David Brin - Böcker

OUR CONTINUED EXISTENCE WAS NEVER A GIVEN. Year after year, humanity has survived the main pitfalls awaiting us - natural disasters, nuclear war, rising seas. But when an alien artefact is found floating in Earth's orbit, it pushes our troubled world to the brink of chaos. Is this a message in a bottle bringing peace and enlightenment from the stars? Or a warning, threatening to destroy what little stability mankind has achieved? The world is divided - holding its breath. Soon we will know the secret of existence. Brilliant and gripping, David Brin's novel of the near future is the work of a modern master of science fiction.

He was a survivor: a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war.But when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker, his life changes for ever. As he journeys from one isolated community to the next, the old, worn uniform becomes far more than a protection against the unrelenting cold: it's a reminder of how things were before the world collapsed - and a symbol for how things might be again.His story is one of a lie becoming the most important kind of truth.Translated into 25 languages around the world, The Postman is a powerful and affecting novel about survival of the human spirit, from the award-winning author of EXISTENCE and The Uplift novels.

TIME IS RUNNING OUTDecades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth's core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year.But while they look for an answer, some claim that the only way to save Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to reset the evolutionary clock and start over.Earth is the Hugo and Locus Award-nominated novel that, with countless accurate predictions, earned David Brin his reputation as a visionary futurologist.

In New York and Baltimore, police cameras scan public areas twenty-four hours a day. Huge commercial databases track you finances and sell that information to anyone willing to pay. Host sites on the World Wide Web record every page you view, and smart" toll roads know where you drive. Every day, new technology nibbles at our privacy.Does that make you nervous? David Brin is worried, but not just about privacy. He fears that society will overreact to these technologies by restricting the flow of information, frantically enforcing a reign of secrecy. Such measures, he warns, won't really preserve our privacy. Governments, the wealthy, criminals, and the techno-elite will still find ways to watch us. But we'll have fewer ways to watch them. We'll lose the key to a free society: accountability. The Transparent Society is a call for reciprocal transparency." If police cameras watch us, shouldn't we be able to watch police stations? If credit bureaus sell our data, shouldn't we know who buys it? Rather than cling to an illusion of anonymity-a historical anomaly, given our origins in close-knit villages-we should focus on guarding the most important forms of privacy and preserving mutual accountability. The biggest threat to our freedom, Brin warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people, now by too many.A society of glass houses may seem too fragile. Fearing technology-aided crime, governments seek to restrict online anonymity fearing technology-aided tyranny, citizens call for encrypting all data. Brins shows how, contrary to both approaches, windows offer us much better protection than walls after all, the strongest deterrent against snooping has always been the fear of being spotted. Furthermore, Brin argues, Western culture now encourages eccentricity-we're programmed to rebel! That gives our society a natural protection against error and wrong-doing, like a body's immune system. But social T-cells" need openness to spot trouble and get the word out. The Transparent Society is full of such provocative and far-reaching analysis.The inescapable rush of technology is forcing us to make new choices about how we want to live. This daring book reminds us that an open society is more robust and flexible than one where secrecy reigns. In an era of gnat-sized cameras, universal databases, and clothes-penetrating radar, it will be more vital than ever for us to be able to watch the watchers. With reciprocal transparency we can detect dangers early and expose wrong-doers. We can gauge the credibility of pundits and politicians. We can share technological advances and news. But all of these benefits depend on the free, two-way flow of information.

Can science fiction--especially sci-fi cinema--save the world? It already has, many times. Retired officers testify that films like Doctor Strangelove, Fail-Safe, On the Beach and War Games provoked changes and helped prevent accidental war. Soylent Green and Silent Running recruited millions of environmental activists. The China Syndrome and countless movies about plagues helped bring attention to those failure modes. And the grand-daddy of "self-preventing prophecy"—Nineteen Eighty-Four—girded countless citizens to stay wary of Big Brother.It's not been all dire warnings. While optimism is much harder to dramatize than apocalypse, both large and small screens have also encouraged millions to lift their gaze, contemplating how we might get better, incrementally, or else raise grandchildren worthy of the stars.Come along on a quirky quest for unusual insights into the power of forward-looking media. How the romantic allure of feudalism tugs at men and women who benefited vastly from modernity. Or explore why almost every Hollywood film preaches Suspicion of Authority, along with tolerance, diversity and personal eccentricity, and how those messages helped keep us free. No one is spared scrutiny! Not Spielberg or Tolkien or Cameron or Costner... nor Dune or demigods or zombie flicks. Certainly not George Lucas or Ayn Rand! Though some critiques are offered from a lifetime of respect and love... and gratitude.

WINNER OF THE HUGO, LOCUS AND NEBULA AWARDSUnder the caverns of Mercury, the Sundiver Mission prepares for a momentous voyage: a journey into the blazing inferno of the sun, to seek our destiny in the cosmic order of life.For in a universe where no species can reach sentience without being 'uplifted' by a patron race, only humanity - it seems - may have climbed to the stars unaided. This is a feat that puzzles and even angers some of the ancient, mighty Galactic Clans.Now, in a saga that warps from Earth to the far-reaches of five galaxies, the greatest mystery of all may be explained . . .This omnibus contains the first three novels in David Brin's classic and award-winning science fiction series, the Uplift Saga: SUNDIVER, STARTIDE RISING and THE UPLIFT WAR.

Circling the Sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history. A journey into the boiling inferno of the sun, to seek our destiny in the cosmic order of life.For in a universe in which no species can reach sentience without being 'uplifted' by a patron race, it seems that only mankind has reached for the stars unaided. And now, the greatest mystery of all may be explained...Sundiver is the first book in David Brin's magnificent Uplift series.

As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth. The various uplifted inhabitants must battle their overlords of face ultimate extinction. At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies.THE UPLIFT WAR is the third book in David Brin's magnificent Uplift series. Winner of the Hugo award when it was first published, it is a sweeping, brilliantly crafted story of adventure and wonder from one of the greatest writers of science fiction.

The second book in David Brin's second Uplift trilogy is a magnificent addition to one of science fiction's most ambitious and compelling series. The six races had been living in exile on the planet Jijo for two thousand years before they were discovered by the Five Galaxies. Now they are alone again, but they know it is only a reprieve . . . Fleeing across space following an alien attack on Earth, the spaceship Streaker finds itself stranded near an uninhabited planet. Kaa is sent to the surface to investigate. All seems quiet. He doesn't yet know that the planet is Jijo.