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The Academy #2
Deepsix
In the year 2204, tragedy and terror forced a scientific team to prematurely evacuate Maleiva Ill. Twenty-one years later, the opportunity for scientists to study this galactic rarity—a life-supporting planet—is about to vanish forever as a rogue gas giant has invaded the planetary system on a deadly collision course with the world they are now calling Deepsix.A superluminal pilot for the Academy of Science and Technology, Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins is the only even remotely qualified professional within lightyears of Deepsix. With less than three weeks left before the disaster, she and a small scientific team—including Randall Nightingale a survivor of the original expedition who was made the scapegoat for its failure—must descend to the surface, and glean whatever they can about the doomed planet’s lifeforms and lost civilizations.There is more to this strange and complex world, however, than anyone could have hidden predators; stone cities under the ice; remnants of a warlike primitive society, yet with inexplicable hints of an impossible technology buried in the rubble... and in orbit around the soon to be demolished planet. The deeper Hutch and her team delve, the more puzzles are revealed within puzzles and startling discoveries lead only to greater and more perplexing questionsBut then the unthinkable occurs An earthquake destroys the explorers only means of escape As scientists and sightseers who have come to witness the spectacular end of Deepsix watch helplessly from miles above Hutch and her people must survive somehow on a hostile planet going rapidly mad. And with the clock ticking relentlessly toward an unavoidable apocalypse, they must find some way, any way to get off before Deepsix plunges like a pebble into the limitless depths of the rampaging gas giant.
432 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
129 people are currently reading
1668 people want to read
About the author
Jack McDevitt
185 books1,342 followersJack McDevitt is a former English teacher, naval officer, Philadelphia taxi driver, customs officer and motivational trainer. His work has been on the final ballot for the Nebula Awards for 12 of the past 13 years. His first novel, The Hercules Text, was published in the celebrated Ace Specials series and won the Philip K. Dick Special Award. In 1991, McDevitt won the first $10,000 UPC International Prize for his novella, "Ships in the Night." The Engines of God was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and his novella, "Time Travelers Never Die," was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards.
McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife, Maureen, where he plays chess, reads mysteries and eats lunch regularly with his cronies.
McDevitt lives in Georgia with his wife, Maureen, where he plays chess, reads mysteries and eats lunch regularly with his cronies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 322 reviews
June 12, 2018
The best thing I can say about McDevitt's SF is that it's always consistent, rich, and adventuresome.
While I never expect anything wild or any the pushing of the boundaries, I can always enjoy planetary exploration and the archeology of ancient, long-dead alien races. It's a mystery wrapped in interesting physical dimensions for worlds, such as this one. It's much more massive than earth but the density is still within the perfect zone... and yet we know everything has to go to hell.
Yep. More death, a planet set to be completely destroyed, and a crew of academics and explorers trapped on the surface by massively bad luck. Add other spaceships responding to the distress, instantaneous communications and a media circus thanks to a few well placed and vocal peeps in the crew, and everyone's tuned in to this exciting rescue.
Too bad the rescue is doomed.
I was reminded of the very best portions (and extravagant portions) of a certain Lost In Space movie. Only expanded, improved, made less stupid. :)
This novel was quite enjoyable. Exciting popcorn fiction full of great tech, standard humans, and a modern sensibility NOT reminiscent of the golden age SF mythos. It might be less spicy than most SF, but it's definitely some of the most accessible.
Especially for fans of adventure. :)
While I never expect anything wild or any the pushing of the boundaries, I can always enjoy planetary exploration and the archeology of ancient, long-dead alien races. It's a mystery wrapped in interesting physical dimensions for worlds, such as this one. It's much more massive than earth but the density is still within the perfect zone... and yet we know everything has to go to hell.
Yep. More death, a planet set to be completely destroyed, and a crew of academics and explorers trapped on the surface by massively bad luck. Add other spaceships responding to the distress, instantaneous communications and a media circus thanks to a few well placed and vocal peeps in the crew, and everyone's tuned in to this exciting rescue.
Too bad the rescue is doomed.
I was reminded of the very best portions (and extravagant portions) of a certain Lost In Space movie. Only expanded, improved, made less stupid. :)
This novel was quite enjoyable. Exciting popcorn fiction full of great tech, standard humans, and a modern sensibility NOT reminiscent of the golden age SF mythos. It might be less spicy than most SF, but it's definitely some of the most accessible.
