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Infinity's Shore (The Uplift Saga Book 5) Kindle Edition
A once peaceful planet of refugees faces complete annihilation in this hard science fiction sequel to Brightness Reef.
Book Two in the Uplift Storm Trilogy
It’s illegal to occupy the planet Jijo, but six castaway races have managed to coexist there for some time. They’ve successfully hidden from watchful law enforcers of the Five Galaxies—until now . . .
After making an amazing discovery far away—a derelict armada whose mere existence triggered interstellar war—the Terran exploration vessel Streaker and its crew of humans and dolphins arrive at Jijo in search of sanctuary from the Galactic forces out to destroy them.
But they were followed. As behemoth Galactic starships descend upon Jijo, heroic—and terrifying—choices must be made. Together, human and alien settlers must choose whether to fight the invaders or join them. The crew of the Streaker, meanwhile, discovers something that just might save Jijo and its inhabitants . . . or destroy every last one of them.
“Well paced, immensely complex, highly literate . . . Superior SF.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“An imaginative drama of excitement and wonder . . . The sheer virtuosity of the prose alone makes this book worth reading.” —SF Site
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherOpen Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
- Publication dateMay 25, 2021
- File size4691 KB
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From the Inside Flap
For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must make heroic--and terrifying--choices. A scientist must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventure--imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain--leads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a de
From the Back Cover
For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must make heroic--and terrifying--choices. A scientist must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventure--imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain--leads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a de
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
[Five Jaduras Earlier]
Kaa
*What strange fate brought me,
*Fleeing maelstroms of winter,
*Past five galaxies?*
*Only to find refuge,
*On a forlorn planet (nude!)
*In laminar luxury!*
So he thought while performing swooping rolls, propelling his sleek gray body with exhilarated tail strokes, reveling in the caress of water against naked flesh.
Dappled sunlight threw luminous shafts through crystal shallows, slanting past mats of floating sea florets. Silvery native creatures, resembling flatjawed fish, moved in and out of the bright zones, enticing his eye. Kaa squelched the instinctive urge to give chase.
Maybe later.
For now, he indulged in the liquid texture of water sliding around him, without the greasiness that used to cling so, back in the oily seas of Oakka, the green-green world, where soaplike bubbles would erupt from his blowhole each time he surfaced to breathe. Not that it was worth the effort to inhale on Oakka. There wasn't enough good air on that horrid ball to nourish a comatose otter.
This sea also tasted good, not harsh like Kithrup, where each excursion outside the ship would give you a poison dose of hard metals.
In contrast, the water on Jijo world felt clean, with a salty tang reminding Kaa of the gulf stream flowing past the Florida Academy, during happier days on far-off Earth.
He tried to squint and pretend he was back home, chasing mullet near Key Biscayne, safe from a harsh universe. But the attempt at make-believe did not work. One paramount difference reminded him this was an alien world.
Sound.
--a beating of tides rising up the continental shelf--a complex rhythm tugged by three moons, not one.
--an echo of waves, breaking on a shore whose abrasive sand had a strange, sharp texture.
--an occasional, distant groaning that seemed to rise out of the ocean floor itself.
--the return vibrations of his own sonar clicks, tracing schools of fishlike creatures, moving their fins in unfamiliar ways.
--above all, the engine hum just behind him...a cadence of machinery that had filled Kaa's days and nights for five long years.
And now, another clicking, groaning sound. The clipped poetry of duty.
* Relent Kaa, tell us,
* In exploratory prose,
* Is it safe to come? *
The voice chased Kaa like a fluttering, sonic conscience. Reluctantly, he swerved around to face the submarine Hikahi, improvised from ancient parts found strewn across this planet's deep seafloor--a makeshift contraption that suited a crew of misfit fugitives. Clamshell doors closed ponderously, like the jaws of a huge carnivore, cycling to let others emerge in his wake...if he gave the all clear.
Kaa sent his Trinary reply, amplified by a saser unit plugged into his skull, behind his left eye.
* If water were all
*We might be in heaven now.
*But wait! I'll check above! *
His lungs were already making demands, so he obeyed instinct, flicking an upward spiral toward the glistening surface. Ready or not, Jiyo, here I come!
