Customer Reviews

Engines of God

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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

I hold Jack McDevitt's writing in high regard and always enjoy his science fiction epics a great deal. While his writing has become somewhat formulaic, The Engines of God provides further proof that the man knows how to tell a good story. This novel is the first to feature renowned pilot Priscilla Hutchinson ("Hutch"), a character who has been involved in more grand missions and suffered some of the most globally cursed misfortunes of any character in the universe. This story is built around the mysterious Monument Makers. Saturn's moon Iapetus houses the first such monument discovered by mankind, a mysterious, winged ice sculpture bearing an indecipherable inscription; its existence fuels the search for more monuments, of which a good dozen are located throughout the galaxy. Following in the footsteps of the unknown cosmic entities is as close as mankind has come to interacting with intelligent life elsewhere. On earth, the ecology has progressed beyond the point of no return, and man is looking outward for new earths to be populated. One possible site is Quaraqua, whose civilization has already collapsed. The Academy struggles to learn all they can about this society underneath the waters of the planet at a site dubbed the Temple of the Winds. Hutch is sent to evacuate the scientists before a terraforming project destroys whatever priceless knowledge lies hidden in the watery depths. For me, this first section of the book was the most exciting. Afterwards, having detected a radio signal, Hutch and several others journey to a more distant system, following the path left by the Monument Makers. They finally end up on yet a third planetary body seeking factual data on the mystical "engines of God" alluded to in alien scripts discovered and interpreted along the way.

For me, the plot started to collapse in on itself slightly in the second half of the book. On moons orbiting the important sites they visit are huge, fake cities (dubbed Oz) laid out in obsessively straight lines and right angles which have suffered serious charring at times of planetary catastrophe from an unknown source. Apparently, the inexplicable cosmic force they eventually get a look at has an innate attraction to linear geometries-this part of the story, which becomes very important toward the end, seemed a little ludicrous to me. Another thing that bothers me is that, aside from Hutch, the other characters who survived until the end seemed to be the least important and inscrutable of the bunch. McDevitt has no qualms about sacrificing major characters at any time and any way; it's refreshing to see an author do that, but it is sometimes slightly frustrating to finally get to know a character and then see him/her dispensed with rather arbitrarily. This leads to another weakness in the novel. I did not think the character development was very good, especially that of Hutch. McDevitt always seems to want to add a touch of romance and smoldering desires to his books, and in this case it detracts from my admiration from Hutch. She is a brave, heroic woman, yet she can't go on a mission anywhere in the universe, it seems, without at least one former or hopefully future love interest. McDevitt just doesn't handle this type of emotional content well here, and it detracts somewhat from a great story.

I think this book made McDevitt a better writer. The flaws that seem to stand out in this effort are much less prominent in his later novels. I felt pretty good about this particular plot up until the fourth and final section; at that point, some of the science seemed to fall apart, and the ultimate conclusion comes off as somewhat improbable and anticlimactic. Some of the decisions made on all sides along the way are incredibly criminal and oftentimes juvenile, and the same mistakes (such as the continued exploration of alien worlds with little or no weapons) have a way of repeating themselves over and over again. I remained incapable of buying into the supposed purpose for the strangely hewn alien Oz sites, and since the final section's activity was based around a scientific interpretation of those sites' significance, the final pages left me somewhat nonplussed. Flawed as this novel is, though, it is certainly a science fiction adventure worth taking. Hutch is a fascinating character whose richness does not really come through in these pages as it does in the follow-up novels Deepsix and Chindi, but this is a more than worthy introduction to her noble character. Sometimes I feel like McDevitt is taking me somewhere I have already visited with him in the past, but I am more than happy to follow him each and every time.

After spending a half day looking through science fiction titles at a major bookseller and finding no end to lame, unoriginal plotlines dealing with incredibly stupid premises and generally convincing me that science fiction was truly a dead medium, I came across The Engines Of God and flipped a few pages. Here I found a science fiction story that dealt in tangibles. Alien artifacts instead of conquering aliens. Surviving long enough to find the answers to its point and purpose and then again realizing that these could be our own artifacts. A great idea and nicely executed. I read the book as slowly as I could, but I still raced through it.

Great science fiction is more than an idea; rather an idea that develops in the root of life and has meaning beyond the pages. It needs to provoke thought and provide insight and somewhere must entertain as well. In this book I found all that and I felt both awe and sadness for the makers of the monuments, and, in that, potentially for our own folly and failings. Well done. I am now starting his other books.

This is possibly one of McDevitt's most important work in terms of what it portends. He introduces the soulful, enticing, and always interesting "Hutch", the discovery of the Omega clouds and the presence of other sentient beings - First Contact twice removed one might say. Some have criticized the series (and his books in general) for their elusiveness, the almost ephemeral quality of the "encounters", the lack of action (quote unquote) and the timidity and rationality of the characters.

It is for those precise qualities that I value the works of Jack McDevitt. His sagas of alien encouters are more valid from a scientific point of view than most. It is doubtful that two intelligent cultures will exist at near the same technological level at the same time. Our best hopes are discovering life in its infancy or civilizations long disappeared. After all, our planet has sustained near-extinction events at least five times that we are aware. Furthermore, unless we do venture into space as an exploring / colonizing species there is a good chance that life could be exterminated on our own planet by either local or external means.

The adventure on Quraqua was near perfect with its mix of human emotions, scientific endeavors and near-catastrophic ending. Once again, the clues planted in this story are explored and expanded in the following sections (and books). Hutch is such a great character. I almost think of her as a "real" person. She has a spunk and sense of humor in this book that is missing in others, but the reflection on herself and her follies. Also present are the inner reveries in which she contemplates mankind's place among the stars, the past and the future.