Especially for fans of adventure. :)
July 22, 2018
A very sturdy sequel to The Engines of God. In this second outing for Academy pilot Priscilla Hutchins, a rogue moon is hurtling toward Maleiva III, one of the few known planets in the galaxy capable of supporting life. Hutchins flies a team of scientists down to the surface to gather as much data as they can before the catastrophe hits, but an accident leaves them stranded and they only have one slim chance of escaping in time – if the planet doesn’t kill them first.
The plot of Deepsix follows a similar formula to its predecessor, and even repeats a couple of story beats. McDevitt excels at both small character moments and grand-scale adventure, and his musings on alien life and civilizations are always captivating. The familiarity of the plot makes it no less a source of tension, excitement, and wonder.
The plot of Deepsix follows a similar formula to its predecessor, and even repeats a couple of story beats. McDevitt excels at both small character moments and grand-scale adventure, and his musings on alien life and civilizations are always captivating. The familiarity of the plot makes it no less a source of tension, excitement, and wonder.
February 20, 2023
Another really good Priscilla Hutchins adventure, maybe the best of the series. Held up well to reread.
Starting another reread 1/20/23. Off to a good start. McDevitt at this best is hard to beat!
i'm kicking this one up to 4.5 stars on third(?) reading. It's not perfect, but I think it is the best of the Hutchins/Academy books. If you read just one, this should be it. It's a standalone. And it would make a great movie!
One flaw that I noticed this time:
Highly recommended, for action-adventure SF fans who like to see one of these done right! McDevitt was in top form here.
Starting another reread 1/20/23. Off to a good start. McDevitt at this best is hard to beat!
i'm kicking this one up to 4.5 stars on third(?) reading. It's not perfect, but I think it is the best of the Hutchins/Academy books. If you read just one, this should be it. It's a standalone. And it would make a great movie!
One flaw that I noticed this time:
Highly recommended, for action-adventure SF fans who like to see one of these done right! McDevitt was in top form here.
June 5, 2024
*** 4.44 ***
A very solid Sci-fi follow up to the first Academy series book. Hutch is a strong but vulnerable pilot, who is competent, and still has very human fears and failings. As a story, this was riveting! It takes place in the 23rd century, humans have mastered space travel and are exploring other worlds. Actually, the books so far have been heavy on space Archeology and I love those elements!
We also have a prominent misogynists as a main character in this volume. Gregore McAllister is wonderful to hate on for his political incorrectness, but also a lot of fun to enjoy his larger than life persona. Best parts of the book were the chapter headers, which were quotes from his writings😃.
Nightingale is an example of a truly ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances not once, but twice, and being given the chance to prove to himself he is stronger than he believes himself to be.
I do agree with one of my fellow buddy readers though, that it is quite shocking how humanity, who have reached such technological advancement and travel freely through space, are so horrible at planning and safety procedures! If only those were on par with what we think of as safety today, there would be no crisis, and I guess no need for the books .. But still...
Overall, I really enjoyed this one and am looking forward to reading the rest of this author's work. 😃👍🤟
A very solid Sci-fi follow up to the first Academy series book. Hutch is a strong but vulnerable pilot, who is competent, and still has very human fears and failings. As a story, this was riveting! It takes place in the 23rd century, humans have mastered space travel and are exploring other worlds. Actually, the books so far have been heavy on space Archeology and I love those elements!
We also have a prominent misogynists as a main character in this volume. Gregore McAllister is wonderful to hate on for his political incorrectness, but also a lot of fun to enjoy his larger than life persona. Best parts of the book were the chapter headers, which were quotes from his writings😃.
Nightingale is an example of a truly ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances not once, but twice, and being given the chance to prove to himself he is stronger than he believes himself to be.
I do agree with one of my fellow buddy readers though, that it is quite shocking how humanity, who have reached such technological advancement and travel freely through space, are so horrible at planning and safety procedures! If only those were on par with what we think of as safety today, there would be no crisis, and I guess no need for the books .. But still...
Overall, I really enjoyed this one and am looking forward to reading the rest of this author's work. 😃👍🤟
October 31, 2020
I struggled way too much to want to continue. This sequel perpetuated all the shortcomings from the first novel, and did not even bother to continue with where that book left off.
Deepsix suffered from really stupid characters, lowbrow plotting, and used the exact same disasters from the first novel . The names and places are different, but the game is still let's-guess-who-the-Red-Shirts-are-gonna-be. Amazingly, the author also goes back to the same well to pull out another familiarity: .
