Odyssey | Jack McDevitt | Decent story all the way around

Odyssey | Jack McDevitt | Boring and predictable

books:

Odyssey

	Odyssey Jack McDevitt Ace, 2007 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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To boost waning interest in interstellar travel, a mission is sent into deep space to learn the truth about "moonriders," the strange lights supposedly being seen in nearby systems. But Academy pilot Valentina Kouros and the team of the starship Salvator will soon discover that their odyssey is no mere public-relations ploy, for the moonriders are not a harmless phenomenon. They are very, very dangerous-in a way that no one could possibly have imagined.

Decent story all the way around

Not one of McDevit's best, but a good story with loads of action none the less.

Boring and predictable

This book was billed as "flying off the shelves" and the author's books are said to be lapped up by eager fans. What's the attraction here? I sure don't know.

The writing is pretty decent; the plot is fine, but what suffers is the development. McDevitt sets out to discuss a project in space that has a small (just a small) risk of tearing the universe apart (blithely ignored by the scientists) and a space exploration/tourism industry that is under fire by an equally blase world. Meanwhile "moonriders"--UFO's we'd say, manifest themselves and scare the interstellar space travelers. What are they?

The author develops political intrigues and struggles fairly well, in fact, too well, as this takes up almost all of the action. If you remove this portion of the plot, you find that the story was pretty well covered by Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves Not enough to make me care about the new characters and the setting. The author should polish up his development skills and find a new plot --he can write well enough to do something a lot better than this.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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