Conference noted::sf

      My first guess would be that you have to have something to talk
      about in the 2nd and 3rd books. Isn't everything a trilogy
      now days? On the other hand, real life has multiple sub-plots and
      many of them go unresolved so maybe they are just being realistic.

      I do agree that I hate a compelete cliff-hanger of an ending. Even
      though I loved the follow-up book, Mirror_of_her_Dreams annoyed me
      the way it ended in the middle of a paragraph. I think the
      authors owe us a complete book. liesl

	I _thought_ Mirror of her Dreams was a single book.  In the
last two pages.......  eeeeyyyyaaauuuggghhh ....  I'm glad no one was
around when I finished it.  I waited over a year for the sequel (AMWT)




					Errrr  that's Baron.
							mk

    "Startide Rising" does have a sequel, "The Uplift War", but it's 
    not a very satisfactory one.  Instead of following up on some of 
    the interesting alien races, Brin concentrates on a boringly 
    humanoid alien and a gang of intelligence-enhanced gorillas.
    
    Actually, I like it when the author leaves tantalizing hints of 
    further stories lying around.  It gives one a sense of a 
    vast and open-ended world just outside the window of the novel.
    It's one of the main appeals of "The Lord of the Rings".  I agree 
    that in "The Forge of God" it's just clumsy writing, but it can 
    add a lot to a book.
    
    /jlr

    re:.0
    
    In many cases, the author writes a book that it just too damn long
    for the publisher to be comfortable issuing as a single book, so
    the editor cuts it in two.
    
    But in others, it's just a tendency to leave a hook open for further
    novels in a series.
    
    And I think the other Benford title you're thinking of is IN THE
    OCEANS OF NIGHT.
    
    re:.3
    
    Actually, THE UPLIFT WAR isn't a sequel, as it occurs pretty much
    concurrently with STARTIDE.
    
    --- jerry

    
    re: .3, .4
    
    I agree.  It can add a LOT to have all sorts of hooks and tendrils
    reaching out from the main book, leading your imagination on and
    letting it fill in details.  Like in STARTIDE RISING, Brin introduces
    psi-bombs, and other "psi-" technology, in a totally taken-for-granted
    manner.  His characters accept psi-energies as blandly as we accept
    electricity...and so no explanation is offered for how it works,
    what it does, how it's produced.  In Brin's case, I loved it...

    But Bear...!  Have I mentioned that I didn't like THE FORGE OF
    GOD?  I think I did.  Just in case...I didn't much like THE
    FORGE OF GOD.
    
    
    And, yes, Benford's other book is IN THE OCEAN OF NIGHT.  By the
    way, despite the chop-stop ending to ACROSS THE SEA OF SUNS, I *do*
    recommend it.  It's a very solid, very good book.  Just brace yourself
    for the end.
    
    Benford wrote another book (don't know yet if it's the same universe,
    though), called GREAT SKY RIVER.
    
    	OCEAN OF NIGHT,
    	SEA OF SUNS,
    	and
    	GREAT SKY RIVER.      _I_ see a pattern developing!
    
    
    Stay tuned for Benford's next book,
    
    	POND OF PLANETS
    
    
    

    
    Picking a nit -
    
    Startide Rising and The Uplift War are not part of a series.  They
    are part of a Future History.  That Future History was started in
    Brin's book Sundivers where a lot that is taken for granted in Startide
    and Uplifted is explained.  Sundivers also occurs many years before
    Startide and Uplift and fills in a lot of the background (like what
    uplift is, why the aliens don't like us, psi weapons, etc....)
    
    If you want to better your understanding, go read sundivers...
    
    Also, David Brin is currently working on several more books in this
    universe.  (at unicon '87, David Brin was the Guest of honor and
    he said that (if my memory recalls correctly) that there would be
    several more books in the series, with one currently under revision,
    one in first draft and one being planned....)
    
    Grins,
    
    clark.

    
    Yowzah!!
    
    Gimme some more Brin!
    
    
    As long as the topics collide, as anyone here read HEART OF THE
    COMET?  It's a Brin-Benford collaboration, isn't it?
    
    
    Tom
    

    RE: HEart of the Comet
    
     Yes it is a collaboration by the two authors and I found it excellent
    reading, good science, good adventure, good...good..well you get
    the point.
    
    					- John

    I have read both startide, and sundiver and found them both
    (apparently) eminently forgettable.  So much so that I can't really
    enter into this discussion since I cannot recall one thing about
    either of them.

    I'm sure I read somewhere, some time ago that Benford was going
    to write a book called "Starscape" which would be a sequel to "Across
    the Sea of Suns".  Presumably, this is the book to which the ending
    of "...Sea of Suns" points rather than "Big Sky River".  
    
    Personally though I'm cherishing the hope that having stranded Nigel
    Walmsley on a godforsaken planet watched over by an automated
    Deathstar, he's going to leave the unbearable smartass there and
    go on to something new...