Seeker
by Jack McDevitt
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Book Reviews of Seeker
Book Review: Typical McDevitt - BIG promise, little delivery.
Summary: 2 Stars
Looks like I'm in the minority here but this time I mean it, this is the last time I get sucked into buying one of his books with a "BIG IDEA" in the story tag line and little or no real delivery in the final story itself.
Each of the 4 or so books I have read by him begin with an interesting "BIG IDEA" about an amazing artifact or far flung civilization set 1,000's of years in the future. He then proceeds to drag us into a story built around a (usually) strong female character that eventually only ends up dancing around the edges of the "BIG IDEA". In this one he spends 370+ pages with the main character(s) conducting interplanetary sleuth work and narrowly escaping several "harrowing" (ooooh!) life threatening situations only to wrap up the "BIG IDEA" with an epilog (2 pages!!) at the end.
The dialog, supposedly happening between characters living 9,000 years from now, reads like a conversation between a bunch of contemporary "20 somethings" with little or no depth or individual characterization. JHFC, he even has the main female character utter the word "smooched" in one string of dialog! They supposedly have no coins or many other "ancient" earth artifacts from before 2007 yet they somehow managed to hang on to a decidedly English/Anerican slang term from the 1930's or before!?! Channeling Heinlein and the early SF masters is one thing but the line should be drawn somewhere.
Sorry Jack, your "Ideas" are full of promise but your characters are usually pretty shallow and I've yet to read one of your books where the "Idea" is anything more than a plot gimic to propel the light weight characters thru the narrative. Like all of his books that I've read it's a fast paced read and fun to an extent but ultimately unsatisfying. I guess I'll give up and look elsewhere for a classic SF writer who makes promises that he intends to keep.
Book Review: Peculiar
Summary: 4 Stars
I had enjoyed Jack McDevitt's short fiction back in the days when I was an avid reader of Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine but had not read any of his novels until now. Seeker won a Nebula in 2007 (even though it was published in 2005) so it seemed like a good place to start. I read the first few chapters and just couldn't get into it so I put it away. Many books later I picked it up and started over. I'm glad I did. It's the story of two ancient artifact dealers 10,000 years in the future who are trying to locate a 9,000 year-old lost colony for fun and profit (mostly profit).
If I had to describe this book with one word, it would be "peculiar". It takes place 10,000 years in the future on extraterrestrial planets but people go around with mundane names like Alex Benedict (one of the two main characters), Oliver Bolton, and Charlie Everson. Kids still fly kites and women sip cocktails at a restaurant and talk about old boyfriends while a singer gives her rendition of "Fire and Smoke". It's all so 20th Century USA! If you take out the SF elements like interstellar travel, telepathic aliens, and a station orbiting a black hole, this could be a contemporary novel of people searching for a lost Spanish galleon. At least for the first two-thirds or so of the novel. No doubt this retro effect is exactly what the author intended, but it made reading the book a strange experience. Peculiar.
The cover quotes Stephen King calling Jack McDevitt "the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke". I just couldn't understand that until I got to the final part of the book. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that Asimov and Clarke (and Heinlein too) would have enjoyed this book.
Looks like I'll have to try more McDevitt novels.
Book Review: Exactly, My Dear Watson
Summary: 5 Stars
I have enjoyed each of the Alex Benedict/Chase Kolpath novels, but "Seeker" is by far the best of the three. McDevitt has continued to refine and define his characters and their environment. I especially appreciate the future he describes, one in which humanity can now look back upon a long history that is, well, fully human. People are still people, even many thousands of years into the future. They have not evolved into superhuman consciousnesses, acquired special powers, or become physically and mentally anything more than we are today. McDevitt blends technological advances into the narrative such that these advances are distinguishable from magic. They are woven into the narrative and are taken for granted, as computers and cell phones are today. The reader is not distracted by the technology, and neither are the characters. The story is about people, and the mystery they are trying to solve.
And these stories are mysteries. The action is in the deduction, not in space battles or personal combat. Chase Kolpath plays a great Watson to Alex Benedict's Sherlock Holmes, essential, indispensable, endearingly honest, and not motivated by the same hard drive to learn the truth that plagues Alex Benedict.
This mystery blends science with history in satisfying ways, enhancing a legend similar to Atlantis with some fascinating orbital mechanics--and all of this playing out in the vast, vast, vast emptiness of space. Unfortunately, though, the solution to the mystery becomes a bit too predictable. Nevertheless, the characters and scenes are written so well that "Seeker" remains enjoyable to the end. It is also satisfying that McDevitt has written a series of books that can each stand alone without marketing gimmicks and cliff-hanger endings.
Book Review: Difficult to Suspend Disbelief
Summary: 2 Stars
I don't generally write reviews for books I dislike, but I felt like potential readers need to understand what they are getting into. I wanted to like this book: it won the Nebula in 2006 for best science fiction novel, it was highly reviewed on here, it's a mystery (I love genre crossovers for beach reading), and I had heard good things from a friend.
Unfortunately, the awkwardness of the prose and a number of unbelievable aspects of the story intervened to ruin it for me. This is supposed to be the far future, when there is little written or archaeological record of the 21st Century, let alone the 20th. Yet the main character goes to restaurants and orders breadsticks! This may seem like a quibble, but it's just one example of how the future McDevitt constructs isn't terribly futuristic, and not in a "clever parable for what's wrong with today's world" kind of way, but in an "I just ate at the Olive Garden and I can't really imagine things being different several hundred years from now, even after all record of the Olive Garden or just about anything from today's world has been lost" kind of way.
Again, I don't want to hate on a popular writer or take away from the fact that other people have enjoyed this book immensely (as evidenced by the positive reviews). It's a matter of opinion, and to each their own. I just want to warn people who are bothered by this kind of stuff, that this is not the book for them. If that doesn't apply to you, by all means go ahead and enjoy this book.
Book Review: 2 Stars
This is my first, and likely last, attempt at a McDevitt book. I got it at a used book store. Nice cover, nice blurb, two bucks, what have I got to lose.So here's the basic setup of the story: A couple of antique hunters in the far future stumble across the possibility of finding a lost colony ship that disappeared in route to an unknown location.
OK, not bad. The writing seems competent. So they start their search.
A) One of the characters goes to a location and interviews someone. Asks them about the ship and/or sifts through some documents.
Either i)Doesn't discover anything. Absolutely nothing.
or ii)Discovers a tiny, tiny sliver of evidence, but not even close
to anything helpful
B) Goto A
Repeat for first 250 pages.
Add to this the rather shallow descriptions and characterizations, ho hum setting, and it adds up to a book I couldn't finish.
I could list some authors that I like, but I won't bore you with that, just to say that any of them would have written it more like this:
A) Antique hunters hear about possible missing colony ship.
B) Within 10 to 50 pages they locate and go to colony ship.
C) Story continues in interesting vein.
I know McDevitt is respected an well liked by many. I feel that I gave it a fair shot. I just don't see how it can be compared favorably to the many, many superior books out there.