He loved piercing the tense boundary of sky and sea, flying weightless for an instant, then broaching with a splash and spume of exhalation. Still, he hesitated before inhaling. Instruments predicted an Earthlike atmosphere, yet he felt a nervous tremor drawing breath.
If anything, the air tasted better than the water! Kaa whirled, thrashing his tail in exuberance, glad Lieutenant T'sht had let him volunteer for this--to be the first dolphin, the first Earthling, ever to swim this sweet, foreign sea.
Then his eye stroked a jagged, gray-brown line, spanning one horizon, very close.
The shore.
Mountains.
He stopped his gyre to stare at the nearby continent--inhabited, they now knew. But by whom?
There was not supposed to be any sapient life on Jijo.
Maybe they're just hiding here, the way we are, from a hostile cosmos.
That was one theory.
At least they chose a pleasant world, he added, relishing the air, the water, and gorgeous ranks of cumulus hovering over a giant mountain. I wonder if the fish are good to eat.
* As we await you,
* Chafing in this cramped airlock,
* Should we play pinochle? *
Kaa winced at the lieutenant's sarcasm. Hurriedly, he sent back pulsed waves.
* Fortune smiles again,
* On our weary band of knaves.
* Welcome, friends, to Ifni's Shore. *
It might seem presumptuous to invoke the goddess of chance and destiny, capacious Ifni, who always seemed ready to plague Streaker's company with one more surprise. Another unexpected calamity, or miraculous escape. But Kaa had always felt an affinity with the informal patron deity of spacers. There might be better pilots than himself in the Terragens Survey Service, but none with a deeper respect for fortuity. Hadn't his own nickname been "Lucky"?
Until recently, that is.
From below, he heard the grumble of clamshell doors reopening. Soon Tsh't and others would join him in this first examination of Jijo's surface--a world they heretofore saw only briefly from orbit, then from the deepest, coldest pit in all its seas. Soon, his companions would arrive, but for a few moments more he had it to himself--silken water, tidal rhythms, fragrant air, the sky and clouds....
His tail swished, lifting him higher as he peered. Those aren't normal clouds, he realized, staring at a great mountain dominating the eastern horizon, whose peak wore shrouds of billowing white. The lens implanted in his right eye dialed through a spectral scan, sending readings to his optic nerve--revealing steam, carbon oxides, and a flicker of molten heat.
A volcano, Kaa realized, and the reminder sent his ebullience down a notch. This was a busy part of the planet, geologically speaking. The same forces that made it a useful hiding place also kept it dangerous.
That must be where the groaning comes from, he pondered. Seismic activity. An interaction of miniquakes and crustal gas discharges with the thin overlaying film of sea.
Another flicker caught his notice, in roughly the same direction, but much closer--a pale swelling that might also have been a cloud, except for the way it moved, flapping like a bird's wing, then bulging with eagerness to race the wind.
A sail, he discerned. Kaa watched it jibe across the stiffening breeze--a two-masted schooner, graceful in motion, achingly familiar from the Caribbean seas of home.
Its bow split the water, spreading a wake that any dolphin might love to ride.
The zoom lens clarified, magnified, until he made out fuzzy bipedal forms, hauling ropes and bustling around on deck, like any gang of human sailors.
...Only these weren't human beings. Kaa glimpsed scaly backs, culminating in a backbone of sharp spines. Swathes of white fur covered the legs and froglike membranes pulsated below broad chins as the ship's company sang a low, rumbling work chant that Kaa could dimly make out, even from here.
He felt a chill of unhappy recognition.
Hoons! What in all Five Galaxies are they doing here?
Kaa heard a rustle of fluke strokes Tsh't and others rising to join him. Now he must report that enemies of Earth dwelled here.
Kaa realized grimly--this news wasn't going to help him win back his nickname anytime soon.
She came to mind again, the capricious goddess of uncertain destiny. And Kaa's own Trinary phrase came back to him, as if reflected and reconverged by the surrounding alien waters.
* Welcome ...
* Welcome ...
* Welcome to Ifni's Shore.*
Sooners
The Stranger
Existence seems like wandering through a vast chaotic house. One that has been torn by quakes and fire, and is now filled with bitter, inexplicable fog. Whenever he manages to pry open a door, exposing some small corner of the past, each revelation comes at the price of sharp waves of agony.
