#David Brin

[70sscifiart]

One not-uncommon iteration of the dolphin suit is to add gripper arms separate from flippers, as in David Cherry's 1985 frontispiece to David Brin’s Startide Rising

[superbdragoncollection-stuff]

The Postman

The novel is much better than the film. It's about a man in a post apocalyptic environment accidentally rebuilding the United States by being a dedicated civil servant. He pretends to be a postal worker.

Twenty years after World War III, Gordon is robbed and finds an old postal uniform in an abandoned truck. He takes it to protect himself from exposure, and is accidentally mistaken as a postal worker by a nearby settlement. He then decides at the next settlement to deliberately pretend to be a postal worker representing the "Restored United States". People are desperate for hope and believe in him. They remember fondly the old days of mail, and the postal workers. But more than that, the concept of the United States as one unified country is revived, how we're all the same.

Funny enough, the author actually brings up several obvious points about how this could be a scam(which it is at first!). In the best scene in the novel, he shows off his uniform, which they point out he could've taken from a corpse, and he shows off documents that he could've faked. The thing that makes them believe him is he legit DOES bring the mail! You can easily see that as desperate as they are for hope, there are people who see through his lies, but don't bring it up because he's providing a vital service.

He also deliberately doesn't push his luck. This scam is quite clever: he claims to be from the restored United States, but that he's a scout, there won't be anyone else coming for a long time. He's just here to deliver the mail, he is not threatening local warlords' powers. He fakes a document of rules the "new congress" "created", but they're all simple things that don't mess with local authority for the most part. So there's no reason for the warlords to challenge him.

What ends up happening though is he accidentally creates a revolution: the Restored United States becomes real through Gordon's efforts.

Civilization and it's symbols are what the book is centered around. By being a symbol, Gordon is accidentally able to recreate the country. It shows that government isn't some nebulous entity, it's a construct made of people, and that people can repair it as much as we tear it apart. It's not Gordon who overthrows the warlord, it's the common folk. He shows them, and reminds them, of what they used to be, and what they can become again. There's a heartbreaking scene where he visits a town that's having a dog fight. It's horrible, but what makes it so is the mounting depression Gordon instills through his disapproval. The mayor of the town thinks to himself, "what's happened to us? I was a member of the ASPCA!" The dog fight is stopped as they remember. It's not through some grand act Gordon brings about a revolution, it's a reminder of the good things the government does. It delivers the mail, and fixes the roads. Civil servants are the backbone of society! Through this little scam Gordon accidentally reminds people of what they are.

One of the best things about the book is Gordon. He's not a goody goody, he's a con man! The film casts Kevin Costner, when they should've cast Michael J Fox. Gordon is a former college student and national guard trooper who just wants a place that's civilized: he wants to find someone who's doing *something* to rebuild! All he wants is a place with electricity, showers, and hot food. He is NOT mad max. I think the writer was commenting on tropes of the time, Gordon HATES living in the squalor of the apocalypse! He doesn't think of himself as a hero, or a decent person. He acts pretty decently for a con man, and in fact constantly kicks himself for not being a ruthless monster that he views as being better for surviving this world. He survives not through gunplay, but through his wits and his skills. He kills few if any people that I recall. He's a scholar, not Mad Max. You feel sorry for him a lot, he's just some guy who wants somewhere to go, and a leader to follow. Yet he also retains a "civilized mind" as the book calls it. He laments this fallen world, how the US sent probes to Jupiter, how they were building genuine Artificial Intelligence before the war, and now they were reinventing serfdom. He's moved to tears by the little last stands made at the end of the war, by the last efforts of the mailman who's uniform he took. He's just a guy who wants to go home, but there's no more home left. And yet through his idealism, through his memory, and his wits, he recreates the world he lost.

I would put the book weirdly into the same category as The Handmaid's Tale, which I have yet to read. It's difficult to articulate; rather than the central theme being women's rights, The Postman is about civilization, yet spoken about in the same way as the Handmaid's Tale. The Handmaid's Tale was a commentary on the 1980s evangelical Christian ultra right wing nationalism that made itself known under Reagan. Women's rights falling apart was not an irrational fear: it happened in Iran in 1979. Check out photos of Iran from the 60s and 70s, women are all wearing western clothing, smoking, going to college, Iran was a very modern country. There is an American movie filmed months before the revolution which has a female police officer as a major plot element.

The Postman is criticizing the same types of people, and there is real similar precedent. Reagan was talking about government being "evil", and his administration deliberately destroyed and undercut tons of government social safety nets and services. He fired so many air traffic controllers it was years before they could train more! The right wing is STILL trying to dismantle the postal service!

