Who is David Brin -- Imagining the Future

"Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on. "

"Science fiction can infect children with the dangerous mental habit of imagining things different than they are."

"To ride the tsunami that change has become in modern times -- science fiction turns the reader from a hapless recipient of change into an explorer."

We live in an Enlightenment civilization that is boldly trying to go where no one has gone before."

"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."

"When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else. "

"Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?"

David Brin comments, "Science fiction is badly named - it should have been called speculative history. Whether you are in a parallel reality or exploring the future, it is all about the implications of change on human lives. The fundamental premise of sci-fi is not spaceships and lasers - it's that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents."

"Although Brin is known as a hard SF writer, he doesn't let that get in the way of telling a good story. As John Clute put it, "he writes tales in which the physical constraints governing the knowable Universe are flouted with high-handed panache." -- from The Space Opera Renaissance, by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

An excerpt from his short Story, Stones of Significance:
"No one ever said it was easy to be a god, responsible for billions of sapient lives, having to listen to their dreams, anguished cries, and carping criticism. Try it for a while.
It can get to be a drag, just like any other job.
My new client wore the trim, effortlessly athletic figure of a neo-traditionalist human. Beneath a youthful-looking brow, minimal cranial implants made barely noticeable bulges, resembling the modest horns of some urbane Mephistopheles. Other features were stylishly androgynous, though broad shoulders and a swaggering stride made the male pronoun seem apropos.
House cross-checked our guest's credentials before ushering him along a glowing guide beam, past the Reality Lab to my private study.
I've always been proud of my inner sanctum; the sand garden, raked to fractal perfection by a robot programmed with my own esthetic migrams; the shimmering mist fountain; a grove of hybrid peach-almond trees, forever in bloom and fruiting.
My visitor gazed perfunctorily across the harmonious scene. Alas, it clearly did not stir his human heart.
Well, I thought, charitably. Each modern soul has many homes. Perhaps his true spirit resides outside the skull, in parts of him that are not protoplasm.
--continue reading at David's website: http://www.davidbrin.com/stonesofsignificance1.htm

Trained as a scientist, David draws upon his technical background to give his books an air of realism, coupled with a dramatic flair. David earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics at UCSD, doing research on the physical composition of comets. He then served as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Space Institute. His technical papers cover a range of topics, from astronomy and optics to alternative dispute resolution and human evolution.

Are David's books "hard science fiction?" David comments: "I have never claimed my uplift universe to be "hard" SF! If other people call it so, well, that's not my fault. Sure, it contains loads of gosh-wow references to golly-true science! But it also contains "playing-with-the-net-down Faster-Than-Light travel in spades! Not one FTL method but five! Ten! As many as I could think of! Why? Well, at one level it is self-aware self-satire. If I am going to have FTL (needed for this universe) then heck if I won't have fun presenting EVERY kind I can come up with! Oh... but then work out the logic of how each would impact a vast civilization. I did the same thing in The Practice Effect, and in Kiln People... wherein I went "gosh what if!?"... but then rigorously built the universe that resulted, and used it as a fun-house mirror to reflect back upon our world. Because of this, I am not at all ashamed of the net-down parts of the Uplift Universe. I connected with more people and got more of them conversing with real science (while having fun) than might have been possible otherwise."

David travels frequently to speak on how technology shapes our future. He also does technical consulting for corporations and government., on issues such as homeland security, national defense, SETI and nanotechnology. David appears frequently on radio and TV, including episodes of "The Universe" and on the History Channel's "Life After People." He also was a regular cast member on "The ArciTECHS."

David Brin's ecological thriller, Earth is a prophetic vision of the near future. Set in the year 2038, it is a cautionary story of the harm that may befall our planet's environment, and of science experiments gone awry. Most remarkable is the fact that Brin's book made a large number of predictions that hit the mark. It foretold an early version of the World Wide Web as well as email spam. It predicted the advent of global warming, and described levees breaking along the Mississippi river. It described artificially created black holes, the use of subvocal input devices, predictions registries, disputation arenas, and laser bug zappers, among others. For a more complete tally of the predictions made in this book, see the links below:

Startide Rising, the second book in David's Uplift Series, won the 1983 Hugo, Locus and Nebua Awards for Best Science Fiction Novel. The Terran exploration vessel, Streaker, crewed by humans and uplifted dolphins, has discovred a derelict fleet of 50,000 ancient starships in a shallow cluster. Streaker removes artifacts, bearing witness of the famed Progenitors, the first race to uplift species. In a rush to hide from battling alien armadas, Streaker crashes on the uncharted water world of Kithrup. There the crew must quench a mutiny, while undertaking repairs, and escape the powerful alien crafts who seek her secret. Published in 1983.

David Brin's Uplift Universe portrays humanity's desperate struggle for survival in a dangerous universe -- ruled by technologically advanced alien races. Billions of years ago, an alien race known as the Progenitors began to genetically alter lower species, granting them intelligence, so they can enter Galactic civilization, and achieve star-faring status. No species has ever reached the stars without the guidance of a patron - except mankind. Humans, by their own initiative achieved star-faring status, and uplifted their own clans, chimpanzees and dolphins. But it's a dangerous universe, and established alien clans don't look favorably upon the upstart Earthlings.

These space epics interweave multiple viewpoints, both human and alien, with complex story lines and solid science. David Brin comments, "Each story in the Uplift Universe deals with some issue of good and evil -- or the murky realm between." Science Fiction critic John Clute writes that Brin "takes on the galaxy with all the exuberance of an E.E. Smith reborn. There is a ladder to the stars in these books, and humanity claws upward into pole position in the Five Galaxies."

Sundiver, Startide Rising, the Uplift War were the first novels in this series, followed by a second trilogy that includes Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore and Heaven's Reach.