So disappointing. Worst of all, I really hoped this would continue with the "Omega clouds" storyline from the first novel. My understanding is that later books in the series will circle back to it, but if I'd known this novel wasn't going to have it then I would have skipped this one. Wish I had.
Deepsix suffered from really stupid characters, lowbrow plotting, and used the exact same disasters from the first novel . The names and places are different, but the game is still let's-guess-who-the-Red-Shirts-are-gonna-be. Amazingly, the author also goes back to the same well to pull out another familiarity: .
So disappointing. Worst of all, I really hoped this would continue with the "Omega clouds" storyline from the first novel. My understanding is that later books in the series will circle back to it, but if I'd known this novel wasn't going to have it then I would have skipped this one. Wish I had.
December 19, 2014
Deepsix is a brilliant sci-fi thriller. The ideas are fantastic, especially the premise on which the entire book is based which is that an earth-like planet will collide with a large rogue wanderer gas giant.
This of course is of very high interest to the scientific community of the 23rd Century, so they are gathered in that solar system to ogle at the upcoming spectacle of Deepsix being ripped apart. However, when the spectators arrive six weeks prior to the event, they find that the incompletely surveyed planet actually has ruins of a civilisation.
Hutch is piloting in the local area and is called in to do some basic xenoarchaeology before the planet and all its remains are lost in the fiery maelstrom. And that's when things start to go wrong!
Again there are some great characters including a misanthropic atheist journalist whose pithy comments bring some levity to a serious situation, although he's also an irritating b*gger too!
I thoroughly enjoyed Deepsix, highly recommended
This of course is of very high interest to the scientific community of the 23rd Century, so they are gathered in that solar system to ogle at the upcoming spectacle of Deepsix being ripped apart. However, when the spectators arrive six weeks prior to the event, they find that the incompletely surveyed planet actually has ruins of a civilisation.
Hutch is piloting in the local area and is called in to do some basic xenoarchaeology before the planet and all its remains are lost in the fiery maelstrom. And that's when things start to go wrong!
Again there are some great characters including a misanthropic atheist journalist whose pithy comments bring some levity to a serious situation, although he's also an irritating b*gger too!
I thoroughly enjoyed Deepsix, highly recommended
October 19, 2015
This is an exciting story with a slew of interesting concepts. A life-bearing planet with fierce, interesting predators; remnants of an intelligent but not very advanced civilization; further remains of an advanced technological race; and a rogue gas giant about to collide with this planet. We meet up again with Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins, 20 years after her last escapade in The Engines of God. Hutch leads a “pick-up” team to the planet surface to gather whatever archeological artifacts they can find before the planets collide. Then TSHF. An exciting chase across the surface as the team suffers losses while trying to get to a safe escape. People die, tension builds, rescuers strain to find a way to get the team off the planet, predators attack, mysteries galore. Read this one! Four Stars
Now I do have one problem with the book. On the highly positive side, McDevitt writes some great female characters into the story. (I’d love to hear from some women who have read the book on their opinions). So many of the female characters are heroic, smart, accomplished, selfless, strong, deep thinkers, etc. Really admirable, it was way past time for great women leads in scifi. On the negative side, virtually every male character is a real jerk. Cowardly, vicious, feckless, self-serving, manipulative, weak, shallow, etc. It went beyond belief.
Now I do have one problem with the book. On the highly positive side, McDevitt writes some great female characters into the story. (I’d love to hear from some women who have read the book on their opinions). So many of the female characters are heroic, smart, accomplished, selfless, strong, deep thinkers, etc. Really admirable, it was way past time for great women leads in scifi. On the negative side, virtually every male character is a real jerk. Cowardly, vicious, feckless, self-serving, manipulative, weak, shallow, etc. It went beyond belief.
April 21, 2021
Good, but definitely not McDevitt's best.
June 23, 2015
This is the second book in The Academy series and I loved it. Hutch, the space ship pilot from the first novel, is back, a number of years later, still piloting ships around for the Academy.
A back plot. An earth-like planet is found and a group of scientists found to explore it, but they're nearly all killed by bird-like creatures. One scientist named Nightingale remained alive. Fast forward twenty years. In the same system, this same earth-like planet is about to collide with a huge planet floating through space destroying everything in its path and the smaller planet is going to explode. Naturally, the Academy had sent a team of scientists up to view this once in a lifetime phenomena and then the unthinkable occurs -- evidence of civilization turns up. A tower is found buried in ice. A scan is completed and entire cities are found buried beneath the ice. It's important to find out what civilizations lived there, what happened to them, what they were like, etc., before the planet explodes. Unfortunately, the scientific ship doesn't have a lander, so there's no way they can make it to the planet's surface. However, Hutch is in a ship nearby with a few other people, including Nightingale, and they're ordered to the planet's surface to explore and gather as much evidence as possible in their lander. So they do. In the meantime, another ship has appeared, carrying gawkers, including one insufferable Gregory MacAllister, a writer, editor, and all around snob, who agrees to a young writer's request to go to the surface to conduct an interview. So they join Hutch, who is none to happy to have them.
