McDevitt, Jack: The Engines of God
The Engines of God
Writer: Jack McDevitt
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 419
I've been wanting to read Jack McDevitt for a while. He's got a billion books, and he's been nomianted for the Nebula a billion times. I always held off though because he's got stand-alone's and two on-going series, which made it rather hard just to grab a book off the shelf because I didn't know which one to start with.
But for our November challenge, digitalclone and I looked at a list of Nebula nominees and decided to go with the first book in his Priscilla (Hutch) Hutchins series. I figured it'd be another one of those SF series that revolves around a strong heroine, and the title, along with the premise, seemed pretty interesting. And you'll have to forgive me, because I got lazy--rather than summarize the premise myself, I ganked it from Barnes and Noble.
The premise (from Barnes & Noble.com): Two hundred years ago, humans made a stunning discovery in the far reaches of the solar system: a huge statue of an alien creature, with an inscription that defied all efforts at translation. Now, as faster-than-light drive opens the stars to exploration, humans are finding other relics of the race they call the Monument-Makers - each different, and each heartbreakingly beautiful. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon Iapetus, there is no trace of the enigmatic race that has left them behind. Then a team of scientists working on a dead world discover an ominous new image of the Monument-Makers. Somehow it all fits with other lost civilizations, and possibly with Earth's own future. And distant past. But Earth itself is on the brink of ecological disaster - there is no time to search for answers. Even to a question that may hold the key to survival for the entire human race...
Spoilers ahead.
Let me get two stylistic nitpicks out of the way. The POV in this book is slippery, annoyingly so. And the italics. OMG I can't stand his use of italics. It's more than italicizing thoughts, which if I remember right isn't done consistently, but IMPORTANT IDEAS. If it's a big reveal or a major observation, he'll italicize the entire sentence. Maybe he grows out of this really annoying style in later books, but in this one, it irritated me. There were times when important thoughts were italicized and it included the "she thought" in the middle! Maybe that's a printing mistake, but still. Annoying.
All right, now that that's off my chest, I want to say that the idea of having an advanced race of aliens who've left such beautiful pieces of art across the universe is a wicked cool idea. Also wicked cool is the fact that on other planets, humans find the archeological remains of other alien civilizations, and when one of the major questions of the book is, "Are we really alone out there?" (which is sort of undermined because there IS a race, the Nok, who's out there that's not yet space-faring and therefore doesn't know about us), it's haunting to see how close humans come to contact with an advanced race, only to find the remnants of their civilizations, or their art.
That said, I found the structure of this book to be very episodic. A play in four parts, but it's almost as if we have three related but different books in this one volume, which is disconcerting since 419 pages isn't ridiculously long. You've got the archeological dig on Quraqua which is about to be destroyed due to terraforming measures. You've got the discovery of Beta Pac and the subsequent collision with the "Football" aka Bowl in the Sky aka Organic-freaking-telescope, in which Hutch and her team members try to survive on a dying starship while waiting for rescue. Then you've got Beta Pac itself, where while exploring the ruins of the Monument Makers, they get attacked (and some get killed) by killer crabs (something that felt alarming similar to Jurassic Park for some reason). Last, but not least, the discovery of the "wave" aka "dragon" aka Omega Clouds, which is some sort of sentient THING that comes from the Void and pretty much hates all advanced civilizations and destroys them (which reminded me of something more recent, in Allen Steele's Spindrift and his migrating black hole. Maybe McDevitt's Omega Clouds, which clearly came first, also relate to a black hole, but frankly, I'm not interested in finding out).
There's so much packed into this one book, and yet for this particular reader, little of it was new or awe-inspiring. Many pages passed by with a yawn, and the only reason I didn't put it down was because it's not a BAD book, but rather because I recognize how tired I'm getting of SF and this whole wonder-factor that's a staple of the genre isn't nearly enough to make me salivate over the book. I need voice, and the voice here isn't engaging to me. I need emotion, but there's so many POV's and characters that it's hard to start identifying with the staple character in the series, Hutch, even though there's emotional events that happen, like the tragic deaths of Richard, George, and Maggie. I also need characters I can identify with or sympathize with, and I just gave those reasons. So this book, while not bad by a long shot, fell completely flat for me.
For some reason, I keep comparing elements of this to Steele's Coyote series. With Steele, you also have numerous POVs and several story arcs, but the difference is that Steele condenses his into short stories and novellas, so each one is FOCUSED as a short with specific characters telling that specific story. There's also the fact that the whole thing is united by the setting. I can't help but wonder if such a format would've worked better here, even though the setting wouldn't have been the thing to unite the overall story. Too much in this book, I felt, could've been cut out and yet, one could also argue that this book could've been split into four far more focused novels. But hey, what do I know? The only thing keeping me reading was to discover the question posed by the city of Oz on the moon and how it related to the Monument Makers and why, and yes, while that is the central uniting story arc, the book itself felt too episodic and the plot itself felt like a cross between organic and "one damn thing after another".
There's also the believability factor: at the start, with the archeological dig against the terraforming group, I refused to believe that both sides would be so unyielding. Okay, I believe it on some level, but what I don't believe is that there wasn't more done to literally force the archeologists off the planet. If there's a protest on Earth, some kind of protection for an archeological site, those people are removed by police/military force or nothing happens. The fact that the terraforming group wasn't truly held responsible for its actions (the intentional snowball drop and that idiot Helms for blocking communications, particularly him) is galling. Maybe that's realistic on some level, but it sure as hell isn't satisfying, especially since I figure that there would've been a MAJOR investigation, and that there would've been enough proof to show it wasn't Melanie at fault, but Helms. Is it so much to ask to give the reader a little satisfaction when nearly half the book was spent on that particular subplot? I don't think so. Getting the reader riled at the end does nothing, unless McDevitt planned on using that character in a later book, but who of the main cast (aka Hutch) would know he's the one truly responsible for Richard's death? How would the reader truly get satisfaction? Hell if I know.
My Rating
Wish I'd Borrowed It: there were just too many factors working against this book for me personally to really latch on. The sense of wonder element wasn't near strong enough to sucker me in, though it did keep me reading just to finish the book. I didn't connect with any of the characters, and despite the mystery uniting the overall storyline, it felt too episodic and too cluttered. In some ways, I think this book would translate well into a television series, but it didn't work well for me as a novel. Then again, I'm having more and more trouble stomaching science fiction lately, and every time I pick up an SF, I wonder if that book will be the one to break the streak of "meh" I've been feeling, but so far, no good. It's not to say I won't ever give McDevitt another shot ever again, but I won't be returning to the Priscilla Hutchins series, that's for sure. I'll have to try the Alex Benedict or one of McDevitt's stand-alones instead.
Next up:
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill