Books by Jack McDevitt
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Hello Out There
(Meisha Merlin, 2000)
Omnibus edition, containing The Hercules Text (Ace, 1986) and A Talent for War (Ace, 1989)
The Hercules Text
Ace Special
Philip K. Dick Special Award
Locus Award, Best First Novel
A pulsar, drifting through the gulfs between the galaxies, begins to send a message that can only be artificial. A research team works to decipher the text while the public, Wall Street, the Vatican, and the international community react to the fact that we now know we are not alone.
A Talent for War
Christopher Sim had been the legendary commander of the force that withstood an alien attack that threatened all humanity. After years of struggle against a stronger enemy, he was abandoned by his crew because they considered the cause hopeless. But Sim collected a handful of volunteers and won a major engagement near Rigel, stemming the tide and encouraging other terrestrial worlds to join the fight. Despite the success, he and his fabled ship Corsarius, and the volunteers, known to history only as the Seven, were lost in that final battle.
Two hundred years later, a survey ship discovers something so odd in a distant nebula that a massive coverup begins. Gabriel Benedict, an archeologist, thinks he knows what has been found. But he dies in an accident before revealing his suspicions, and it falls to Gabe's nephew, Alex, a quiet antiquities dealer, to take up the hunt. He knows only that it is somehow connected to the war against the aliens.
The Engines of God
(Ace, 1994)
Finalist, Arthur C. Clarke Award for best SF novel published in the UK
Why is there an artificial city, a simulation carved from rock, on an airless moon orbiting Quraqua? Why do cube-shaped satellites orbit Nok, the only known world with a living, if backward, civilization? Archeologists tracking the rise and fall of civilizations across several worlds note a mathematical correspondence between their mutual dates of destruction. What is going on?
Priscilla Hutchins, a young pilot, helps a team of archeologists solve the riddle and keep alive. For the most part.
Deepsix
(EOS, 2001)
Sequel to The Engines of God
Maleiva III was a living world. It was passing through an ice age, but it was old and evolution had provided its predators with staying power and fearsome weapons. An early expedition, led by Randall Nightingale, was decimated, with Nightingale taking the blame.
Nineteen years later, a gas giant, Morgan's World, has penetrated the system and is about to absorb Maleiva III, now nicknamed Deepsix. Shortly before the end, a research vessel, on hand to watch the collision, spots ruins in the ice. The ship has no lander, and a quick call for help brings Priscilla Hutchins and a few people she is ferrying to Earth.
Hutch's instructions: You have one week. Go down, take a look, find out what you can, and stay out of trouble. Take no chances. A second vessel also arrives, and sends a second lander down. But a quake destroys both vehicles. With no other ships nearby, the ground party seems to have no chance to get clear.
Chindi
(Ace, 2002)
Sequel to The Engines of God
Radio signals emanating from stealth satellites orbiting a neutron star lead to a search for the source. The effort appears hopeless, but a group of wealthy enthusiasts, with their own ship, hire Priscilla Hutchins to take them out to have a look.
The trail is both strange and lethal. Ultimately they encounter the chindi, a ship roughly the size of Chicago. And what appears to be an alien refuge in perhaps the loveliest spot in the Orion Arm.
But the chindi is dangerous, and ultimately Hutch finds herself in a desperate pursuit to rescue a friend before time runs out.
Omega
(Ace, November 2003)
Conclusion to the four-book cycle that began with The Engines of God.
Thirty years after the discovery of the first omega cloud, another one is observed changing course. That can only be bad news: it has spotted right angles somewhere. The mark of sentient creatures. And it is on its way to unleash the lightning.
The target is a small civilization with a technology level similar to that in the Meditteranean during the early Roman years. Now director of operations, Hutch dispatches ships and people with instructions to save the locals, but not to let the human presence be detected. Meantime, researchers at home try to solve a basic riddle: What precisely are the omega clouds? An ancient weapon that someone forgot to turn off? An urban reclamation project that went wild? Or something else entirely? Hutch begins to suspect that the answer can be found in a Georgetown art gallery.
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Ancient Shores
(HarperPrism, 1996)
Finalist, Nebula Award ®
Tom Lasker discovers, in a North Dakota wheat field, a boat unlike anything he has ever seen. Lasker's wheat field had once been on the shoreline of an inland sea. But that was 10,000 years ago. The boat, however, is only a prelude to a much larger discovery that may open up the universe to a human race that is hardly ready for such a prospect.
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Standard Candles
(Tachyon, 1996)
Introduction by Charles Sheffield. Short story collection. Sixteen stories, including three, "The Fort Moxie Branch," "Cryptic," and "Time Travelers Never Die," that made the final Nebula ballot.
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Eternity Road
(HarperPrism, 1997)
In a town near a place that used to be Memphis, people wonder who built the big concrete strips that cross the land, and what purpose they served. The answers, according to legend, could be found in a distant place called Haven, where the treasures of a civilization ravaged by plague had been hidden.
Of course nobody believed any of it. Except Karik Endine and a few intrepid souls who trusted him when he said he knew where Haven was. So they plunged into the wilderness, following the rock-hard strips. Nine months later Endine returned alone, exhausted and defeated. The others were all dead, he explained, victims of accidents and attacks by barbarians. And if Haven existed, it wasn't where he'd expected to find it.
The town does not easily forget or forgive its losses. Endine becomes a recluse and eventually walks into the Mississippi. At a memorial service, his son is shocked to find a copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Mark Twain had been known only through a few fragments. The conclusion: Endine had indeed found Haven. It was a magnificent success on his part. But why had he denied it?
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Moonfall
(HarperPrism, 1998)
Finalist, Nebula Award ®
It is 2024, and a united world is opening Moonbase. Among the guests at the ceremonies is Charlie Haskell, a nondescript U.S. vice president. The event is timed to coincide with a total eclipse, which will move across the hometown of a former president who was the major force in launching the project. But the eclipse unexpectedly provides a glimpse of an object preveiously hidden in the sun's glare: a giant extrasolar comet is inbound at an extraordinarily high velocity. It will impact with the moon in five days.
At home, no one knows what to expect. And world leaders have to make fearful decisions. Meantime, Haskell, informed that there's time to evacuate everyone, tells the world he will be the last person to leave Moonbase, turning off the lights behind him. Then a few things go wrong and Charlie discovers he can bail and watch his political career evaporate, or stay with the heroes to await the comet.
Ultimately, if the groundside civilization is to have a chance to survive, Charlie Haskell will also have to survive, and become the most adept president the U.S. has ever seen.
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Infinity Beach
(EOS, 2000)
We are alone. That's the conclusion after centuries of listening to the stars, and visiting terrestrial worlds across the cosmos. But something strange happened to the Hunter a quarter-century ago. The ship was out looking for signs of a civilization, long the holy grail of the age. When it suffered engine trouble and returned early, strange things began to happen. Two women researchers never reached their hotel. A few days later, the third passenger on the flight died when an explosion took out a mountain and wrecked a town in the Severin Valley. Rumor had it that the blast was caused by the crash of an alien ship.
The only survivor of the mission was the pilot, who insisted he had no idea what the explosion had been about, or what had happened to the nmissing researchers. He laughed at the story of an alien crash. He is now dead, having been killed rescuing kids years later during a forest fire.
The ship's log showed no unusual activity during the Hunter mission. But a ghostly presence is loose in the Severin woods. An academic contacts Kim Brandywine, whose clone-sister was one of the missing women. Something happened, he says. And it's connected with the thing in the woods. "If you want to find out what happened to your sister," he tells her, "find out what haunts the nights in the Severin Valley."
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