Seeker
by Jack McDevitt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack McDevittEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-10-31
ISBN: 0441013759
Number of pages: 373
Publisher: Ace
Book Reviews of Seeker
Book Review: Fantastic space mystery, does not disappoint
Summary: 5 Stars
_Seeker_ is essentially a mystery novel set in the far, far future. How far into the future? In this setting, humanity has been out among the stars for an astounding 15,000 years. Empires rose and fell, new religions, languages, and civilizations came and went. Dark Ages and Renaissances and new Dark Ages (three different ones apparently) have happened, with humanity on different worlds alternately turning towards the stars and then away from them for decades, centuries, millennia. Author Jack McDevitt does an outstanding job in this book of portraying a sense of the great depths of time, giving the reader a real feeling of just how much civilization has changed over the many centuries since humans initially left Earth. Extinct empires, dynasties, and great historical figures that are for us in the unimaginably distant future are for the people in this setting more distant to them than the Pyramids are to us.
The main characters in this book are two antiquarians, treasure hunters basically, the famed antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his very capable assistant Chase Kolpath (in fact the book is written from her point of view). Benedict and Kolpath make their living finding artifacts from long dead empires, failed colonies, famous ship disasters, and the like, buying and selling items to private collectors mostly. They also do a lot of legwork to uncover where a derelict ship or centuries forgotten base might be, lost among the stars, journeying there themselves at often some personal risk, hoping that frustratingly fragmentary clues pan out and that they beat treasure hunters that may gotten there centuries before.
Devastated that a long lost research colony was ransacked shortly before they got to it, apparently by one of their competitors who somehow knew where Kolpath and Benedict were going, the two antiquities dealers are sitting around rather depressed when they get a call from a woman. Can she show them a strange cup she has; she thinks it is old, maybe worth something?
Calls like this are common and most of the items turn out to be junk or at least not worth very much. You never know though, so they agree to meet her. The item she has is indeed interesting, a cup emblazoned with an eagle and what they discern to be English writing. Borrowing the cup, they translate the writings and analyze its age. To their amazement, it turns out to be nine thousand years old and connected to a long lost, very famous ship, the _Seeker_. The _Seeker_ and another ship, the _Bremerhaven_, were connected with the first large-scale colonial exodus from Earth, way back in the 28th century. Research quickly showed that the two ships carried thousands of settlers from a then oppressive Earth to a colony world that was dubbed Margolia. Deliberately keeping the location safe from Earth, after several flights back and forth to Earth the colonists were never heard from again and the colony, after nine thousand years, had never been located.
Was this cup really from the _Seeker_? How did the woman come by it? Were there more of these artifacts? Did someone in fact know where the _Seeker_ might be or in fact where Margolia was?
What follows is a great mystery story, as Kolpath and Benedict follow many leads, interviewing people, investigating any clues that may lead them to the famed lost colony. The search takes them over much of the galaxy, including to some surprising places and is not without considerable personal danger to the two of them as it becomes clear that they have enemies, people who want Kolpath and Benedict dead. Who wants to kill them? Why do they want to kill them? There are several suspects and there is obviously a leak somewhere, but where? Is one of their trusted friends and colleagues secretly plotting against them or is there is a mole somewhere? Or both?
McDevitt did a good job with the mystery, the investigation of who was after them and where Margolia might be was riveting, and I really liked the sense of anticipation he built up about Margolia, of the many popular views held about the colony, all the popular speculation as to their ultimate fate, a blank slate that many scholars, writers, movie-producers, and even occultists and conspiracy theorists had imaginatively filled in. He did a wonderful job foreshadowing, hinting at how extraordinary a place might be, whether it was old Earth or non-human space, and then taking the reader there. The ending was fantastic as well, it did not disappoint.
For those of you who have read his Academy novels (I myself have read _Chindi_ and _Omega_ in that rather loosely connected series), this, the first book in the Alex Benedict series I have read (the third one published) has a decidedly different feel to it. It is also not in the same universe, so the mysteries of one setting remain with those particular novels. I would definitely read more in the series. The characters seem more distinct in this novel than the characters in the Academy novels, but then that may be in part because there are so many more characters in the Academy series.
Summary of Seeker
With Polaris, multiple Nebula Award-nominee Jack McDevitt reacquainted readers with Alex Benedict, his hero from A Talent for War. Alex and his assistant, Chase Kolpath, return to investigate the provenance of the cup. Alex and Chase follow a deadly trail to the Seeker - strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.
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