The Engines of God (Mass Market Paperback)

by Jack McDevitt (Author) "Quraqua. 28th Year of Mission, 211th Day..." (more)
Key Phrases: commlink chimed, cube moons, sub bay, Beta Pac, Ashley Tee, Temple of the Winds (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Ace (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441002846
• ISBN-13: 978-0441002849
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #30,403 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 1 in The Priscilla Hutch Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Search and Destroy, September 7, 2006

By	Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Engines of God (1994) is the first SF novel in the Hutch series. Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins is a superluminal pilot contracted to the Academy of Science and Technology. She has known Richard Wald for several years, once taking him to Iapetus to see the First Monument. The sight of that alien ice statue became one of the most memorable moments in her life.

In this novel, the Academy crew on Quraqua has been excavating the Temple of the Winds in its underwater site near the shoreline. The Temple was located on a major crossroads and was an important military and religious center for millennia. The Lower Temple was the original installation, a military outpost with a chapel, and over time the structure had been expanded, partially demolished, replaced and modified.

Quraqua's moon has a stone construct imitating a town, with right angles galore, but built with solid blocks having no interior spaces. The only relief from the rectangularity is two circular towers at opposite ends of the construct. One of the circular towers has an untranslated inscription in Casumel Linear C. Since the inhabitants of Quraqua seem to have never achieved space travel, the Oz construct is unexplained.

Project Hope had received permission to terraform the planet Quraqua for terrestrial inhabitation. The Academy had fought Project Hope to the last moment, yet only notified the Temple of the Winds team of the coming move after the final legal defeat. Now the Academy crew has to rush to get off the planet within a court mandated timeframe.

Casumel Linear C was used during the era that the Lower Temple was constructed. Since the eviction notice was received, the team has been concentrating on that portion of the Temple. Maggie Tufu, the exophilologist, needs as many samples as she can get to translate the Oz inscription.

When the Academy crew discovers a frieze in the Lower Temple depicting one of the Monument-Makers, Henry Jacobi, the team leader, sends Ward a facsimile of the frieze. Hutch is taking the Johann Winckelmann to Quraqua to evacuate the crew prior to the nuking of the icecaps, so Ward wrangles a ride with her to see the artwork. Upon entering the system, Ward asks Hutch to take him to Quraqua's moon to see Oz. There they find square and rectangular blocks arranged into a false image of a city. The construct has been significantly damaged, more so than the surrounding area. Ward, Hutch and Frank Carson, the project administrator, speculate that Oz was built by the Monument-Makers.

When the team finds a printing press on a lower floor in the Temple, they concentrate their efforts on removing it. It may contain the longest single sample of Casumel Linear C that they have found. By itself, the set type may be enough to achieve a breakthrough with the language.

Unfortunately, the Kosmik team working on Project Hope decides to give the Academy crew a little nudge and drops an iceberg from orbit into the sea far from where they are excavating the Temple. The resulting tsunamis are fairly small compared to those that will the raised during the nuking to the icecap, but are still disruptive. Then the northern icecap project engineer decides that further delays will not be tolerated.

In this story, the terraforming crew gets away with murder, but the archaeologists retrieve the type chases and Maggie translates the Oz inscription. This leads to other discoveries and further voyages. Ultimately, Hutch and friends discover the nature of the Engines of God.

Highly recommended for McDevitt fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of high adventure, archaeological discovery and astronomical calculations.

-Arthur W. Jordin

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read, Some Negative Points, October 16, 2001

By	Malcolm J. Davris - See all my reviews

Engines of God was the book that first got me reading McDevitt. It's an excellent peace of anthropological science fiction. I would recommend it as a starting point for reading the author, along with Ancient Shores.

It typifies the comfortable nature of his writing style, which is some combination of Heinlein's Everyman tone with some of the hard science authors. And unlike some earlier reviewers (i.e. "superdestroyer") contend, it is not at all about "non-happenings." The novel is very much event driven, but the events are driven by the character's desire to understand a dead race and the clues they leave to a mystery that bears very much on the future of the human race.

There are only really 3 weaknesses I see in Engines of God (and McDevitt's work in general), that prevents me from giving it 5 stars:

1) The characterization is weak, not exactly Card or Donaldson or even Babylon 5. This can prove for exceedingly pointless moments as he explores characters that we don't really feel.

2) He has a way of creating slow spots in his writing that can be difficult to wade through if you don't know that there's a payoff coming. This is never really a problem in EOG, but in some of his more recent efforts like Moonfall, it can grate.

3) His writing style will never be considered highly literary. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes there are narrative flow issues related to this that can be jarring.

Ultimately, this book is for people who can enjoy what is very much an above-average prose SF book. It's not the next Stranger in a Strange Land, but -and thank God- it isn't Voyager either.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another good one, August 29, 2002

By	T. D. Perdue "tim20497" (Urbandale, IA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I buy a fair number of books, and many of them I struggle to finish, and ultimately get bored and put it on the shelf for another day. I never did finish "Cryptonomicon", or any of Neal Stephenson's books for that matter, even after reading hundreds of pages.

But for some reason Jack McDevitt is able to weave an interesting sci-fi story that can really keep my attention. His books focus on a single character and you are always working your way toward the conclusion of the book. You feel like you're making progress.

Engines of God is no different. There's a constant, logical progression as the characters weave their way through discoveries and ultimately wind up at finding a conclusion that you speculated about, but weren't quite sure. You really want to skip to the end and figure it out, but you don't want to wreck a really good read.

Frankly, I'd like to see a sequel to this book written about 900-1000 years in the future to see what happens.

My first McDevitt book was "Infinity Beach", then "Eternity Road", and now this. All were excellent and interesting.

If I have a complaint about McDevitt, it's that technology in his books isn't all that advanced, even 1,000 years in the future. I guess that helps with the readability, as he doesn't get carried away with tons of technobabble as most authors do.