Science Fiction & Fantasy Award Winning Book Group discussion

This is the discussion thread for Sundiver by David Brin.

David Brin wrote the Uplift Trilogy in the 1980s. He won the Hugo award for Startide Rising part 2 and The Uplift War part 3 which we will be reading in September 2025 and December 2025.

However, book 1, Sundiver, didn't win any awards. So this thread is here for anyone who wants to read it before getting into the next books.

Let us know what you think.

I know I have a copy of at least one of those floating around in my TBR bookshelves... Will be happy to read them all finally.

I've just started this. The style is strange. The protagonist's backstory is being dumped is such succinct synopsis that I checked twice to see I was reading the wrong book and maybe this wasn't part 1.
Eg. In the first chapter we get told that Demwa has a tragic backstory where he lost a lover, but the information is relayed so abruptly and briefly that it felt like a reminder-synopsis of something that I should've read in a previous book. Weird...

But the ideas are intriguing so I'm going with it.

I'm behind on this - I am only a quarter way in - still too early to tell what I think about it, but I'm ready for some sci fi now.

I realise now that the triology is actually 3 stand-alone books set in the same universe, so if you entirely run out of time you can skip to book 2 with only minor spoilers about which characters live.

I have now finished Sundiver, and I feel like the last quarter really helped me grasp the whole Uplift idea in the end. The action there was fast paced and so well described that you could really picture it. The beginning just overwhelmed me with exposition.

Yes, I felt the book started off a bit uneven and choppy with a lot of exposition, then there was a fun murder mystery in the second act, and then the third act just was very fast and action-packed!

So it was a bit uneven, but it was good fun.

I think the main concept is interesting as well: humanity bursting into a universe already filled with an ancient, Byzantine multi-species civilisation. We're the rubes and they're the sophisticates.

Started this a couple of days ago. I agree the first 100 pgs or so was a little slow but it's starting to pick up now. The main character has a Jeckyll & Hyde thing going on?

Jon wrote: "The main character has a Jeckyll & Hyde thing going on?"

Yes, I think he's hiding his more feral side that might get him demoted to 'probationer' status if it was ever observed.