Existence

By David Brin

Bestselling, award-winning futurist David Brin returns to globe-spanning, high concept SF with Existence.

Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there's something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn't on the decades' old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth's infomesh about an "alien artifact."

Thrown into the maelstrom of worldwide shared experience, the Artifact is a game-changer. A message in a bottle; an alien capsule that wants to communicate. The world reacts as humans always do: with fear and hope and selfishness and love and violence. And insatiable curiosity.



At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jun 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781429946964

David Brin

David Brin is a scientist, public speaker and world-known author. His novels have been New York Times Bestsellers, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. At least a dozen have been translated into more than twenty languages. Novels include bold and prophetic explorations of our near future, including The Postman, Earth and Existence.His ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and near-future trends such as the World Wide Web. A movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on his post-apocalyptic novel, The Postman. David's novel Kiln People has been called a book of ideas disguised as a fast-moving and fun noir detective story, set in a future when new technology enables people to physically be in more than two places at once. A hardcover graphic novel The Life Eaters explored alternate outcomes to World War II, winning nominations and high praise.David's science fictional Uplift Universe explores a future when humans genetically engineer animals to join our civilization.

Reviews for Existence

[nkmunn · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The gap between what I was anticipating and what is presented (more than authored) is too wide - too bad :(

[leo8-15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Waaaay too long....

[kevin678-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Riding rockets as a sport, childish. Implausible storyline. Didn't get past 10 pages.

[anandrajan_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Doubles as a work of fiction while also tackling the Fermi paradox. All over the place and disjoint.

[alcarinqa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It took me a long time to read this book - partially because I wanted to saviour its brilliance and partially because it is so dense that I had to take long breaks from it. That's a contradictory statement, because Existence is a contradictory book and has spawned a complimentary review. This could either be a very long review where I recount every aspect of the novel (and there are many) and how they affected me, or a short review where I don't tell you much about the story, but let you know what impressed me most about it. I'm opting for the latter.Singularly, each aspect of the novel is superb, but brought together in a 550 page plus manuscript, they languish. Existence explores humanity's First Contact with an intelligent species in the context of a world gone to hell. An Earth where humanity tethers on the brink of (self-inflicted) destruction and turns eagerly to the salvation offered by advanced beings. And humanity's natural reaction - equal parts fear and curiosity - bring out the best, and worst in all of us. Within this grand experience are several smaller, but no less epic, subplots - the long awaited emergence of Artificial Intelligence and the slow decline of personal privacy at the expense of "security". Survival on a planet plagued with natural disasters, growing deserts and limited tracts of agriculturally viable land. The abandonment of space programs and astronomy in general due to centuries of Galactic silence and growing evidence that the Fermi Paradox is real: we are truly alone. Somewhere along the way I started feeling like the author had just taken on too much - that an exploration of all that, and more, even in a large novel such as this, is simply too ambitious.But David brin pulls it off. The first quarter or so of the book introduces us to a myriad of interesting characters and to a bizarre world that I can see glimpses of our future in, but cannot fathom. The discovery by Gerald Livingstone of an alien artefacts gets things rolling and before long all of humanity is waiting to see what it has to reveal to us. What follows is an increasingly philosophical look at human nature, punctuated with a little action, and everything is examined from at least three differing perspectives. Not that this part of the book is boring - there's a zeppelin explosion, seismic shifts all over the world, a Chinese conspiracy and, to top it all off, we learn the aliens aren't being entirely truthful. But it feels lacking. The last 100 or so pages of the book are different again, written almost on a completely different style to the rest of the novel as humans take a few steps towards unravelling the mystery of their place in the universe. And the conclusion, while absolutely not what I had expected, brings a sense of closure intermingled with sheepish irony.So, should you read Existence? If you need action, clear-cut stories and cannot abide philosophical debate, then this is not the book for you. But if you are interested in a comprehensive discourse on human nature at its most fundamental levels in the context of our First Contact with intelligent life, then I believe you will enjoy Existence. While the over-reaching plot elements fade very quickly from ones mind, the wonder and adventure David Brin brings to his book linger.You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic.

[dlmorrese · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a rare work in that it is intelligent and thought provoking. Unfortunately, skipping between POVs and issues with pacing can make it a slog to read at times. Still, the ideas and overall optimistic tone of the book make it worthy of the attempt. This isn't your typical sci-fi adventure. It takes a bit of effort on the part of the reader, but I recommend it.

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Stimulating ideas about the long-scale future of humanity; the story's a bit choppy in order to explore the ideas. Many interesting characters. Going to think about this one for awhile.

