Free Range Librarian

Hi Karen–

FWIW (which may be nothing), I’ve been more or less avidly reading Brin since I stumbled across “the Practice Effect” in the mid-80’s. I read a *lot* of sf, and his is some of the finest– real science, interesting stories with some whap-you-upside-of-the-head ideas in them, some of which are in there almost as asides. It’s no accident that he is known as one of the “Killer B’s” of sf (along with G. Benford and G. Bear). The fact that he is speaking was fairly instrumental in getting me interested in attending this conference.

He’s probably best known for the “Uplift Universe” cycle of stories– currently 6 novels and a couple of stories, an extremely interesting look into a future in which we reach space to discover it already populated with sentients who have all become intelligent (sapient) via a process of genetic tinkering known as “uplift” and who range between amused and dismissive and violently rejecting of humans and their claim to have actually *evolved*. Humans have by then uplifted chimps and dolphins to become spacefaring…it’s really great stuff. Nothing like trying to glimpse into someone else’s head to rattle your ideas about what’s in yours, and Brin does a rather exceptional job of believable alien (and Earth-being) psychology.

Of possible interest (and not too long) is a fascinating look at the Lord of the Rings universe…from the “Dark Side”. (Who *really* are the elitist and the regular guy here? Nothing is what you think it is…) Interesting ideas in there about the nature of our hierarchical society, evil, hubris and the whole megillah. A link is on it from his web site, but here’s the first installment: http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html

I bet he had a lot of fun with the latest novel “The Kiln People”. Ostensibly, it’s the idea that you can make copies of yourself to go out and do various tasks while you do whatever rolled into a detective novel..but remember those whaps on the head? They’re there, all right.

Last but not least, I don’t want to spoil the book (“The Practice Effect”– an early novel, somewhat silly but a lot of fun) for anyone who would like to read it, but a reference during the intro that “practicing” our profession might improve it considerably might not come amiss.

Sallie Pine

Goodonya, Prof. Schneider, for the cool and slightly risque colloquialism!

Mr. Brin was a guest of a sci-fi convention I attended a couple of years ago and he was great fun. I don’t read a lot of “Hard SF”, but I do really like his short fiction and I plan to test-drive one of his novels once I graduate.

He’s very involved in philanthropic causes, as you can see from his website, especially education.

Outside of the fandom, though, he may be more famous for his pop culture critiques that appeared in Salon.com:

http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html
http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/index.html
http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_side/index.html

Fun stuff.

David Brin wrote to say, “let me know if the blog folks want any responses from me.” Questions for Mr. Brin, anyone?

So many questions…but I’d be interested in his response to this one: Given the population explosion on the planet and the interest by the corporate types that want to sell us stuff and the government that wants to keep track of us (at the very least for tax purposes), was this not inevitable? I mean to say, we’ve developed some pretty nifty tools for doing various things, and it so happens here’s computers and the internet and search engines and now many of us are giving up some privacy. Wouldn’t something *else* have come along if these particular gadgets had not? And can’t we develop them in turn to learn to hide ourselves if we choose to? There have been very few locks made that someone hasn’t eventually managed to crack. Does he believe this is uncrackable? I don’t think just shining the light back on the ones looking at us is enough, nor do I think that it’s impossible to do more. I guess that’s really two questions, but I’m interested in his views of the inevitability of this (or not) and where he sees it going.