In time, he learns not to be swayed by the pain. Rather, each ache and sting serves as a marker, a convenient signpost, confirming that he must be on the right path.
His arrival on this world--plummeting through a scorched sky--should have ended with merciful blankness. What luck instead hurled his blazing body from the pyre to quench in a fetid swamp?
Peculiar luck.
Since then, he has grown intimate with all kinds of suffering, from crass pangs to subtle stings. In cataloging them, he grows learned in the many ways there are to hurt.
Those earliest agonies, right after the crash, had screeched coarsely from wounds and scalding burns--a gale of such fierce torment that he barely noticed when a motley crew of local savages rowed out to him in a makeshift boat, like sinners dragging a fallen angel out of the boggy fen. Saving him from drowning, only to face more damnations.
Beings who insisted that he fight for his broken life, when it would have been so much easier just to let go.
Later, as his more blatant injuries healed or scarred, other types of anguish took up the symphony of pain. Afflictions of the mind.
From the Paperback edition.
Product details
- ASIN : B091Y2BPYB
- Publisher : Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy (May 25, 2021)
- Publication date : May 25, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 4691 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 692 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #270,659 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #743 in Hard Science Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #1,541 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)
- #2,224 in First Contact Science Fiction eBooks
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
David Brin is a scientist, public speaker and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages.
David's latest novel - Existence - is set forty years ahead, in a near future when human survival seems to teeter along not just on one tightrope, but dozens, with as many hopeful trends and breakthroughs as dangers... a world we already see ahead. Only one day an astronaut snares a small, crystalline object from space. It appears to contain a message, even visitors within. Peeling back layer after layer of motives and secrets may offer opportunities, or deadly peril.
David's non-fiction book -- The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? -- deals with secrecy in the modern world. It won the Freedom of Speech Award from the American Library Association.
A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. Brin's 1989 ecological thriller - Earth - foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. David's novel Kiln People has been called a book of ideas disguised as a fast-moving and fun noir detective story, set in a future when new technology enables people to physically be in more than two places at once. A hardcover graphic novel The Life Eaters explored alternate outcomes to WWII, winning nominations and high praise.
David's science fictional Uplift Universe explores a future when humans genetically engineer higher animals like dolphins to become equal members of our civilization. These include the award-winning Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore and Heaven's Reach. He also recently tied up the loose ends left behind by the late Isaac Asimov: Foundation's Triumph brings to a grand finale Asimov's famed Foundation Universe.
Brin serves on advisory committees dealing with subjects as diverse as national defense and homeland security, astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction and philanthropy.
As a public speaker, Brin shares unique insights -- serious and humorous -- about ways that changing technology may affect our future lives. He appears frequently on TV, including several episodes of "The Universe" and History Channel's "Life After People." He also was a regular cast member on "The ArciTECHS."
Brin's scientific work covers an eclectic range of topics, from astronautics, astronomy, and optics to alternative dispute resolution and the role of neoteny in human evolution. His Ph.D in Physics from UCSD - the University of California at San Diego (the lab of nobelist Hannes Alfven) - followed a masters in optics and an undergraduate degree in astrophysics from Caltech. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Space Institute. His technical patents directly confront some of the faults of old-fashioned screen-based interaction, aiming to improve the way human beings converse online.
Brin lives in San Diego County with his wife and three children.
You can follow David Brin:
Website: http://www.davidbrin.com/
Blog: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DavidBrin
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/cab801
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Don't read this unless you want to THINK about what's going on. It's as full of stuff as your idea chistmas stocking.
It isn't just the variety of races, each well explored in personality and physical traits. It isn't just the sheer number of plot threads that makes this a brilliant series. And it is not just the vision of such a universe. It is the way Brin combines all the serried elements together with such consummate literary skill. His prose is excellent and lapses into the poetic. The uplift saga has to be one of the greatest achievements in science fiction writing, and deserves recognition from mainstream literary critics.
In this volume Brin reintroduces us to the remainder of the Streaker crew who fled Kithrup in Startide Rising (book 2) while continuing to develop the characters of the sooner races on Jijo. And he demonstrates what makes a Jophur of a Traeki. I can say no more without giving away plot elements. Read it!
Yet another instance of a series which would be much more memorable in 1/3 the total page count.