[socprof9740 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Us science-fiction fans have been waiting for a long time for a new full-fledged novel by David Brin since Kiln People. It is finally here: Existence. I think Existence is on a par with the Uplift trilogy or Earth. It does indeed read like a more elaborate version of Earth. I remember re-reading Sundiver a few years ago and thinking how great it still is.

Existence is a big book. And by that, I don't just mean that it's long (although it is, clocking in at 553 pages on my Kindle) but that it aims at big ideas about... wait for it... existence. At the same time, it is an entertaining sci-fi work on the "first contact" theme starting when astronaut / space garbage cleaner Gerald Livingstone grabs a crystal out of orbit and brings it back to Earth, and it turns out that the crystal contains alien avatars and they are sending a message, "Join Us". Somewhere in China, an impoverished salvage collector makes a similar discovery in an underwater abandoned mansion, except the alien in his crystal is calling the other liars.

But that is only one story line in a book that weaves many threads (and ends up with a lot of loose ends as a result). Brin has created a futuristic world that has obviously suffered massive environmental and social catastrophes (Awfulday, the Autism plague). Global warming has drowned big chunks of the world.

Not everything has been lost, the Mesh (the Internet) connects everybody. Most people have implants that constantly plug them in with AIs, information from the web, smart mobs, and varieties of overlays. Different social movements have emerged, the so-called God-makers (the technology makers and pushers), the Renunciation movement who wants to slow things down and rejects some technology advancements, various religious movements. It sometimes felt like Brin was more interested in the whole gadgetry than his characters or his "world".

Overall, the world seems to be stratified according to a hierarchy of estates. The First estate is that a global caste of super-wealthy oligarchs who rule behind the scenes but are depicted as benevolent yet possessing a quite clear sense of entitlement. But Brin leaves this stratification system quite incomplete. Most of the characters are privileged people (except for the Chinese salvage collector). Even though it is mentioned in the book at some point that starvation has disappeared, this Chinese example shows that not to be true. And as global as the novel is, Africa is remarkably absent.

Somewhere, in there, one also finds the roots of Uplift, although that storyline is abruptly brought up, then abandoned, and does not do much for the whole book except give the Brin faithful the Origin story of Uplift. Abrupt changes of direction and loose ends left hanging abound in Existence. One such brutal change in direction is when the alien storyline really gets interesting, then, the book fastforwards decades out of nowhere... and then does it again until the end. I guess this last one is supposed to bring all the plotlines together but does not really and the book ends with no ending. Those last 30 pages were a bit of a slug for me.

Oh yeah, and there is a cloned Neanderthal child in there as well.

The cast of character is vast is it is not hard to keep track but one never knows if any of them will make another appearance once a chapter is over. And a lot of them don't. Hence the loose ends impression. To add to the confusion, supposed "excerpts" from books, manifestos, etc. are interspersed between chapters.

Up until the abrupt fast-forward, I was really enjoying the book although never knowing whether a character would reappear or had been dropped was annoying. After the fast-forward, I confessed to losing interest and I really had to drag myself across the finish line.

[chrisriesbeck · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A big boring book on big themes that is mostly a collection of essays by Brin, nominally written or spoken by various characters. It starts with several action pieces, including an impressive episode whose content can be guessed from the fact that it previously appeared in All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories. Some aspects of the near future are sketched out pretty nicely, and it's not all centered in the US. That takes us to page 190. After that it's pretty much sit and listen to Uncle David for the next 300 pages. Though there's passing reference to Uplift in one thread, the postscript makes clear this is not in the Uplift universe. The known laws of physics -- at least the cosmological ones -- are obeyed, but not any rules of plot or character development. Not recommended unless you have found Brin's non-fiction writings fascinating.

[guide2_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Full of bright interesting ideas about the near future, mixed with alien colonization ideas. Very good read. First part of the book was really amazing, only the last few parts would ahve needed a bit more stitching together I think.

[steve_walker-348810 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

With a tip of the hat to the John Brunner classic "Stand on Zanzibar" David Brin is back with a novel of first contact. Set in the middle of the 21st century the Earth is a muddled mess, dealing with the effects of climate change, overpopulation, economic stagnation, and other sociopolitical ills. Everything changes when a odd looking artifact is retrieved from orbit and brought to Earth. This is not light beach reading. Unless you are on top of the latest thinking about group social dynamics, the search for ET's, etc. you may find yourself lost after several pages. Careful reading will give you one of the best SF novels written in a long time. Looking for a novel of ideas? This is the book for you.