In the novel, civilization and government wasn't destroyed by the war itself, it was the conditions that came after. There is a faction of these nutty hyper survivalists who are all but stated to be white supremacists; basically every ultra macho racist misogynistic doomsday prepper you've seen. These guys deliberately destroyed reconstruction efforts and ruined what remained of society. Just like the Handmaid's Tale was a commentary on right wing politics of the 80s, I think The Postman is commentary on the exact same part. It really drives home that civilization, and government itself, is a positive thing despite its flaws, with more good than bad. The heroes are dedicated to rebuilding lines of communication, recovering all that was lost. We see over and over again that while we've stumbled, it wasn't government that destroyed civilization it was barbarity and cruelty, a *lack* of government. Society can train armies, create medicine, build roads and towns, and stop people from being hurt and dying. The war itself didn't even destroy civilization, it was neglect and the destruction of order. These people aren't trying to merely survive; they *are* surviving, they want to *live*. And that means rebuilding everything that was lost. Building cities, fixing libraries, and having dedicated civil servants. There's no hope that help will come from elsewhere, we must take action into our own hands. The book emphasizes that government is not this alien monolith, it's us, it's people, and without people, everything falls apart. It is so effective at delivering this message, it drives home a very moving and nuanced view of patriotism. Our heroes are farmers, workers, and postal workers. They're not rich folk, or macho men, they're everyday citizens who want things to get better. Our hero is a skinny little con man! "Don't you want more out of life?"

One can even argue the book is a battle between two views of the United States of America specifically. The survivalists have a right wing view of the country and the world, might makes right, individualism or death, manly man things, greed is good, and how everyone should be "independent". One of them is a former stock broker for crying out loud! Others are these ex military guys, many of whom rape and pillage. Gordon and his friends have a more left wing view of government, equality for all, might *for* right(if might is even in the equation), the ants must work together and stand together, that the smallest among us deserve as many rights as the largest; united we are strong, knowledge is power, and community is for the benefit of all, for justice, for peace, and for the future. Our hero is a lanky college student turned postal worker, others are a coalition of scientists, feminists, and *hippies*.

The book is surprisingly progressive with regards to women's rights. There's weird 80s attitudes toward feminism, but I would argue it's much more charitable than others. It's very clear the author does care about women's rights, and his heart is in the right place, he just doesn't quite grok all the issues. He puts feminism firmly on the side of the heroes. The female lead who is declared to be a feminist is depicted as naive, but it's more about her than feminism itself. And it feels more like the characters than the narrative. The one who calls her "an old school feminist" is a middle aged scientist, and Gordon is very jaded. His attitude is more about how he doesn't want anyone else to die more than being anti feminist. And the reason for her naivety might be more subtly implied to be that she learned her attitudes purely from books rather than lived experience. She manages to get female soldiers into an army at one point, and the problems aren't with that itself, but the army overall is in trouble. By contrast, the villains want to completely annihilate women's rights as a whole, again, A Handmaid's Tale. The ending has a segment that I'm not sure where to fall on, but I think remains in that thought that the writer very clearly has his heart in the right place but doesn't quite understand.

The book is, to quote another post I saw, filled with infectious optimism. Gordon is a fun hero who's not some macho loner, he just wants a bed and a hot meal, and accidentally causes a massive revolution. It's about how government is what we make of it, and is a force for good more often than not. We have to create the future, or others will do it for us.

[tomoleary]

Frank Kelly Freas “Startide Rising” by David Brin (1993) Source

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[larmegliamori]

The way Foundation and Second Empire wasn't authorized by the Asimov estate while the Second Foundation Trilogy was... A crime if you ask me

[commiemartyrshighschool]

GIS'd a sci-fi book I read a while back for the sake of an in-joke. And I can't imagine a more ironic fate for a book about using technology to help animals evolve to higher intelligence than this series of covers:

And special mention for the audio book:

I don't know if this is a strictly chronological order but the move away from hand painted covers (which included the paper backs) to computer aided compositions does not seem positive.

[mofun2read]

My N was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman!

This book was great! Very interesting characters and world. A nice little twist but also happy ending. And I am glad he didn't take Jessica back she was annoying from the beginning.

I need to go back and finish my K which is Kil'n people by David Brin.

[spacenoirdetective]

Michael Whelan, cover art for "Brightness Reef" by David Brin

[ub-sessed]

I'm reading Sundiver, written in 1980 by David Brin. It's highly enjoyable, but damn in a couple places it reads like it was written by a Disney animator:

God forbid women have facial expressions!

(For context, somebody under her watch just died, probably murdered.)

[rhetoricandlogic]

Two DNF's. The first shows its age - and not in a good way from page 1. DNF at 18%. The second is too heavy on the tropes and second-hand embarrassment, DNF at 27%.

[elegantzombielite]

"It's 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 they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable."

David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 October 1950)

[humanjeff]

OP you'll never see this, but there's a short story - I want to say by David Brin but I'm not 100% sure about this, it's been a while - where people digging in garbage tips around the world find an entire layer of human corpses, identical copies of their grandparents' generation, which the living people from that time cannot explain at all (but please stop digging)

Geological horror. You find a geode and crack it open and the crystal lining its walls is human blood that can't be genetically matched to anyone. You find a human skeleton but every one of the bones is made from rock, a rock that you know can't be whittled into those shapes. You find layers of clay and loam that sport ancient fossils at the top and the still-rotting corpses of modern animals at the bottom.

[larmegliamori]

Foundation's Triumph has me SHOOKETH both in a positive and negative way.

[mofun2read]

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine was my first sci fi in a while and I was pleasantly surprised. All action and politics then ending with some romance and good relationships.

I loved it!

Next I am finally reading my K - Kiln People by David Brin

[alohapromisesforever]

Thought For the Day: We Only Think That Our Opponents Are Dogmatic! We All Need Criticism. Criticism Is the Only Antidote To Error

“Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.” – David Brin