Hutch finds some really good stuff. But the big planet is approaching and wreaking havoc with the weather. There's an earthquake, and MacAllister's lander falls down a new crack in the ice, wrecking. He and the female reporter take off in Hutch's, only to crash land a short distance later. She dies, as does one of Hutch's crew. That's two landers. They need another one to get off the planet. An emergency signal is sent out and yet another ship is contacted by the Academy with instructions to go to their aid with their lander. However, they are sabotaged by a bigwig on board, who releases the lander so they won't have to go, and so he can go to his precious dig on another planet which is oh so much more important than people's lives.
What the hell are they going to do? Nightingale suggests their only chance may be to hike the 200 kilometers across difficult terrain with alien animals that want to eat them to find the old lander his old crew abandoned with the hope that it would still work. So they go off. And are attacked. And lose another crew member. And during this journey, MacAllister learns to become human, which is refreshing. And Hutch displays her exceptional leadership qualities. Meanwhile, the ship's captains are meeting with scientists to see if anything else can be done. Seems like there's one more long shot and it's got to work, because the old lander won't have enough power to get out of orbit. An alien object has appeared. It's many kilometers long and has a net at the end of it with an asteroid caught in it. They decide to cut it up and weld it into a scoop, so Hutch can literally fly into it and be scooped up in this object. So volunteers from the ships learn to weld and go out into outer space and do the job, all the while with time running down. The two worlds are about to collide.
Hutch and one of the girls make it to the lander and it still works, so they take off. They need some technical stuff left back at the tower scavenged from their old landers, so they take off for it. However, Marcel, their ship commander informs them that the tower is about to be completely submerged in water due to the planet's ongoing issues. They make it back and sure enough, it's submerged and they're screwed, so they head back to recover MacAllister and Nightingale. Then they head for a high area. They're told of the scoop plan and they hope, oh, they hope. But it seems to unlikely. They'll have seconds to do it before the scoop leaves the rendezvous area. To top matters off, the Academy has found another area on top of a mountain that they want explored -- with the worlds about to collide -- while waiting for the scoop to be completed, so the lander heads off to the mountain and they encounter a flat surface on top of the mountain and evidence of civilization. It appears that two life forms were on the planet -- hawks and crickets. It appears that the hawks appeared out of nowhere to save the crickets with their own scoop thousands of years ago. What happened to them? No one will ever know. Some stuff happens. The action is breath taking. Finally it's time, so they head off to meet the scoop. Only to have the net on the scoop tear when a meteor field rips through it. Man, will nothing work? Are they saved? I'm not going to say because I don't want to give away the ending. I want you to read it for yourself. But I thought this book packed a lot more action into it than its predecessor and I was glad for that because I got occasionally bored with the first one. I saw character development here, character depth, science at work, alien culture, space ships -- hey, it's good sci fi! I've already got all of the other books in the series and I'm already looking forward to reading the third one. Definitely recommended.
A back plot. An earth-like planet is found and a group of scientists found to explore it, but they're nearly all killed by bird-like creatures. One scientist named Nightingale remained alive. Fast forward twenty years. In the same system, this same earth-like planet is about to collide with a huge planet floating through space destroying everything in its path and the smaller planet is going to explode. Naturally, the Academy had sent a team of scientists up to view this once in a lifetime phenomena and then the unthinkable occurs -- evidence of civilization turns up. A tower is found buried in ice. A scan is completed and entire cities are found buried beneath the ice. It's important to find out what civilizations lived there, what happened to them, what they were like, etc., before the planet explodes. Unfortunately, the scientific ship doesn't have a lander, so there's no way they can make it to the planet's surface. However, Hutch is in a ship nearby with a few other people, including Nightingale, and they're ordered to the planet's surface to explore and gather as much evidence as possible in their lander. So they do. In the meantime, another ship has appeared, carrying gawkers, including one insufferable Gregory MacAllister, a writer, editor, and all around snob, who agrees to a young writer's request to go to the surface to conduct an interview. So they join Hutch, who is none to happy to have them.
