Seeker
by Jack McDevitt
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Book Reviews of Seeker
Book Review: When you travel so far that "...even God can't find you..."
Summary: 5 Stars
Some 9000 years in the past, a group of humans decide to leave a repressive Earth government behind, and outfit two interstellar ships, the Seeker and the Bremerhaven, to take them far beyond the eyes, influence, and memories of Earth.
It worked.
The ships disappeared. The secrets were never broken. The "Margolians", as they were called, became mythic, and part of Earth lore.
Until the Seeker was found by treasure hunters: Alex Benedict and pilot Chase Kolpath, both characters in McDevitt's Polaris, although Seeker works very well as a stand-alone story (Polaris is on my reading list).
Author Jack McDevitt weaves a tale of intrigue, mystery, sci-fi, alien culture, space travel, and plain old greed into a good yarn. He's also got some humor. When Chase reads a translation of "Margolia or Bust", it comes out as "Margolia or Bosom." "It makes no sense. Still doesn't," thinks Chase (p. 266). Obviously, idioms change over 9000 years!
Good enough to get me to read Polaris, and perhaps a bit more.
Book Review: Surprisingly mediocre for a Nebula winner
Summary: 2 Stars
Condense the first 28 chapters (over 90%) of this book into one chapter, keep the remaining five or six in tact, and then maybe you could call it sci-fi (and a novella). Which is really how it should have been released in the first place. Instead, the author insists that you wade through chapter after chapter of the driest, generic, un sci-fi, and worst of all predictable detective story before you come to the sci-fi (and the end of the book). Replace any given future date in the book with any other and the majority could be set in the wild west, and you wouldn't know the difference (and would be just as bored). I'm amazed that this won an award in the first place, let alone one for sci-fi. Shame on the SFWA (Nebula) for putting this in the same league as Dune and Ender's Game. It's scandalous.
I picture SWFA members dancing in a smoke filled office around a fire built on Asimov books as the members feverishly mainline a concoction of crack, lsd, and peyote before they implement their new spin-the-bottle voting system.
Book Review: Interesting Extrapolation
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book on a beach in Maui. Just looking at it sitting here on my desk is bringing back some nice memories. I found this book to be much better than Polaris but not quite as good as Engines of God. The danger of writing science-fiction that is set thousands of years in the future is that the world ends up being suspiciously similar to our own society. Perhaps after waves of galactic exploration and colonization our society will remain recognizable--perhaps not. Without spoiling the read, McDevitt offers some good extrapolations on this theme.
Seeker is about explorers. Only these explorers seek to uncover a past that is forgotten. It reminds me of nothing so much as an adventure set in the days where the Pacific Ocean was being explored and new and strange civilizations were being discovered.
I think Mr. McDevitt has real talent but he isn't quite to Isaac Asimov's level just yet. I enjoyed Seeker, found the writing to be more than competent and look forward to reading others of his works.
Book Review: skillfully done, lacks soul
Summary: 3 Stars
This was a good book in the sense that the author obviously rendered it with great care. The language is studiously polished; the plot, though it has holes here and there, is more carefully constructed than in most science fictions. But there's something lacking. Call it soul or mojo or magic narrative fairy dust, whatever. When I closed the book, my spirit wasn't vibrating back and forth with that bonging resonance which a really good book leaves in me.
In terms of thematic content, this book rather artfully depicts the process of investigation and discovery. In that sense, there's alot more "science" in this book than there is in most science fiction. This is probably my favorite aspect. It does especially well in illustrating how chance and work intersect in order to lead to discoveries.
One thing I didn't like: the narrator is supposed to be female, but the author really does not know how to think like a female. I never once felt a feminine presence. That was distracting.
Book Review: not worth your time, really
Summary: 1 Stars
I usually rely on Hugo and Nebula award-winners to help me wade through the mediocre science fiction / fantasy, and get to the good stuff. But I feel let down in this case: This book is actually mystery, and a tepid mystery at that (slow and non-clever). The science fiction trappings ranged from unremarkable to underwhelming ('sorry, our bureacracy deletes reports after 3yrs', 'in an age where messages take as long to travel between systems as people do, you might as well visit in person than send a letter'). I felt I was maybe 20yrs in the future, but certainly not 10000yrs. The *only* bit of world-building I found interesting was the way humans and the alien species regarded each other, and this was an incidental bit of only 2 chapters.
I'm not sure why this book won a Nebula; myself, I squarely peg it as part of the mountain of competent-writing-but-uninspired s.f./fantasy. Whether you like action, ideas, characters, or mystery, there are many better choices out there.