David Brin has been turning out award-winning books since Startide Rising in 1983. Yet there is still something youthful and fresh about his latest novel, Kiln People. When most sf writers let their future speculations fall into either cyberpunk or galactic exploration standards, he found a completely new idea for a technology that could transform human society. In Kiln People, ordinary citizens can make short term copies of themselves, send them on errands for a day, and then choose whether or not to collect the memories when the copies' animating force expires. The result: society-wide transformation, based on a technology no one else had even imagined coming.

Kiln People's protagonist gives us a tour of some of the fascinating results of this technology as he pursues a mystery. Soon, his original self is at risk, as copy after copy disappears. It's a great story, featuring page-turning suspense, competent and likable characters, and highly original speculation. What more could you ask?

The most celebrated of Brin's novels fall into the Uplift sequence: Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Brightness Reef, Heaven's Shore, and Infinity's Reach -- two trilogies, in that order. Uplift is the process of bringing a species to civilized intelligence. Nearly intelligent species are the five galaxies' most precious resource. A species uplifted by another has a duty to their uplifter, called their patron. Humans, on leaving our planetary system, find themselves in a byzantine, five galaxies-wide civilization, where lines of patronage create alliances and rivalries, and our lack of a patron inflames the more belligerent faction against us. Galactic extremists would like us annihilated before our independence gives their client races ideas. Fortunately, as we have already uplifted chimps and dolphins, the moderates think we show worthwhile promise. Unfortunately, the extremists seem to be better armed...

The novels each focus on a few characters within this wider conflict. Brin's characters are largely optimistic and competent. The dolphins are particularly enjoyable -- bringing their singing and playfulness along as they use their enhanced speaking and manipulating abilities to work beside human. And their three-dimensional navigation abilities are very helpful as they pilot starships from water-filled rooms with careful air/water lock passages to the human quarters.

So, David Brin gives us a galaxy where some are for us, some are against us, and some may even be our friends. He offers the tantalizing possibility that we could enjoy and profit from meeting alien diversity. And the tales are great, adventurous fun.

His other books include Earth, a big near-future novel, Glory Season, a look at relations between the sexes under changed political forms, The Practice Effect, an alternate universe story where inanimate tools improve as they are used, and The Postman, a post-apocalyptic novel that was made into a not very faithful movie. I enjoyed them all.

Where to start? The Postman, Kiln People, and Startide Rising all make accessible entry points.

Behind all his novels is a belief that we can create a better future -- currently being discussed at length in his blog. This fascinating, wide-ranging discussion is further proving Brin to be one of our most important futurists. He's not willing to stop at cataloging our problems. He takes a good look at them, and still finds ways to tread the complexities of modern life on a line leading to ever better futures. I highly recommend this discussion as well.

 
Onward!

Since I began this overview of my favorite writers, they've all put out more books! Imagine! Complete novels finished while I stagnated on the review!

The purpose of this overview is to set a ground line for what I like. That way, you, my prospective reader, can easily judge if our tastes will coincide. The previous post serves that purpose. It was accurate as of its publication date.

So, let's look at Neil Gaiman, Neil Stephenson, and David Brin.

All of them have a strong profile in the online world. Neil Gaiman maintains a prolific blog at neilgaiman.com. This warm and wise conversation with his fans covers a wide range of topics. Frequently humourous, consistently generous, and read by over one hundred thousand at last count, the journal itself is an ongoing work of public art.

The books are good, too. And amazingly varied. Gaiman likes to try something different every time he starts a major project. His first surge of fame came from the Sandman comics -- an epic in 75 issues, covering, as a novel should, the most important life crisis of its main character, Dream. As Dream is far more than human -- having existed for aeons as the personification and controller of the collective dreams of many sentient beings -- his story is wide as well as deep. Many other stories fall within the series, as we learn who he is, and why he came to this crisis. There are stories of dreams and of dreamers, sibling rivalries and stories about stories, all adding up to a gorgeous whole, complex as a tapestry and structured as a cathedral. The writing is good on all levels -- as close observation of action and events, as compelling plot, as reflection on other pieces of writing, as implied philosophy.

The series is collected in graphic novels, which can be read in any sequence. My favorite is The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives. The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House may make the best introduction.

Neil Gaiman has also written movie scripts, including A Short Film about John Bolton, the translation of Princess Mononoke, and the upcoming Mirror Mask. His novels include the eerie Neverwhere, developed from his script for a British miniseries, Coraline, which is fast rising into the ranks of children's classics, and the best-selling American Gods.

At his best, Gaiman is a collaborative genius -- possibly no other writer brings as much excellence and as much freedom to their cocreators. There's a delicious paradox in his ability to create a fresh, closely observed world and yet not dictate minutiae to his illustrators and coauthors. It seems to move almost beyond writing skill to virtue.

So far, I have not found any of his solo writings quite as profoundly excellent as the collaborations. They are merely very good. In Neverwhere, and to some degree in American Gods, I felt as though there was a certain space left for someone to come along and fill in more details. I am not quite a creative enough reader to abundantly color the narrative. It remains a little spare. And so, in American Gods, after crossing the continent, meeting archetypes, testing to extreme and resolving a war on a road trip with the main character, I still felt there should have been something more. Also, the war itself is a little anticlimactic -- it means something different than at first I expected it would. I like that, thematically. Structurally, it may contribute to the book feeling a little unfinished.

So American Gods -- Gaiman's largest solo effort to date -- is a very good book, an epic and archetypal tale -- while Sandman is a watershed, a towering landmark in its form, and forever changed the expectations and widened the boundaries of what a graphic novel can do.

And very possibly, Neil Gaiman's journal also is cutting a new channel in literary forms.

OMG, look at the time! I shall continue with David Brin and Neal Stephenson at my very earliest convenience. Onward!

You are all stars.