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Originally Posted by kilofox
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I've read about half of them.
I'd actually recommend LeGuin's _The Left Hand of Darkness_ over _The Dispossessed_. And I wonder if the author of _Sparrow_ ever encountered the late James Blish's _A Case of Conscience_?
Oh, and the thumbnail plot description of _A Fire Upon the Deep_ made me wonder if we read the same book.
Others? Hmmm. Folks who haven't encountered them might like to try David Brin's "Uplift" series.
Humanity has developed FTL travel, and ventured out into the galaxy. It has also used genetic engineering to raise chimps and dolphins to human level intelligence.
It discovers that there is a galactic civilization. Intergalactic, in fact, encompassing five galaxies, and once, long ago, extending to fourteen.
The very first intelligent species to arise in the local cluster were the fabled Progenitors, several billion years ago. They achieved sentience and civilization, developed FTL travel, and went looking for other intelligent species. They didn't find any, since they were the first. They did find some worlds with species who could
become sentient, with a little assistance, and they provided that assistance, and started a tradition that became known as Uplift, and grew and endured over billenia afterward. The Progenitors vanished long ago, but their memory and influence remains.
By the time humanity arrives on the scene, galactic civilization is based on Uplift. It is the closest thing to a religion the galaxies have.
Every intelligent species in the galaxy has been "Uplifted" to sentience by a Patron race. Uplifted species owe their patrons 10,000 years of chattel slavery as repayment for being uplifted. Status in the galaxy is measured in part by how many species your race has uplifted.
Along comes humanity, tossing a cosmic monkey wrench in the works. To begin with, we don't appear to have Patrons. This is anathema to half of the galactic clans, who believe achieving sentience unassisted is a holy act only the sainted Progenitors could achieve. They believe that the Progenitors will someday return, and seek to make the galaxies the sort of place they believe the Progenitors wished them to become.
But if we
did have Patrons, they appear to have abandoned the task part way through. This is unthinkable to the other half of the galactic clans, because Uplift is a sacred duty you do
not simply abandon.
And to make it worse, we arrive with two already Uplifted Client species of our own, and instant status.
Half of the galaxy wants us extinct on general principle. The other half thinks we need more seasoning, and ought to be someone's Client species for a few thousand years...preferably theirs.
And a human exploration ship crewed by dolphins may have discovered what became of the vanished Progenitors.
Start with _Sundiver_, and proceed through _Startide Rising_ and _The Uplift_ war, as a good start.
______
Dennis