" So I've finished the second Uplift trilogy and I'm still a bit underwhelmed. First, what was good: Mr. Brin delves into some interesting concepts regarding the nature of sapience and ecological stewardship. He also investigates questions of tradition versus innovation in a long-term galactic civilization. Mr. Brin tries to portray a billion-year-old galactic civilization with an all-encompassing Galactic Library that believes that there is nothing new under the many suns. To his credit, he does a decent job but many of the stodgy alien races end up coming off like the elderly curmudgeon down the block. His setting also supposes that only the mythic Progenitors evolved into starfaring sapience by themselves and that every single starfaring race since then has been "uplifted" to sentience by a benevolent patron race. So when the feral "wolfling" Terrans arrive on the galactic scene, claiming to have had no assistance from a galactic patron race, hilarity ensues. Mr. Brin ends up taking the innovative, boot-strapping Terrans versus the hide-bound Galactic Civilization thing a bit too far. The Earthlings end up a little too clever and the aliens a little too easy to surprise. Then again, that seems to have been much of the author's point.
The storytelling and characters were decent, but no standouts come to mind. The writing style is quite competent but lacks the flair of other SF authors such as Charles Stross or Iain Banks. "
— Ken, 10/16/2013