Just finished Jack McDevitt’s Odyssey last night. Over the time I spent reading it, I just kept getting more and more drawn in until I simply had to keep reading until finish. This is the fifth book in the ‘Academy‘ series – I read a couple of the earlier books in the series, Chindi and Omega, a couple years ago. All these novels also share the central character of Priscilla Hutchins (‘Hutch’), who is a starship captain and pilot, and ends up as an administrator and sometimes politico in this book (in many ways to her dismay).

Basically the story deals with a galaxy largely devoid of alien life excepting ancient artifacts, when a series of mysterious ‘moonrider’ sightings at several of the human outposts rattle Hutch’s world in more ways than one, and she is forced to take them seriously.

Besides the gradual unfolding of a somewhat twisty-turny plot, there are a few additional nice touches in this novel. One is the additional central character of Gregory MacAllister, a journalist not unlike that of the real Christopher Hitchens (with a dose of H.L. Mencken) – eternal skeptic, strangely a friend to Hutch, muckraker, and despite his cynical/gruff/Frasier-Crane like exterior, something of a softy at heart.

There is also a lot of thinly veiled ecological commentary throughout the book – since the book is set at least a few hundred years in the future, the effects of climate change and global warming are already well on their way – and the human race is still (mostly) arguing about what to do about it, sadly.

I also liked the touch of intrigue – better readers than I may spot the foreshadowing but as noted above, I liked the plot twists and didn’t see them coming for the most part.

All in all, an increasingly good read by the end. I guess i’ll have to now read the first two and last books in the series, dadgum it!

candybowl

Tags: 00's, books, malevolence, sci-fi

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