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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A tantalizing blend of mystery and philosophy, February 6, 2008
Sixty years ago (in a future so distant that space travel is commonplace), the luxury yacht Polaris carried a group of curious, science-minded (and very wealthy) passengers to Delta Karpis, once a typical G class star but now unique and of extraordinary interest as it was about to collide with a dwarf star. Having witnessed this astonishing once in a lifetime stellar event, the Polaris announced its imminent departure for earth and then was never heard from again. Search parties eventually found the Polaris empty and adrift, its passengers clearly having left or vanished with considerable speed - a space-faring celestial Marie Celeste, as it were! When prominent antiquities dealer, Alex Benedict, and his assistant, Chase Kolpath, managed to acquire a number of artifacts from the salvaged Polaris, it became clear that Benedict and Kolpath were targeted for elimination. Someone was desperate to ensure that the truth behind the Polaris story was never revealed to an unsuspecting world.
A diverting, enjoyable, if somewhat predictable mystery, "Polaris" will provide any sci-fi fan with some enjoyable hours of reading ... lots of whiz bang high-tech gadgetry, a dash of celestial mechanics and the science of stellar evolution plus a very provocative series of philosophical divertimenti pondering the potential effects of science's ability to stop or reverse the aging process. "To age or not to age, this is the question", McDevitt puts forward some extremely interesting arguments on both sides as to how the world might react and evolve were it possible to stop aging and prolong life indefinitely. And how does that fit into the mystery plot? Ah ... for that, you're just going to have to pick it up and read it!
The dust jacket publicity blurb styles McDevitt as the heir apparent to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. On the basis of my first reading of his work, I don't think I'm quite ready to accord him that lofty status, but I'm willing and eager to seek out more of his novels and read on.
Paul Weiss
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Run of the Mill, March 29, 2006
All seven people aboard a vessel, including the captain, mysteriously disappear. A search by other vessels fails to reveal what happened to them. Years later, an antiques dealer and his intrepid assistant, who are interested in objects that were on the vessel, find that someone else is attempting to get the same objects. After several attempts on their lives, they finally figure out why these objects are important and what happened to the missing people. There is a classic confrontation scene between the heroes and the villain.
Does this sound like a run of the mill mystery? Well it is. So how was this novel nominated for the Nebula award, the annual award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America? Well, the trappings of science fiction were added on. The empty vessel is a space ship. The time is in the far future. The McGuffin, the reason for the disappearance, is something that present-day science has yet to discover, but it could just as well have been illegal proceeds of some kind.
But none of these trappings do anything to illuminate the characters or the society in which this adventure occurs, or our own present-day society. Nor are the plot devices so clever that they are worth reading about for themselves. In fact the plot is not just pedestrian but repetitious. For example not once, but twice the heroes' vehicle is sabotaged by the bad guy. You'd think smart detectives would have learned after the first time! Finally, the heroes themselves are quite insipid.
There are some interesting elements, like the presentation of two sides of a social argument that is a driving force in the novel, but after presenting both sides the author steps back and provides an intervening event that removes anyone (including the reader) from responsibility for actually making a choice.
If you need something to read on a long airplane ride and nothing else is available, this book may satisfy your requirement. But if the ride ends before you reach the end, you won't miss anything by leaving this book on the plane.
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27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
McDevitt is capable of MUCH better than this . . ., January 8, 2005
McDevitt is capable of turning out thoughtful, literate, involving science fiction novels of very high quality indeed. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them. This is a not-quite-sequel to his excellent A TALENT FOR WAR, in that it is set in the same future and shares some of the same characters several thousand years from now, in a diverse, dispersed human galactic civilization. A space-going yacht, POLARIS, accompanies a group of scientific research ships to witness and record a rare stellar event. Aboard are half a dozen scientific, philosophical, and political luminaries. And they never return, though the ship itself is found, mysterious empty of life. Sixty years later, the disappearance of the passengers of POLARIS is still one of the great modern mysteries. Alex Benedict, now a prominent antiquities dealer, acquires a number of the personal possessions found on the derelict ship -- just before the rest of the artifacts are destroyed in an explosion. And now someone, or some organization, is trying to kill him off, too. What does he unknowingly possess that could be that important? Well, McDevitt never quite makes it worth the reader's while to want to find out. The minutiae of life in his future are interesting at the beginning and help supply verisimilitude, but it gets a little old to be reading detailed descriptions of the lives of very minor characters when you're three hundred pages into the book. Also, it's an old sf device to casually mention the names of future historical figures in the company of names we would recognize from our own times, but McDevitt does this far, far too often -- and usually without giving any hint of who these great figures are. I'm prepared to believe, I guess, that a civilization that could produce a "quantum drive" (an improvement on mere FTL) still can't extend the human life span beyond 130 or so years, but that out not to have become the centerpiece of the plot. And I'm *not* willing to accept that ordinary people with only a basic education in that future are so conversant with the details of history and everyday life thousands of years in their past when few Americans in 2005 could pass a test on the lives of their ancestors only a few centuries ago. There's some good ideas and good writing here, but ultimately, this book just doesn't work.
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