Heaven’s Reach
{4.5/5} “It occurred to me that I was privileged at that moment to witness four of the great Orders of Life in action at the same instant. Hydrogen breathers, machine intelligences, oxy-creatures like myself, and the ‘retired’ phylum — beings who built on such a scale that they thought nothing of husbanding a star like their own personal hearth fire.”
Heaven’s Reach by David Brin, published in 1998
The Earth ship Streaker was trying to lead a ship of crazed but powerful Jophur into a transfer point. The transfer point might not work correctly — they might all die. But dying with the Jophur was better than letting them go back to Jijo and kill or enslave everyone there. Then they ran into some hydrogen breathers called the Zang — you never knew what they were going to do.
This is the 6th novel in the Uplift series, following Infinity’s Shore.
The sections that take place in the real world are interspersed with sections that take place in E Space, a mysterious realm where what you see depends on what you think. I found these latter sections less interesting.
The last third of the novel contains revelations of galaxy-shattering proportions.
I always love plans that were millions of years in the making.
This is the last book in the Uplift series, at least so far — Brin has said he would be interested in writing others.
I’ve now read 8 books by Brin, and I will read more.
January 17th, 2018 at 9:10 pm
I also read the Uplift story “Temptation” which can be found in Robert Silverberg’s anthology “Far Horizons.” It’s a terrific story about the neo-dolphins on Jijo.