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Title: Chindi by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0-441-01102-0 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 28 October, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.17 (40 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I loved every minute of this thrilling s-f adventure
Comment: Jack McDevitt is probably my favorite author currently writing science fiction, and Chindi was a particularly fascinating, thrilling read. Like one of the spaceships in the story, the novel takes a little while to get up and going, but once it does, it is edge-of-your-seat action all the way. The story starts with a mysterious signal picked up in the vicinity of a neutron star. Satellites are left in orbit, and five years later they pick up the indecipherable signal again. Priscilla Hutchins ("Hutch") is chosen to pilot a craft housing members of the Contact Society (a private group of extraterrestrial enthusiasts and believers) to the star, while another ship travels to the possible destination of the signal. Here begins a monumental, interstellar journey filled with great discovery and great tragedy. Hutch and her passengers pursue the signal through several star systems, finding proof of advanced alien civilizations but no aliens they can speak to. When they attempt to explore one world populated by large, clothed avian beings, their hopes of making contact are dashed rather brutally. One of the most interesting sites they explore is the Retreat, a large house filled with seemingly human, albeit over-sized, artifacts-library, desks, shelves of books (frozen in the cold vacuum), beds, etc. The Retreat sits on a small moon offering a gorgeous view of a two-star system of great majesty and beauty. It is here that they discover another ship, proof of advanced extraterrestrial life, and the rest of the plot revolves around their attempts to learn the secrets the ship holds and to return home. Finding their way back ends up being the most difficult and definitely most thrilling part of their journey.
Chindi actually marks Hutch's third appearance in McDevitt's novels, a fact which I did not discover before I was well into the story. It is not necessary to know the story of Hutch's earlier missions in order to read and enjoy this particular novel, though. The cast of characters is interesting but improbable-the Contact Society team members are not scientists. They include an actress/producer, an artist, a funeral home director, and similarly unscientific men and women. One is, of course, a former love interest of Hutch, and that adds a little more flavor to the pot. These people make mistakes, and some of them pay with their lives, yet they all emerge as truly heroic souls who want nothing more than to answer the cosmic questions man has been posing as long as he has looked at the stars and wondered if he was alone in the universe. The science of McDevitt's science fiction works pretty well, although I have a problem with a couple of things that happened. I found McDevitt's characters to be vibrant, real, and interesting, although I understand some readers apparently do not find them as interesting as I do. We don't get to the essence of them all, and Hutch's future is left quite unresolved at the end, but I came to know and like everyone in this novel, despite their blunders and often childlike enthusiasm. There is a whole lot of action in these pages, particularly in the latter half of the novel, and I was flat-out riveted by it. Hutch in particular is almost unbelievably heroic yet constantly vulnerable and afraid (i.e., real). I heartily recommend Chindi to fans of great science fiction. It is one of the most memorable science fiction novels I have ever read.
Rating: 3
Summary: Not up to standard
Comment: I never thought I'd say it of a Jack McDevitt book, but I was disappointed by "Chindi". It started off with so much promise, but there was no payoff in the end. But more than that, it felt so much like a rehash of the various elements of McDevitt's previous books that the fun I've had reading his work in the past was mostly lost with this one.
The wealthy but not respected Contact Society is pressuring the Academy of Science and Technology to investigate some mysterious signal that no-one really believes originates from aliens. To keep them happy and keep the funding they provide rolling in, the head of the Academy sends them off in a couple of ships to investigate, expecting that they'll wander around for a while, see there's nothing out there, and come home again knowing that at least they tried. Of course, things do not go according to plan. There ARE aliens out there, and the various members of the Contact Society fall into one adventure/disaster after another.
I've always appreciated how uncomfortably human McDevitt makes his characters, but these guys were such a bunch of utterly stupid jerks that I found the story increasingly hard to swallow. None of the new characters really came alive for me, and I've never found Hutch, the pilot, particularly interesting. McDevitt has a great imagination and there are some wonderful elements to the story, but it abruptly shifts from a mission of exploration to a tale of daring rescue with the obligatory hard physics angle, and then dribbles away to a nothing conclusion. None of the characters exhibit any personal growth and we never get any answers to the mysteries that appear. If that was the sort of story I wanted, I'd go back to Arthur C. Clarke.
I agree that a certain amount of the unexplained is a good thing in a story and it's something that has played really well in McDevitt's other books, but I started to wonder with "Chindi" whether there were any answers at all - whether McDevitt was too focused on details to have worked out any master plan behind what was going on in this story.
If you're new to McDevitt or like a certain kind of old style science fiction, you may really enjoy "Chindi" - it's certainly not necessary to have read "Engines of God" or "Deepsix" first. Fans, like me, may be disappointed. More wonder and solidity, and less stupidity, please.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Long, Long Journey Into Space
Comment: The time is about 200 years from now. Faster-than-light travel is routine. Space ships can be managed by a crew of one (plus a very advanced, talking computer). There is not much left to discover and humankind has grown a little bored with space travel. Disappointingly, we have not found any aliens out there to converse with. Only some ruins and one semi-intelligent race, the Noks. Then, an unexplained radio transmission gets everyone excited. And see, there's this organization--The Contact Society--that will do almost anything to prove that there ARE alien intelligences out there!
Priscilla Hutchins is a star-ship captain who is getting tired, and wants to retire. She reluctantly agrees to make one last trip, hired by the Contact Society to take them on a jaunt of discovery, and follow that mysterious signal. After a number of mishaps caused by impulsivity and poor judgment, they find the Chindi, a ghostly thing/machine/whatever zooming through space. And of course, they have to pursue it, break into it, tramp around in it, and maybe get themselves killed. Not very scientific but hey, it's fiction.
That, in a nutshell, is the plot. The book takes a long time getting up to warp speed. In fact, nothing much happens for the first hundred and fifteen pages. If you can stay with it, the book eventually hits its stride and becomes quite entertaining. If old fashioned sci-fi and space adventure is your thing, then you should definitely read Chindi. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
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Title: Omega by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0441010466 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 04 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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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: The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0441002846 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061054267 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Infinity Beach by Jack McDevitt ISBN: 0061020052 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 01 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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