Jack McDevitt

(2015) A portal to other worlds is found in North Dakoa in the same story line as Ancient Shores. I guess the story is nice to read and I could follow it very well. However, not a very good story as things are just a little too simple for the enormity of what has been found. It is almost as if they have discovered a car that could go 120 MPH driverless. These people should have been either more excited about the Maze, Riverworld or the Space Station. Instead, it becomes routine and ho-hum. Even at the end when they discover that the portal also is a time travel device that shows the ultimate fate of the Earth their reaction is to shut it down rather than be excited at the possibilities.Amazon customer review: First, the praises - this book is relatively free of typos and grammar errors, the language (dialog and not) is tolerable, and the concept is inspiring.On the other hand, the writer has next to no descriptive talent (or maybe just no imagination) - there's very little prose devoted to what a place looks like or what it feels like to be there. That alone is bad enough in a sci-fi based around amazing places, but they also spend most of their time in a place that they're continually comparing to Earth (down to having similar wildlife). One difference they do cite is the color of the foliage (and even that is along the lines of "except for the color of the foliage, this could be Earth"), which is laughable, because if the author actually remembered to mention the color, I did not notice it. So we spend the majority of a book about exotic alien places on either Earth, or a place that looks like Earth except it has slightly different colors. Mind-blowing sci-fi here.The thing that really burned me up and actually had me yelling at my Kindle in frustration was how timid and fearful the entire book was - the majority of the characters are cowering isolationists who can't decide whether it's safer to blow the stargate up or just blow it up. They make wild assumptions about its effect on the economy and the military, and go on and on about the risks and the danger. Hell, one of the main characters is so cowardly that he ACTIVELY LIES to people to avoid going through the stargate because he might possibly be in some danger; he only ends up going because another character accidentally railroads him into it. Every time the book comes within shouting distance of something wonderful and strange, it shies away and hides behind page after page of caution and fear. There are other buttons on the transport network, but the only ones explored turn out to be non-starters. The characters come across actual bloody ALIENS, and then retreat because contacting a superior race might possibly be harmful or even dangerous to the human race. Almost every other chapter is another argument for why the exploration should be stopped. Finally, the characters beat a hasty retreat because they encounter another alien race that happens to resemble a devil...I wish I was kidding.Tantalus, according to Greek mythology, was condemned to stand forever in water that receded whenever he tried to drink, under a fruit tree whose fruit was always -juuust- out of reach. This book feels like that. Page after page of promise followed by retreat and disappointment.Science fiction is supposed to be about showing us new things, not hinting at them and then raving about how they'll surely destroy us if we look at them for even one second. It's also supposed to inspire thought, discovery, and exploration, whereas this book seems to want to inspire the opposite. It made me really angry to read, and I regret the time I spent on it. The author should be ashamed of himself.… (mais)

(2007) As PW says this is not one of McDevitt's better books. Easy read but that is part of the problem. Too many pat scenarios and things happen too easy, even the end where the ?evil? omega cloud is defeated.From Publishers WeeklySpace opera specialist McDevitt shoehorns two traditional SF plots into his latest Academy novel (after 2006's Odyssey), doing both stories a disservice. Youthful physicist Jon Silvestri persuades the philanthropic Prometheus Foundation to back tests of a risky interstellar drive that's vastly superior to current technology. Soon series keystone Priscilla Hutchins finds herself aboard a newly outfitted ship dispatched to the galactic core, seeking the source of a million-year-old interstellar menace. The cast is uniformly likable if prickly, but no true protagonist emerges from McDevitt's ensemble. Some sections are leisurely, others rushed. Readers see little of the star drive research, and the space voyage is triply sidetracked�to a planet of cheerfully technophobic aliens, an abandoned world with unexpected dangers and a black hole with a tantalizing secretÂ¥before reaching its stated objective, where the threat's origin is summarily introduced and disposed of in the last 60 pages. Despite considerable inventiveness and an enthusiastic pro-space agenda, the story remains superficial, especially frustrating from a writer of McDevitt's caliber.… (mais)

(2006)Another good story with Priscilla ?Hutch? Hutchins as the head of the ?Academy? that controls most interstellar flights. Sightings of ?ufos? spawns concerns that we are being attacked by aliens. Two incidents imply that this has happened only to learn that it is a corporate conspiracy to build up space defense spending. Then a real attack catches everybody off guard as the aliens try to stop a dangerous scientific project that could cause the destruction of the universe.Booklist:Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchinson's fifth adventure opens with the former starship pilot deskbound at the Academy (the twenty-third-century equivalent of NASA), which is facing catastrophic cuts to the space program. In a media campaign led by Hutch's old friend, acerbic newspaper editor Gregory MacAllister, pundits and politicians alike argue that the program's money would be better spent on the earthbound threats of global warming and disease. Perhaps not coincidentally, humans everywhere from Earth to Ophiuchi begin witnessing repeated visitations from "moonriders" (apparently alien spherical spacecraft), and they prompt an Academy investigative mission. To humor Hutch and grab a good story, MacAllister joins a spacebound team including a celebrated pilot and a senator's daughter. When the moonriders apparently redirect a few asteroids to destroy an orbiting hotel and narrowly bypass Earth, suspicions begin to emerge that the moonriders--and certain members of the Academy--may not be what they seem to be. McDevitt's energetic, character-driven prose serves double duty by exploring Earth's future political climate and forecasting the potential dangers awaiting humanity among the stars.… (mais)