Series Overview: the Uplift books by David Brin

The Uplift books are a series of generally intelligent adventure stories by David Brin, all set in a universe with a huge number of intelligent species, all of whom have been 'uplifted' to intelligence by other intelligent species, who were themselves uplifted, all the way back to the now mythical 'progenitors.' The only race to buck this trend appears to be humans, which causes a lot of upset politically across the galaxy.

One of the main reasons I like Brin's books is that he puts a lot of time in to character development and the interactions between his characters, especially the non-human races which have been uplifted on Earth. He's also not worried about killing off characters where he thinks it's necessary, giving the stories an edge many authors don't have when you expect characters to survive the adversities they are going through.

About the only real criticism I have of the Uplift books is some of them have very similar themes running through the stories. Startide Rising and Uplift War particularly felt very similar to each other - humans in adversity managing to think their way out of danger with the help of their simian / dolphin companions because of their unique view of the galaxy. Still, if you don't do what I did and read them very close to each other you probably wouldn't notice, and they're still both good reads.

The David Brin website has a section on the Uplift books including sample chapters.

Books in the series:

Overview by Paul Silver, 2004