I can't finger any specific writing style issues with McDevitt, but I definitely have my distinct preferences. Loved the three Benedict/Kolpath books I've read (including Polaris) and have the rest on the TBR bookcase; the two Hutch ones I've read (Engines of God and Deepsix) were OK but I wasn't sufficiently enthused to continue with that series. By the same token, I loved Infinity Beach and Eternity Road, but Ancient Shores was just OK and Time Travelers Never Die was underwhelming.
Maybe it's a strength-of-concept thing. For example, A Talent for War and Infinity Beach are interesting (and perhaps unique) variants on war-hero and first-contact stories. Whereas Polaris or Time Travelers Never Die are not sufficiently different than the average dime-a-dozen derelict spacecraft/missing crew or time travel stories.
What I like about McDevitt is that he thinks big, and the stuff he thinks up reminds me a lot of Niven at his best. My main problem with him is that most of his characters, especially in the Hutch books, are too dumb to live. After awhile, all the Indiana Jones-ish escapes required to get the characters out of the fixes they knowingly walked into gets boring. It's especially bad in Chindi, where I actually cheered when the stupidest of the bunch finally bought it. It's a shame. I loved the ideas and really big objects in Chindi.
My main problem with Polaris is that he changed the narrator from Benedict to Kolpath without really changing the characterization from male to female. Chase is just Alex in drag. I'd say he doesn't write women well, but I never really had this problem with Hutch. It may be that I noticed it more in Chase because she's narrating first person, so we're in her head, while the Hutch novels are third person. I saw the same thing in Jim Butcher's novella, "Aftermath," in which Murphy is narrating. She might as
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Maybe it's a strength-of-concept thing. For example, A Talent for War and Infinity Beach are interesting (and perhaps unique) variants on war-hero and first-contact stories. Whereas Polaris or Time Travelers Never Die are not sufficiently different than the average dime-a-dozen derelict spacecraft/missing crew or time travel stories.
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My main problem with Polaris is that he changed the narrator from Benedict to Kolpath without really changing the characterization from male to female. Chase is just Alex in drag. I'd say he doesn't write women well, but I never really had this problem with Hutch. It may be that I noticed it more in Chase because she's narrating first person, so we're in her head, while the Hutch novels are third person. I saw the same thing in Jim Butcher's novella, "Aftermath," in which Murphy is narrating. She might as ( ... )
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