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am normally a fan of David Brin's work and in whole this book was good. However, there are a couple of problems that cause me to have reservations about it. First of all, I don't know how to categorize this book. In the beginning, this felt like near-future SF, with a tremendous emphasis on VR/internet personal technology, artificial intelligence and some spaceflight. By the middle, it felt like a prequel to his Uplift series. Then it morphed into a first contact novel. By the end, I wasn't sure which it was. Its certainly near-future, but was all the time spent on it in the beginning just to set the stage for a first contact book? The second problem was that it is tremendously difficult to get into. The first 300 pages are spent introducing 4 main characters - 2 of which turn out to not be main characters at all by the end, while one new character almost takes over. There's just so much in that first 300 pages that was hard to read. After that, the pace picked up, but I'm still not sure this book came to a satisfying conclusion, by then it felt like there was another book coming. It never did quite match up with Sundiver or the other Uplift books, almost as if Brin decided he needed to revise some of his technology in those books and this is how he decided to start on it. Overall I liked it, but mostly because I'm a big fan of the Uplift books.

[karenherndon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love SciFi and I have loved all the other Brin books I have read, but I didn't love this one. It took me forever to finish where I am usually a very fast reader- but I'm not sure why. In the beginning I got lost in all the characters and even had to write them down to remember just who was who. Then just as I am really getting into their individual parts in the story, he moves the time head enough here several of these characters are not around anymore. Then the ending- rather blah I thought. Wouldn't recommend it to my reader friends sadly.

[mikerhode · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Packed full of ideas like a Brin book usually is, but I didn't think it cohered well, especially the last two chapters which took jumps in time away from the main story. A friend told me the last chapter was originally a short story so it may be that writing the novel around it didn't really work.

[mainrun · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Big concept book with many exciting action scenes. The destruction of a Zeppelin, the person saved by dolphins, the political maneuvering, and anything with the Peng Xiang Bin character were well done. To be honest, sometimes I was not in the mood to read the 'big concept' parts: ways we are going to die, taunts to ET about contacting us, enhancing dolphins with human intelligence, collecting space junk, are we alone?, artificial intelligence, and SETI; just to name a few. I thought about them when I was in the mood, so all is good. It was a blast reading the Jamaican dialog out loud in my head.

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Part of the current wave of "in-system" space opera that dispenses with technological magic such imaginary faster-than-light drives, I would have hoped that Brin as a working scientist would have topped novels with comparable themes by Kim Stanley Robinson, Paul McAuley, Charles Stross and the like; in that respect I was a bit disappointed.In examining the impact that the arrival of an alien probe has on a world culture that has basically given up space exploration, the biggest problem here is that Brin has tried to shoe-horn all his concerns with current and near-future events into one book. This contributes to a plot that feels overly involved to no real point and is too didactic for its own good. There are no lack of worthwhile ideas but some ruthless editing was in order.To put it another way, I'm inclined to believe that I got more out of Brin's contributions to the mini-series "Alien Encounters" then I got out of this novel and that's unfortunate.

[skraft001 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A grand book full of novel ideas.

[eichin_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very good bit of "universe building", and some glorious extrapolation the internet and human nature in the face of the lightspeed limit. Doesn't have the forced anti-privacy elements some of Brin's earlier works have - they're just woven in as convincing inevitabilities of taking today's social-connected-everything forward a few steps. I'll leave it at that - don't want to spoil any of the intertwined setups for entertaining reveals (the book has a number of startling reveals that on further thought, "huh, I really *should* have seen that coming...") which I very much enjoyed. The story, and the universe, were both "well constructed".

[chaosmogony · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I waffled between three and four stars for Existence, but I'm going to give it the four even though I think it's more in the 3.5 range.

The cons first: the book is sprinkled with what read to me as indulgent author-insertions in the form of monologues and infodumps. As a regular reader of Brin's blog, which is quite good and thought-provoking, I found that not only his ideas but his blog-voice were creeping in far too often. This would be fine if it were limited to the pseudonymous narrations book-ending each chapter, but I found Brin often speaking in the inner thoughts of his characters as well.

I didn't like heavy-handed authorial intrusion when Dan Simmons did it in Flashback and I don't care for it here. It isn't the views espoused per se, as much as it is being jerked out of the story with the occasional eye-roll because you're suddenly hearing the author rather than his creation.

That out of the way, I thought the story itself was imaginative, thoughtful, and at least some (perhaps of the majority) of the characters were interesting enough for me to follow. There were a handful of sub-plots that felt out of place and never really went anywhere, but the story as a whole was creative and interesting enough for me to follow. There's a jarring transition around the last third to quarter of the book, after which some characters vanish along with their sub-plots, but being that this is ambitious SF I'm used to that and consider it part of the ride. The conceit of this book is...well, I'll say unique and leave it at that (on the most positive possible note).

