This is one of several books I read in the 90s that I still think about and love so much. Startide Rising and Downbelow Station are the other ones that immediat

This is one of several books I read in the 90s that I still think about and love so much. Startide Rising and Downbelow Station are the other ones that immediately springs to mind. This book (and Startide Rising) are very much in the space opera camp. There's really no basis in physics for the zones in this book but I really love the ideas. I love the Tines. I also love the idea of the arms race that was unwittingly started on this world. If you like the theme of sudden technological advance, I highly recommend CJ Cherryh's Foreigner series. They're sets of trilogies and I think it's up to ~15 books now? This series is set in the same world as Downbelow Station (tangentially). The central premise is that FTL jumping is possible but difficult. In this series, a group of would-be colonists awake from jump sleep to find they have no idea where they've jumped to. They can't get any star bearings and they end up ultimately settling on a world that has an alien species on it that technologically is around the 19th century. It's not a fast-paced series but I love the thoughtfulness and introspection of it.