What is the author's style in Startide Rising by David Brin?

As fellow science fiction author Edward Bryant points out in his Foreword, "But he does it so well..." David Brin is one of the few science fiction writers capable of handling both real science and style. Brin is, in Startide Rising, building an "Uplift" universe that over multiple novels shows how the Galaxy functions, inhabited by countless species dragging others up to sentience and warring among themselves. Humans—and their clients, neo-chimpanzees and neo-dolphins—are at the bottom of the hierarchy and have many powerful enemies willing to wipe them out. This novel follows an exploratory vessel, Streaker, that happens upon a lost fleet of starships millennia old, and is forced to ditch on a water world in order to make repairs while a wild battle rages overhead in space.