Existence

Initial confession - I've only previously read Brin's The Rivers of Time Collection and have no intereest whatsoever in reading the Uplift Saga. Having said that, based upon the premise alone, this became a must read book for me as soon as I heard about it. It's rambling, sprawling and a little overlong but overall is still an excellent novel based upon the Fermi complex and the myriad explanations as to why we appear to be alone in the universe.

My main misgivings about Existence relate to the large leap in time between sections 6 & 7 which lead to several characters notably Peng Xiang Bin being sidelined and their storylines being abandoned. I also have to question whether the entire Lungfish Novella (written a whole 25 years before the publication of Existence) needed to be shoehorned into the latter parts of the book- Surely a writer of Mr Brin's calibre could have written a similar piece to Lungfish rather than recycle the entire story with a couple of names changed?

Despite these misgivings I'd expect this to feature heavily in next years award shortlists.