for two.

I did like how Lark and Ling’s portion of the finale kind of puts everything into an even crazier perspective.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, indeed.   Even gods…

Brin’s (trademark?) habit of having important things happen off panel continues as well.  Sometimes it works, but most of the time here it felt off to me (the traitor’s capture, the Terran’s parallel discovery of Sara’s amazing discovery – I get why that would be the case, but… it felt like something was missing still).

Oh. and [SPOILER] doesn’t die.  GRRR.  But [SPOILER] does.  Which made me a little sad.

THREE AND A HALF STARS

Because there was a ton of cool here – big ideas and impossibly big explosions – but it felt like they all needed more room to breath.  This probably should have been a quartet instead of a trilogy.

[edit: That's a classic crazy sci-fi cover too, RIGHT?  Dolphin with robot legs talking to tiny urs with a hoon or something yelling for no reason and some girl (I have no idea who) in a semi-classic angled hand-on-waist-butt-out-looking-over-shoulder.]

[edit2: I find it fascinating that I found the second books in both the Uplift trilogies the strongest.]


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