Brightness Reef (The Uplift Trilogy, Book 1). This item is unavailable.Brightness Reef (The Uplift Trilogy, Book 1)

Once, millennia ago, the advanced Buyur civilization held sway on Jijo. But eventually the Buyur abandoned the world, leaving it to lie fallow and restore its ecological balance. Ever since, the vast civilization of the Five Galaxies has used patrols, guardian machines, and sanctions of law to prevent resettlement on Jijo until the planet has been revitalized. But over the centuries it has been resettled. Groups of sentient beings, fleeing persecution or neglect, have ignored the laws, evaded the patrols, and settled on Jijo. They now live in hiding, in dread of the "Judgment Day" on which the Five galaxies discover their presence on Jijo and bring punishment upon them. Then a strange ship arrives in Jijo's skies, and the uneasy peace is shattered.

David Brin is a scientist and the bestselling author of Sundiver, The Uplift War, Startide Rising, The Practice Effect, The Postman, Heart of the Comet (with Gregory Benford), Earth, Glory Season, Brightness Reef, and Infinity's Shore, as well as the short-story collections The River of Time and Otherness. He has a doctorate in astrophysics and has been a NASA consultant and a physics professor.