Another Recent Novel

David Brin The Uplift War 3 is apparently volume 3 in a series set in a universe where species with salient potential are uplifted by a patron alien species. Humans are a weird exception having civilized enough to develop space travel without being uplifted, although some of the older and more arrogant species think we could have evolved sapience but whoever are true patron species did not take credit for it. Anyway, humans have interfered with chimpanzee and dolphin genetics to create creatures that can talk earn doctorate and generally operate as only socially inferior parts of the community. The plot involves an angry avian species (no, not Angry Birds) intent on taking away patron status from human patron as part of a multigalactic Cold War just beginning to grow hot. I will not spoil it by telling you more.

Brin is a scientist with a doctorate and the quality of the thought and writing is astonishing.  My only complaint is that while I think of myself as being a very literate person, I often needed to look up words, especially adjectives. I found myself often reminded of William F. Buckley using five dollar words when a fifty cent word would do the job fine.

Churchill's Second World War and T.E. Lawrence's Five Pillars of Wisdom also both stretched my vocabulary in places but not as severely as this. There comes a point where I decide that as entertaining of a yarn as Brin has spun, this may be more work than I want to expend for fun reading. Simak's books very occasionally make me look up a word but then again, he was writing for a better educated readership than is common today.