The news items on this page related to the Startide movie are becoming more and more irrelevant, so I have removed them. If the movie project ever starts again in the future, I will add the latest information to my movie news page.

Thursday, October 25, 2001:

According to an email from Kevin Lenagh, his book Contacting Aliens, formerly entitled the Terragens Agent Handbook, will be published by Bantam at the end of June 2002. As the original title suggests, it's a guide for new Terragens Agents, and it will include somewhere between seventy and a hundred black-and-white illustrations of races and events from the Uplift books. You can find a scan of the cover illustration at the Brin-L illustrations page.

Thursday, October 18, 2001:

David Brin's new Star Trek graphic novel Forgiveness is coming out this month. You can preorder it from Amazon right now.

Tuesday, May 16, 2000:

"George Lucas In Love" can be purchased exclusively at Amazon.com for $7.99. It outsold "Phantom Menace" in VHS units during the past week. "George Lucas in Love" was produced by Trevor Sand's company, Quality Filmed Entertainment. It was directed by Joe Nussebaum, one of Trevor's USC Film School classmates, and executive produced by Gary Bryman, Trevor's producing partner.

Tuesday, February 1, 2000:

David Brin finished reading the first draft of the Startide script, and he thinks it's wonderful. Here's hoping...

In light of the new stuff David Brin has been working on, including consulting for video games, his agent wants a logo representing him. The company is tentatively named "BrinStorms." Several Brinellers have generated great ideas for the logo. Recurring motifs include dolphins, space ships, lightning, Galactic symbols from the Uplift series, and Earth.

Adrian Hon has done the most work. He's come up with several variations on the BrinStorms title. Julia's friend has come up with several good candidate logos. (She isn't actually a list member, but she would be if she had more free time.) Brett Coster, Sean Kane, and Joshua Bell have also contributed ideas.

Tuesday, January 18, 2000:

Videogames.com publishes a preview of Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, an upcoming computer game for Sega Dreamcast. David Brin created the backstory for the game. From the preview article:

One of the earliest companies to start working on the Dreamcast, Appaloosa started working on Ecco the Dolphin, or at least the tools, in November of 1997. Joining the team is Hugo and Nebula award-winning science-fiction author David Brin. Brin has had experience with dolphins, having created a sentient dolphin race in his award-winning novel Startide Rising. Brin is also a longtime game player having co-authored the paper role-playing game Tribes with Steve Jackson, after spending time as a graduate student with D&D and simulation games.

David has brought his talents to bear in creating a back story for Ecco, which he explains: "In a nutshell - Ecco [a young and agile bottle-nosed dolphin] lives during a future age when dolphins and humans share leadership over a vast and peaceful civilization. Together, they have proved greater than either race could be alone. Wise and invincible, they saved many other races from a cruel set of despots. But the game's not over yet! These evil tyrants, in a last gasp, send a ship back through time to disrupt the historical moment when humans and dolphins first united. Ecco happens to be caught in the backwash of this ship and is swept back with it. He's the only one who can prevent the tragedy. But there will be many obstacles to overcome! Along the way he goes back and forth through time, seeing different versions of the future, trying desperately to restore one that's filled with hope."...

...The natural settings are gorgeous to look at, and the worlds are relatively peaceful. However, the other environments emphasize more traditional action and role-playing elements, and, as Gergely comments, these are filled with "creatures and powerful enemies, forces less friendly and benign. In these parts of the game [the] story takes sharper turns and it introduces characters and scenarios from the realm of science fiction." It is here that we see how inspired the choice of Brin was as the storywriter. He modestly says, "The fellows at Appaloosa approached me. Having read my novel, Startide Rising, which portrays dolphin heroes in a future setting, they felt my depiction showed the kind of spirit they wanted in their new version of Ecco." The mixture of dolphins and science fiction made him a perfect choice for the job...

...Relates Brin, "The designers told me what they needed - a reason for Ecco to face wide-ranging and vivid perils. I came up with a way to tie all of their innovative game techniques together. But I kept foremost in mind the fact that the new Dreamcast interactive effects must lead the way, just as movies are often propelled by visual images and emotions that a director wants the audience to feel."...

