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The Engines of God
 
 
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The Engines of God [Mass Market Paperback]

Jack McDevitt (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
Price: CDN$ 8.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 25. Details
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Product Description

From Booklist

By the end of the twenty-second century, Earth's ravaged environment has become a time bomb ticking down to global self-destruction. Despite the fortuitous arrival of faster-than-light space travel, the search for a new home has so far located only one candidate--Quraqua, a desolate planet scheduled for terraformation within a few months. For interstellar archaeologist Richard Wald and starship pilot Priscilla Hutchins, the looming renovation threatens critical research on the enigmatic alien ruins on Quraqua and its moon, which include a bizarre false city dubbed Oz. Rousing little interest on Earth and facing an unyielding terraformation committee, Wald and his team undertake a last round of life-threatening expeditions to decipher Oz's secrets before they are swallowed forever by an emerging new world. With plenty of startling plot twists, a heavy dose of intrigue, and an unusual amount of character development for science fiction, McDevitt holds us fast right through to a thrilling finish. The yarn's less pure sf, though, than a rousing archaeological adventure transplanted to another star system. Carl Hays --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

In the early years of the 23rd century, archaeology has expanded to the stars. Teams of linguists, historians, and engineers are excavating ruins on a number of planets in search of clues about the Monument-Makers, whose civilization was leaving its mark on distant worlds when our ancestors were inventing the wheel. Coming from a planet whose population has outgrown its resources, these archaeological teams must race to finish their work before colonists from Earth are sent to occupy these worlds. Priscilla ``Hutch'' Hutchins serves as pilot for one of the teams. Though untrained in archaeology, she's the one who first sees connections between the spectacular monuments left on various worlds and the peculiar, massive false cities made of solid cubes of rock. These cities, composed only of right angles, appear with regularity throughout the galaxy; all show signs of having been subjected to massive destructive forces. Scientific curiosity and grief over the accidental death of their leader take Hutch and the remains of the team to the edge of the galaxy. There they encounter the Monument- Makers and are faced with a mystery whose solution may hold the key to human survival. McDevitt (The Hercules Text, not reviewed) is at his best award-winning style in this intelligent and wide-ranging novel. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews

47 Reviews
5 star:
 (21)
4 star:
 (12)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (47 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Hard sci-fi that's easy, July 18 2002
By 
Kendall P Auel (Tualatin, OR USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Engines of God (Mass Market Paperback)
The Engines of God was an easy read. It kept me interested, was well paced, and well written. I have enjoyed hard science fiction about as long as I have been able to read, but most of recent sci-fi is really fantasy... hobbits in space. I love Tolkien and I love Asimov, but I just don't enjoy mixing the two. I was very pleased to discover McDevitt; there was not one single word of fantasy, magic, or supernatural in this book.

This story combines science fiction and mystery. It is the story of archeologists of the future who study the ruins of ancient alien cultures instead of human ones. The archeological study reveals a mystery that spans the galaxy, and the reader is left guessing until the last few chapters.

This is a well-conceived and well-executed novel, and in a very special class because of its faithfulness to the hard sci-fi genre.

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3.0 out of 5 stars A mystery of galacto Aarcheology, July 13 2008
By 
Alain Vollant "Black Dragon's Archives" (St-Jean sur Richelieu, Québec Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Engines of God (Mass Market Paperback)
It as been a while since I've read that book but I do remember that J. McDevitt intrigued me by its interstellar setting and its acheological mystery of many different civilisations that appeared to have been obliterated in about the same period of their evolution.

I also remember that it was my very first novel where I could read on the consequences of global warming of the Earth. Overall, this was not a master piece but still a good read none the less.
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2.0 out of 5 stars Neither meat nor fish, May 27 2004
By 
Bram Janssen (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Engines of God (Mass Market Paperback)
"The Engines of God" is Science Fiction from the category "hard sci-fi". Meaning: dabbling in the same pool as "A Space Odyssey" and so many others. Scientific ideas molten into an exciting story. At least, it says so on the covers. However, upon reading, you'll find out that there is also a great deal of sci-fi adventure involved.

Unfortunately, I cannot claim that it enhanced the whole. The adventure sequences seem to have been inserted in order to create "deadlines" for the characters. A damaged ship slowly loosing all life support, so there is only a very short time to unravel the next bit of mystery. Of that order.

It must, however, be said that this technique does work splendidly for the first part of the novel, where there's only a very limited time for the characters to discover what they have to before the planet they are on will be violently terraformed.

The second time McDevitt applies this technique, you're slightly beginning to wonder what the use of the entire new "deadline" had been, as it affected neither story- nor character-development. The third and final time you're actually frustrated, since it involved the deaths of several main characters for absolutely no conceivable purpose for any of the storylines.

It seems McDevitt wasn't too sure that his "hard sci-fi" idea would catch on, and surgically implanted several adventure sequences to decorate the whole. Because that's what it does - at least as soon as the story leaves the planet that was about to be terraformed.
His ultimate failure is the lack of depth in his characters. Good character responses and developments would have made this story above average in the end. Yet they move around, do there deeds, and feel their emotions, but aren't leading the story. Instead, the story is leading them, like a puppeteer. Whatever happens to their emotions at the end of each "adventure implant" is elbowed aside and ignored, and instead the "hard" story continues rather unconcernedly.

It has to be said that the finale does the book good. It isn't as overwhelming as in some other "hard sci-fi" novels, but it's satisfactory nonetheless. Actually, McDevitt's entire scientific plot tastes good.
Nevertheless, this cannot wipe away the sour taste of shallow characters and the poor pieces of adventure plot. McDevitt should have made this an exclusively "hard sci-fi" story, and stopped trying to do a bit of this and that.

This one gets two stars.

Bram Janssen,
The Netherlands

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