Brin is, to me, always worth a read and Existence is no exception if you're into speculative fiction with a more optimistic slant.

[alanpoulter_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Existence is a door stopper of a book but big is not always best. The tragedy is that if this work had been slimmed down drastically and published as short fiction it would attain classic status for its inventive riffing on the Fermi Paradox: if there is life out there, why have we not found it yet? Yet as a bloated novel, which is padded out by way too much authorial riffing around the core theme, and some very wooden story vignettes which add very little to the overall concept, it becomes a bore. Another option would be to make a film of it, but as a novel it is a bloated, plodding dud.

[jerhogan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is chock full of SF ideas and interesting musings. However it is a bit long at 650 pages.

[joeyreads_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

One star might be harsh, but I have to do it because I stopped reading this halfway through, felt relieved to be done with it and then somehow went back to it, and wish I'd not ended up finishing it. The infuriating thing is that any individual chunk of this is likely not bad, and some of them are pretty good, but the whole is just not there. (And the editing .. well, it's a modern 700 page novel, with dangling plot threads, so no, there was no editing.)

If it had a "warning: fixup novel" in the front matter, I'd give it 2 stars. But it's a stealth fixup, not done well. Be warned.

[tetrachromat · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as his other works. Lengthy infodumps explaining real world scientific topics/theories (ex Fermi paradox, SETI) at the beginning of seemingly every chapter. If you're a nerdy fan of hard science fiction (like myself), it's likely you already understand these kinds of topics. As a result, this dumpage may lessen your reading experience (it did mine). Contains excessive jargon! Some jargon is good-- great even!, but Brin's all over the place with it in this book. Also, many times throughout novel Brin will use 3+ words to where only 1 is needed. Some of this extra description is great, but it, at least to me, seemed overdone thus making novel exceedingly verbose.Despite this, the storylines are well written and worth a read if you're willing to sweat through all the other mess.

[tumler100 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Existence starter ut med å beskrive livet til mennesker i forskjellige sosiale og økonomiske strata. Snart blir det funnet objekter som stammer fra andre kloder. Historiene begynner å konvergere og vi aner at boken utforsker evolusjon og de komplekse forutsetningene for liv.Det viser seg at utsendingene fra rommet har flere agendaer og etter som tiden går får vi flere a-ha opplevelser og dypere innsikt i vansklighetene vi står overfor. Som ellers i David Brin's verk er det noen av historiene som ikke avsluttes men blir mindre viktige når nye faktorer trer inn. Nye problemer presenteres med løsninger, og kanske en triumf til slutt.Existence ønsker jeg å lese om igjenn snart, for å forstå de skjulte lagene i denne glimrende boken.Bakrunnen kan minne litt om Gregory Benford sin Galactic Center serie, men med et persongalleri verdig Vernor Vinges «Zones of Thought». Boken markedsføres som en «stand alone» og ikke som en del av Uplift universet. Litterært har den også en helt annen tone. Dette er ingen heseblesende jakt mellom stjernene, men en kamp mellom intellekter og grunnsyn.Brin leker denne gang mer med ord og perspektiver enn siden «Startide Rising» og gir en mangefasettert og spennende opplevelse.5 av 5 stjerner *****--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Existence starts out describing the life of people of different social and economic strata. Soon objects from other worlds are discovered. The histories start to converge and we realise that the book explores evolution and the complex contingencies for life.It appears that the envoys from space has several agendas and as time goes by we get several a-ha experiences and deeper understanding of difficulties we face. As in other of David Brin's works some of the substories are not closed off, but dwindles into oblivion as new factors enters the scene. New problems are presented with some preliminary solutions, and mayby finally a triumph."Existence" is a novel I would like to reread soon, to delve deeper into the complex layers of this glimmering novella.The story setting reminds me of the Galactic Center series by Gregory Benford with a character gallery worthy of Vernor Vinges «Zones of Thought».This novel is beeing markeded as a stand alone, and not as a part of the Uplift Universe. The tone of this book is also quite different. This is no pell mell hunt through the galaxies, but a joust amongst intellects and their world-views. Brin plays more with words and perspectives than he's done since «Startide Rising» and gives us a many-facetted and thrilling experience.5 out of 5 stars *****

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I missed Brin, it turns out! This is century-spanning space opera (though largely set on Earth), with big time-jumps, multiple species of humanity (including Neandertals, “auties,” and AIs along with dolphins), and attack memes from outer space. As with much big idea sf, it’s about our present problems: climate change, the apparently unstoppable power of wealthy elites, and more generally whether we will make it as a technological species over the medium term. The people are recognizable but outsize, and they hold different viewpoints; each is the hero of their own narrative. In short, it’s fun and a little bit thought-provoking (did I mention the attack memes from outer space?).

