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.