...Brin, a noted futurist, sees an exciting experience ahead. "It's an age of collaborative entertainment," he says, "with audience and players becoming part of the team. Heck, it's true even in a novel, where the 'team' consists of a writer and a reader, creating images that are different every time."

You can find several reviews of Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future online:

• http://videogames.gamespot.com/dream/adventure/ecco/
• http://www.gaming-age.com/specials/ecco/1/
• http://www.segadreamcast.net/previews/confirmed/ecco_01.html
• http://www.segaweb.com/Previews/Dreamcast/ecco.html

Wednesday, July 21, 1999:

The upcoming "Startide Rising" movie has been added to the Coming Attractions page, which cites this page as one of its sources! :-)

From Science Fiction Weekly, Monday, Jan. 25, 1999:

Avon Eos, the SF&F imprint of Avon Books, plans to hold its second online convention on Saturday, Jan. 30, from 1-5 p.m. ET. EOS CON 2 will feature lectures, panels and a reading group discussion -- all accompanied by Q&A sessions--as well as a chat room where fans can meet and talk informally.

The panel topics will range from "Imagining Future Societies" to "Science Fiction and Fantasy on the Internet," while authors Raymond E. Feist, Gregory Benford and Dennis Danvers will hold their own chats. Eos has lined up more than a dozen of its writers for the event, including Feist, Benford, Danvers, Paul J. McAuley, Maureen F. McHugh and others.

Wednesday, December 23, 1998:

David Brin made a brief appearance at the Brin-L Chat, and had this to say about the list: "I thought I'd mention that I think you brinellers are quite marvelously brilliant cantankerous & mad! ;-) True citizens of the commonwealth of wonder!"

Friday, November 20, 1998 in San Jose, California:

Greg Benford, David Brin, and Vernor Vinge appeared at the Cato Institute, to speak about "Fictional Futures." You can see a video of their seminar in Real Video here.

Monday, November 9, 1998:

Tim Robinson's Great Library of the Five Galaxies won "Site of the Week" from Science-Fiction Weekly.

Monday October 19, 1998 7:41 AM EDT, from Yahoo! News:

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Producer Mace Neufeld optioned David Brin's award-winning science fiction novel "Startide Rising," as well as three sequels that collectively make up "The Uplift Series."

Neufeld, who has an exclusive production deal with Paramount Pictures, paid an initial $100,000. No writer has been set.

"Startide," which was originally published in 1983 and went on to win Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, is the tale of the first starship crewed by humans and sentient dolphins, who discover an ancient relic in deep space. When hostile space-faring alien races learn the relic may hold the key to the origins of intelligent life, an intergalactic hunt ensues.

While the deal included the three other titles ("Brightness Reef," "Infinity's Shore" and "Heaven's Reach"), Neufeld is eyeing "Startide" as the cornerstone of a high-tech, futuristic adventure franchise.

"I've always loved these books," Neufeld told Daily Variety, but they always looked impossible to do technologically. "Now with the right filmmaker, and with the leaps and bounds digital effects have made, we can develop this into a franchise like 'Star Wars' or 'Planet of the Apes.'"

As part of the deal, Brin will receive executive-producing credit and will serve as a consultant on the projects. With the bonuses contained in Brin's deal (including a $250,000 production bonus for the first film), the scribe would make $1.1 million if "Startide" gets made. He also will receive production bonuses for each sequel and a piece of the merchandising.

Reuters/Variety

Wednesday, July 29, 1998:

David Brin published a new short story in the August issue of Popular Science. He appeared at http://www.popsci.com on Wednesday, July 29, 1998, to chat about the story. A transcript is supposed to be posted there soon. I predicted that there would be a mass-exodus from the Brin-L chatroom at after the PopSci chat began, but many stayed in both rooms. The Brin-L chatroom proved very useful, as a way to comment on the other chat while it was going on.