Startide Rising

For aught I know books should be relaxing and therapeutic in case you are under stress (exclude those of Adolf Hitler and Marquise de Sad). This book was boring. With turtle speed I forced myself to finish it. What can be more boring than talking dolphins? Some of them hate humans. Others love us. The third group is obeying us. We humans are considered to be their patrons, the race that uplifted the dolphins. There are also the Progenitors that are our patrons. These lived many billion years and eons back.

A ship Streaker found in space a derelict fleet. They suppose they belonged to the Progenitors. They took a corpse of a Progenitor from there. But the ship needs resources and metal so it lands on a planet Kithrup. The planet abounds with metal and minerals. Army fleets were chasing them secretly. They were lucky. The fleets began to fight each other to capture Streaker and what it learnt from the corpse about the Progenitors.

Streaker consisted of hundreds of clever dolphins, six humans and a chimpanzee also uplifted to be a sentient. Among the dolphins was a traitor, vice-captain Takkata Jim, a dolphin. He organizes a plot against Streaker's captain, Creideiki. Takkata Jim wanted to give the corpse to the winning fleet above the planet to save his life. Creideiki with the help of some humans overpowered him. As to the fleet, they performed a brilliantly made evasive maneuver to escape.

Well, as I said boring and depressing. But generally it's a good SF with lots scientific stuff. So 4 of 5 only for the sake of the genre.