[clark7hallman · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Existence, by David Brin, has gotten many very positive reviews. One reviewer from SFF World stated, “Existence is my top SF novel of 2012 and I recommend it without hesitation.” Well, I strongly disagree! Existence is a “first contact” science fiction book in which Brin presents some interesting and unique concepts that could have been woven into a very informative and interesting story. Unfortunately, Brin failed to accomplish that because the strangely disjointed narrative throughout the book did not provide a natural flow to guide the reader through satisfying experience. Brin includes a large number of interesting characters, long segments of their dialogue with each other, and even longer passages of their thoughts. Many of these passages were very interesting, but many of them did not seem to be relevant to any continuing story for the reader. In addition, after suffering through these long and seemingly irrelevant portions, many of the characters that the reader becomes acquainted with just vanish from the book without any explanation. In addition, the extreme length of this book combined with the lack of a coherent narrative exacerbates the reader’s confusion. I kept thinking that Brin would eventually pull everything together to provide the reader with an epiphany of understanding about the book. However, that never happened for me and I was very disappointed by this book.

[seanvk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Appreciated the focus on the many risks to species survival beyond earth. The emphasis on sublight travel created a number of opportunities for a good story. But I felt that the author failed to capitalize on character development. I also disliked the story's jumping ahead many years and answering the questions / past conflicts in passing. It is a creative work but lacking in key elements to make a great novel.

[brianschweitzer · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

So far, about a fifth in, and the summary's Gerald has had only one short section. Seems like this will have many many sub stories converging, ala Neil Stephenson. It's definitely taking its time getting to any coherent main plot...

Completed now; this book is high thought, but far too slow to be interesting.

[derdahinteninderecke · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Existence beschreibt eine Welt in naher Zukunft, Mitte des 21. Jahrhunderts, in der es zu einigen sozialen Umwälzungen kam, der Status quo aber im wesentlichen noch vorhanden ist. Es gibt reiche und arme Menschen, und im wesentlichen ist eine allgemeine Grundversorgung für alle Menschen garantiert.Viel des öffentlichen Lebens spielt sich in der Virtualität eines Internetnachfahren ab, das in verschiedensten Schichten wie Folien über die Realität werden kann. Einige Technologien haben Fortschritte gemacht, wie VR-Brillen, Massenspeicher, Fusion und künstliche Intelligenz und haben Folgen gezogen.Leider gibt es keine Weltraumbesiedlung, aufgrund von Tragödien in der Vergangenheit und einer Verzichtsbewegung (Renunciation), die an Einfluss gewinnt und die Abkehr und Kontrolle von Technologie propagiert. Sie hat einflussreiche Unterstützer, und in einem Handlungsstrang folgt der Leser einem dieser Unterstützer. Im Gegenzug gibt es da noch die Reporterin und andere Charaktere, aber das alles gerät ein bisschen ins Hintertreffen, als bei einer Routinemission zur Weltraumschrottsammlung ein Artefakt geborgen wird, das bedeutende Implikationen hat.Brin schafft eine interessante Welt, die wie eine glaubwürdige Extrapolation der Gegenwart wirkt, mit ein paar Rückgriffen auf seine vorigen Werke. Auch wenn man diese nicht kennt, kann man den Roman trotzdem genießen, ohne einen Mangel befürchten zu müssen.Zuerst liest es sich übrigens wie eine Sammlung von lose zusammen hängenden Kurzgeschichten, um mit fortschreitender Länger immer mehr Kontinuität zwischen den Handlungssträngen zu entwickeln. In meinen Augen auch noch positiv ist, dass sich Brin nicht zu so… fantastischen Enden hat hinreißen lassen wie beispielsweise bei Copy oder Earth.(In lang: http://mediengelaber.blogspot.com/2012/09/existence.html )

[rakerman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Basically a long exploration of the Fermi paradox. I found the structure of the book somewhat jarring as after 420 pages of following one set of characters, it abruptly jumps 20 years into the future and off of the earth, with many plot threads only eventually loosely closed. After 507 pages it jumps again to a different character grouping. Part Seven (starting on page 421) seems a bit awkwardly grafted onto the main book.