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Title: Infinity Beach by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061020052 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 2001 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.62
Rating: 5
Summary: First class First Contact novel!
Comment: Sometime in the future... Earth's population spread out to nine planets, thanks to faster-than-light starships. It is the year 600 on Earth's colony planet Greenway, and scientist Kim Brandywine gets a phonecall from her former history teacher, bringing back the past to her. Three decades ago, Kim's clone sister vanished after a failed mission to find extraterrestrial life. But did the mission really fail?
These prerequisites are at the start of McDevitt's excellent novel which is a hybrid of different styles: hard SF, first contact but mostly a classic detective story. It's been ages since I read a SF novel where the author builds up so much suspense that you have a hard time putting the book down. The hard SF elements give the book a nicely futuristic atmosphere, but even people who are more into generic mystery literature will be able to get a kick out of this book.
McDevitt has the rare ability of combining a concise vision of the future with a remarkably accessible writing style. The positive message the book leaves at the end makes 'Infinity Beach' a one-of-a-kind book that deserves to be read by a multitude of people.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good, but some holes big enough to hide a starship...
Comment: This was the first book I've ever read by Jack McDevitt; I'm glad I read this one and I'd definitely pick up another of his titles. The characters were wonderful for the most part: they were complex, made mistakes and had self-doubts. They were confronted with questions forcing them to balanced concern for humanity against personal motivation. The science was believable, though unremarkable considering the story takes place almost 1,000 years in the future. Some may be disappointed that little description of the science was provided. Yet these qualities are contrasted and offset by some crippling inconsistencies that form the backdrop for the story.
First, McDevitt describes an economy where anyone, if they choose, can lead a life of leisure, living off of a government-supplied pension. At the same time, all of the goods and services were supplied by private firms and entrepreneurs. How? The reader is left to resolve the question of why anyone would choose to engage in a low-pay, low-reward career when they can simply relax on the beach.
Secondly, it is difficult to believe that any collection of intelligent beings placing so much thought and resources into finding other sentient species has given so little thought to what they would do when they actually found them. The behavior of the characters during first and second contact was astonishing, making the scene sound more like an alien encounter with a Space Shuttle crew in 2001. Confusion and surprise in such a situation is understandable, but to have no plan, no protocol, nothing when exploration and discovery of other life forms this is the primary reason for the expedition only casts doubt on the entire plot.
Rating: 3
Summary: Attack of the Killer Kleenex
Comment: First of all, a book that devotes more pages to an aerial pursuit by a spooky black tissue creature than the actual aliens themselves doesn't really qualify as a "first-contact" novel. Secondly, a lot of the skullduggery that the main character indulges in shows that human IQs have really devolved, like putting on a fake moustache, makeup, and a wig in order to pass as a man. That might've worked on Mission Impossible, but I'd like to think people would be a bit more sophisticated a few centuries hence.
The plot moves too slowly, ends too quickly (with barely a glipse and elaboration on the aliens), and brings in far too many ancillary characters. As an SF novel, it is nothing that hasn't been done before elsewhere, and better.
That being said, the author is good at setting a mood of tension and fear, and describes scenes well, and the worlds the book takes place in do have a sense of history about them. However, nice prose can carry a book only so far.
First-contact has been done better elsewhere. Read A Deepness in the Sky instead.
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Title: Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061054267 Publisher: Harper Mass Market Paperbacks Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0441002846 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 1995 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Deepsix by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061020060 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061054275 Publisher: Harper Mass Market Paperbacks Pub. Date: 1998 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Moonfall by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061051128 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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