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Ancient Shores [Mass Market Paperback]

J McDevitt
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 10.99
Price: CDN$ 9.89 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
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Book Description

Oct 24 1996

It turned up in a North Dakota wheat field: a triangle, like a shark's fin, sticking up from the black loam. Tom Lasker did what any farmer would have done. He dug it up. And discovered a boat, made of a fiberglass-like material with an utterly impossible atomic number. What it was doing buried under a dozen feet of prairie soil two thousand miles from any ocean, no one knew. True, Tom Lasker's wheat field had once been on the shoreline of a great inland sea, but that was a long time ago -- ten thousand years ago.

A return to science fiction on a grand scale, reminiscent of the best of Heinlein, Simak, and Clarke, Ancient Shores is the most ambitious and exciting SF triumph of the decade, a bold speculative adventure that does not shrink from the big questions -- and the big answers.


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Ancient Shores + Eternity Road + Moonfall
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Product Description

From Amazon

Something very strange has turned up in Tom Lasker's wheat field: a ten-thousand-year-old sailboat made of an unknown substance. And then there's the Roundhouse, apparently a doorway to another world, sitting squarely on Sioux reservation land. How did they get there, and what do they signify for the people embroiled in their discovery? This is sci-fi on a grand scale by the author of The Engines of God. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Early in the next century, outside a North Dakota town, farmer Tom Lasker digs up a boat on his land. Not only is the vessel crafted from an unknown element, but Lasker's farm is on land that has been dry for 10,000 years. A search for further artifacts unearths a building of the same material and age that turns out to be an interdimensional transportation device. The building sits on land owned by the Sioux, who want to use it to regain their old way of life on another world; meanwhile, the U.S. government, fearful of change, wants to destroy the building. Right up to the climax, McDevitt (Engines of God) tells his complex and suspenseful story with meticulous attention to detail, deft characterizations and graceful prose. That climax, though, is another matter, featuring out-of-the-blue heroic intervention in a conflict between the feds and the Indians by, among others, astronaut Walter Schirra, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and SF writers Ursula K. LeGuin, Carl Sagan and Gregory Benford. "If the government wants to kill anyone else, it'll have to start with us," announces Stephen Jay Gould. That absurdity aside, this is the big-vision, large-scale novel McDevitt's readers have been waiting for.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Good premise, but the details disappoint April 30 2004
By A Customer
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I wanted to like this book. Like other reviewers pointed out, the first few chapters were compelling enough to keep me reading. Then the story started spinning out of control.

Neither the characters nor the governments depicted by the author behaved in a believable manner. The book offered many possible threads towards the end, only to leave them dangling. The characters seemed to be going along for the ride throughout the book, not really shaping events, but rather always at the mercy of them. They offered little more than a long string of disappointments to this reader.

One would hope that mankind would respond with a little more maturity if such events ever took place.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Strong Start but Saggy Middle Mar 15 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The first couple of chapters of McDivitt's book are among the stongest I've ever read. He maintains almost that level of wonder and excitment for a few more chapters, but soon the level drops off. I was having a hard time keeping going by the middle.

Near the sixty percent point, we get to the following: The male protagnoist, who has of course already fallen in love with the female scientist protagnoist, discovers she has disappeared. He figures out it was a fantastically advanced piece of alien technology they'd discovered that had malfunctioned. She ended up on a planet thousands of light years from Earth. Using some electrical cable, connectors and a gasoline-powered generator he buys at a hardware store, he repairs it and saves her.

If you buy that such advanced technology would use such mundane hardware you'll probably like the climax involving nothing more original than the government trying to take Sioux land. It was all too much for me. I think so much more could have been done with the original scenario. It was a missed opportunity.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Simple but Compelling Jan 12 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is one of those novels that seemed to have been written in a single burst of creative energy. It is much simpler than his later novels (particularly the "Hutch" series) but in its way it is also much better. The writing seems more focused, the characters seem more "real" and the scientific explanations are as compelling and literate as ever.

McDevitt's specialty is first contact and that is what this is all about. In a way, it's a lot like the fulfillment of the fantasies of any sci-fi enthusiast - run across an ancient, buried object that happened to have strange powers. Great story and great ending...

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Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb!
My only disappointment is that there is no sequel.
Published on July 27 2003 by David Rosenfeld
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
The discovery of what appears to be a sailboat, buried for no apparent reason in North Dakota. Upon further inspection, we find out that the sailboat is more than 10,000 years old... Read more
Published on April 10 2003 by Michael A. Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Entertaining!
This book is a true page-turner. I simply couldn't put it down.

It is a "true McDevitt" book. Very entertaining, and a very original storyline. Read more

Published on Mar 23 2003 by Markus Egger
5.0 out of 5 stars You won't be able to put it down...
This is a true page turner in Jack McDevitt's typical style. Just when you thing "two more pages and I will stop reading at the end of the chapter... Read more
Published on Jan 2 2003 by Markus Egger
4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book
This book blows my mind. I just wish there was a sequel.
Published on Dec 4 2002
2.0 out of 5 stars More human interest than reals SF
Too much, yet not enough. That is the way I would describe my feelings about this book. On the one hand, McDevitt once again has an interesting idea. Read more
Published on Aug 30 2002 by Stefan Thys
3.0 out of 5 stars No ending
The story is about finding ancient technology in the form of a portal to other worlds. The author makes no effort to explore these other worlds and leaves the reader wondering what... Read more
Published on July 26 2002 by Moongirl2001
4.0 out of 5 stars Idea-Driven Science Fiction
Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Eternity Road, I quickly picked up Ancient Shores and while the two were very dissimilar, Ancient Shores was no less enjoyable. Read more
Published on Jun 5 2002 by Chris MB
3.0 out of 5 stars Great beginning and middle, but the end...
I was recommended this book by a friend and enjoyed it enough that I want to read some other works by Jack. Fantastic plot and believable characters. Read more
Published on Feb 9 2002 by Erik1988
4.0 out of 5 stars Great all the way up to the end.
It was a page turner that kept me guessing not sure what to expect next. As you may have read the ending gets pretty bad. Read more
Published on Jan 14 2002 by Erik1988
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