Only a few cons - too many minor characters. If the character does not figure in the story use "the captain" or "the guy that loaded boxes" rather than a name and biographical information. The reader is left waiting for something to happen.introduce. The headlines, while understandable, are a distraction from the main story to this reader. Also, who really thinks it easier to terraform another world rather than change your own...but these are quibblings compared to the slow, steady surge of the story as it moves inexorably toward its conclusion. I wish this had been the FIRST Hutch story I read instead of the last. And although this is another superb effort by a great writer I am still waiting for that magnum opus, that DUNE or 1984, that will not only satisfy the reader but also stagger the imagination. Come on, Jack, hit the books!

If you've never had the enjoyment of reading any of Jack McDevitt's books before, this might be a good one to start with. A science fiction mystery mixed with lost alien civilizations and characters who want to get to the bottom of the riddle as much as you do.

He leaves you wanting more at the end, like most of his books.

In an age of predictable fiction (enough with the Noah's-Ark-we-have-to-live-on-this-ship-for-generations already!), Jack McDevitt proves that science fiction can still explore the future... and tell a pretty good yarn at the same time. In this novel, the Earth is dying, and habitable worlds are hard to find. The only evidence of a non-human race capable of space flight is odd monuments strewn across the galaxy, including a bizarre ice-statue left on one of the moons of Saturn. So we're not alone, but where the hell is everybody? The planet Quraqua had two advanced civilizations, but both literally vanished overnight. Interestingly, the Quraquans seemed to know exactly when this catastrophe would occur. And if it weren't for the fact that Quraqua is slated for planetary re-shaping (a minor inconvenience involving deliberate "snowballing", or lobbing ice asteroids at the planet's poles), humankind might have time to figure out what is going on. This novel is one surprise after the other, and the characters are perfectly human, driven by fascination, revenge, greed, and sheer stubbornness. And if you are interested in archaeology, or have ever dreamt about sifting through the ruins of an alien culture, this book is a must-have. Do yourself a favor. Throw out that latest hack-installment of "hero with a zap gun" and snap up "The Engines of God". Your brain will thank you for it.

Overall, I thought the book was good, but I found myself a bit disappointed that it wasn't great. This is a compliment - there are many books that don't have a chance to reach exalted status. This one was good enough to have a chance, but fell short for me.

The book basically divides into 4 sections: The introduction/prelude, scene 1, scene 2 which sets up the payoff, and then the payoff. The introductory section was very good. The book begain with a teasing vision of the Monument-Makers and continued by presenting an interesting background concerning the conditions on Earth. The introduction admirably foreshadowed future tensions found in the plot. Both were done at just the right level. The teasing glance nicely drew me in wanting to see more and the other background information was nicely positioned in the background, with the right amount of poking into the foreground of the plot.

The main archealogical hunt (scene 1) was excellently done. From the layperson's point of view, the archeolgical details were exciting and accurate enough. The mythological tie-ins worked very well and this section at the Temple of the Winds was downright exciting.

The rest of the book doesn't keep up with this excellent first half. The specifc actions at the next planet (scene 2) seemed purposeless (although in general the planet and its history were both quite important in numerous ways). The life-form encounter seemed arbitrary and the results were a bit unbelievable to me. The characters were amzingly careless and to have them realize this a bit later and say "Boy! Were we careless!" (I'm paraphrasing here) didn't rectify the incongruity for me. Also, while the depth of characterization was more than one usually finds in a science fiction novel, I felt it didn't go deep enough for many of the characters. While those characters were not as shallow as a Star Trek "red-shirt" character, they weren't deep enough for me to really tell many of them apart. I still can't tell the difference betwee! n Frank Carson and Henry except by their roles in the plot. And I really wanted to see more of Melanie Truscott and Maggie Tufu to find out what makes them really tick.

And then came the payoff. For me, the payoff in sf novels need to be grand (either large scale or deep), consistent with the rest of the foreshadowing, not leave any big questions unanswered and stay just the right distance ahead of me (so I can exclaim "Of course! I should have seen that!" just after the author shows it to me). The payoff here was nicely executed, but it was missing key elements. The "of course" factor was there, but earlier parts of the book strongly hinted at a large scale payoff and to me what was delivered at the end was not quite complete enough. Perhaps the stage is set for a sequel, but even after 3 years, I haven't seen one.

In summary, I rate this as a good book, but I really wanted it to make it to the "great" shelf in my library to take its place with the Foundation series, the Well of Souls, and Hogan's Giants. It had an excellent run-up, but didn't make the final leap. Perhaps the author's next books will make the jump to the top of my collection rather than fall short and land in the second-tier (which is still far better than the scrap heap on the bottom).

ENGINES OF GOD is an early novel by Jack McDevitt, a highly respected science fiction writer who's won the prestigious Nebula, John Campbell, and Phillip K. Dick awards. I must admit I found it somewhat disappointing.

To me, the fatal flaw of any novel is a lack of good characterization. That's the problem with this book in a nutshell. Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins is the book's protagonist, but I never felt like she came to life. ENGINES OF GOD features a multitude of supporting characters, but it was hard for me to tell most of them apart. Most of the dialogue is dull and merely designed to push the plot along. As a result, this novel lacks drama and didn't emotionally engage me.

There are some decent action scenes, but they felt kind of obligatory, and didn't really relate to the main story. Like many other reviewers, I also found the ending rather uninspiring and anti-climactic. Given the long, complex buildup, I was expecting something more profound than what I ultimately got.

ENGINES OF GOD deals with a lot of interesting ideas, but I just didn't find it very involving or suspenseful. I did admire McDevitt's command of the English language, as well as his obvious intelligence. In fairness, this is my first McDevitt novel, so I will definitely try one or two of his later books before giving up on him.