Seeker (An Alex Benedict Novel) [Hardcover]

Jack McDevitt (Author)

Book Description

Series: An Alex Benedict Novel | Publication Date: November 1, 2005

Thousands of years after an entire colony mysteriously disappears, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict comes into possession of a cup that seems to be from the Seeker, one of the colony's ships. Investigating the provenance of the cup, Alex and his assistant Chase follow a deadly trail to the Seeker-strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Ideas abound in McDevitt's classy riff on the familiar lost-space-colony theme. In 2688, interstellar transports Seeker and Bremerhaven left a theocratic Orwellian Earth to found a dictator-free society, Margolia—and vanished. Nine thousand years later, with a flawed humanity spread over 100-odd worlds, Margolia and its ships have become Atlantis-type myths, but after a cup from Seeker falls into the hands of antiquarian Alex Benedict, the hero of McDevitt's Polaris (2004), Alex determines to win everlasting fame and vaster fortune by finding them. Female pilot Chase Kolpath, this book's narrator, gutsily tracks the ancient Seeker on a breathless trek across star systems and through an intriguing mystery plot, a bevy of fully realized characters, ingenious AI ships and avatars of long-departed personalities who offer advice and entertainment. The scientific interpolations are as convincing as the far-future planetscapes and human and alien societies, bolstering an irresistible tractor beam of heavy-duty action. This novel delivers everything it promises—with a galactic wallop.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

McDevitt's latest gripping novel of future history begins in the late twentieth century, when a technological breakthrough costs the lives of its discoverers. Then it jumps seven centuries forward, to the beginning of interstellar flight and some of the first refugees from Earth. Finally, it moves into the very far future and to the seeker of the title, one of several looking for inhabited worlds that are the results, however longterm, of events recorded earlier. McDevitt is now being compared, quite legitimately, to Arthur C. Clarke, and not only because he has a similar kind of grand vision of the human future among the stars. He also has characters with amiable, or not-so-amiable, quirks, who in the middle of deciphering the secrets of lost races take time to worry about where to get a good meal in the next town. One of these days McDevitt is going to receive an actual and well-deserved big award to go with his professional stature. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441013295
• ISBN-13: 978-0441013296
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #661,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good story, February 23, 2006

By 

Christopher K. Koenigsberg (Norman, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seeker (An Alex Benedict Novel) (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book. It satisfies various "itches" that I try to "scratch", by reading good mature science fiction.

One thing I appreciate about his writing in this novel (and its predecessor) is his use sometimes of fairly realistic first-person narrative, by a woman character. Male authors often don't get their female characters quite right (my wife made me especially aware of this).

McDevitt has carved out a sort of unique niche for himself, with this and some (not all) of his other novels, perhaps you might call it "future archaeology"?

For the most satisfying experience, before reading this novel you should read the two earlier, equally good novels, that take place in the same world, with the same main characters (Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath): "A Talent For War" (don't be put off by the awful title) and "Polaris".

And for "A Talent For War", you can get it by itself, or you can also get it in a book called "Hello Out There", that combines it with a rewritten earlier novel of his ("The Hercules Text").

McDevitt's other, equally good series, of "future archaeology" novels, features a different world and different main character (Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchinson". That series starts with "The Engines of God" and continues through "DeepSix", "Chindi", and "Omega".

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another satisfying science fiction/mystery from Jack McDevitt!, November 17, 2005

By 

Michael Fitzsimmons (Montgomery, AL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seeker (An Alex Benedict Novel) (Hardcover)

Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath, of "A Talent for War" and "Polaris" fame, are at it again solving ancient mysteries, avoiding persistent assassins, and makin' money hand over fist in their morally ambiguous profession as acquirers of and dealers in historically relevant "antiquties".
Mr. McDevitt is in top form doing what he does best creating an intriguing S-F mystery, and taking us for a very satisfying ride.
I am somewhat curious as to how a human civilization set ten thousand years in the future could still resemble our own, except with better appliances. It reminds me of "Forbidden Planet" set hundreds of years in the future with their 50's hairstyles, and 50's attitudes toward women and everything else ("We Still Like Ike!"). Well, there were numerous "dark ages"...
Jack McDevitt rarely disappoints, and "Seeker" is one of his best! Highly recommended!

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating idea, September 7, 2007

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Book Reviewer 2009 - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seeker (Mass Market Paperback)

(***** = breathtaking, **** = excellent, *** = good, ** = flawed, * = bad)

McDevitt is more of an idea-guy than a writer: his characters are flat and his descriptions employ so little sensory information that he manages to make scenes like an apartment break-in by a vengeful man and a fight for survival outside of a spaceship seem boring.

BUT -- his ideas such as a journey among a telepathic alien species among whom lying is unknown, and (especially) what happened to the lost colonists of the Bremerhaven and the Seeker) are absolutely breathtaking.

Reading Seeker was sometimes a slog, but I was entertained and glad I'd read it in the end. Longer review at ImpatientReader-dot-com.