Hutch finds some really good stuff. But the big planet is approaching and wreaking havoc with the weather. There's an earthquake, and MacAllister's lander falls down a new crack in the ice, wrecking. He and the female reporter take off in Hutch's, only to crash land a short distance later. She dies, as does one of Hutch's crew. That's two landers. They need another one to get off the planet. An emergency signal is sent out and yet another ship is contacted by the Academy with instructions to go to their aid with their lander. However, they are sabotaged by a bigwig on board, who releases the lander so they won't have to go, and so he can go to his precious dig on another planet which is oh so much more important than people's lives.
What the hell are they going to do? Nightingale suggests their only chance may be to hike the 200 kilometers across difficult terrain with alien animals that want to eat them to find the old lander his old crew abandoned with the hope that it would still work. So they go off. And are attacked. And lose another crew member. And during this journey, MacAllister learns to become human, which is refreshing. And Hutch displays her exceptional leadership qualities. Meanwhile, the ship's captains are meeting with scientists to see if anything else can be done. Seems like there's one more long shot and it's got to work, because the old lander won't have enough power to get out of orbit. An alien object has appeared. It's many kilometers long and has a net at the end of it with an asteroid caught in it. They decide to cut it up and weld it into a scoop, so Hutch can literally fly into it and be scooped up in this object. So volunteers from the ships learn to weld and go out into outer space and do the job, all the while with time running down. The two worlds are about to collide.
Hutch and one of the girls make it to the lander and it still works, so they take off. They need some technical stuff left back at the tower scavenged from their old landers, so they take off for it. However, Marcel, their ship commander informs them that the tower is about to be completely submerged in water due to the planet's ongoing issues. They make it back and sure enough, it's submerged and they're screwed, so they head back to recover MacAllister and Nightingale. Then they head for a high area. They're told of the scoop plan and they hope, oh, they hope. But it seems to unlikely. They'll have seconds to do it before the scoop leaves the rendezvous area. To top matters off, the Academy has found another area on top of a mountain that they want explored -- with the worlds about to collide -- while waiting for the scoop to be completed, so the lander heads off to the mountain and they encounter a flat surface on top of the mountain and evidence of civilization. It appears that two life forms were on the planet -- hawks and crickets. It appears that the hawks appeared out of nowhere to save the crickets with their own scoop thousands of years ago. What happened to them? No one will ever know. Some stuff happens. The action is breath taking. Finally it's time, so they head off to meet the scoop. Only to have the net on the scoop tear when a meteor field rips through it. Man, will nothing work? Are they saved? I'm not going to say because I don't want to give away the ending. I want you to read it for yourself. But I thought this book packed a lot more action into it than its predecessor and I was glad for that because I got occasionally bored with the first one. I saw character development here, character depth, science at work, alien culture, space ships -- hey, it's good sci fi! I've already got all of the other books in the series and I'm already looking forward to reading the third one. Definitely recommended.
August 14, 2013
"Hutch", pilot Priscilla Hutchins, leads a team to explore just-discovered evidence of civilization, twelve days before planet Deepsix breaks apart, armed with laser cutters only "a notch or two more efficient" p66 than the first fatal expedition. Randall Nightingale is silent "small in stature, thin, gray, only a couple of centimeters taller than the dimunitive Hutch" p37, reclusive and bitter after taking blame for deadly cardinals on visit 19 years before, some from Gregory MacAllister. The famous cynical journalist convinces cowardly convention-bound Captain Erik Nicholson to allow him down. His quotes precede every chapter. Kellie Collier, "head taller than Hutch" p66 is first mate to gentlemanly Captain Marcel Clairveau. Their ship Wendy Jay carries the Morgan Project, 45 prominent scientific researchers led by Gunther Beekman "small, bearded, overweight" p14. They restore an alien skyhook to rescue survivors.
"Red shirt" disposable characters are sketched briefly, bravely, kindly, so we care about who we lose. We get final warnings "last thought" x 2 p 134, p 265 . Survival "e-suits" keep them warm, dry, and oxygenated, rations keep them fed. Earthquakes take their landers and 3 lives. Wildlife takes another life. Flood takes equipment . Lightning storm zaps elevator shaft where Hutch dangles overnight. Meteor storm takes casualties .
During natural disasters, Hutch's team finds evidence that tall "hawk"-like aliens rescued child-size "crickets", and six different languages in direction signs. Team waste time holding burial ceremonies for fellows soon to be consumed with planet. Artifacts and photos are detailed - and left behind. Huge miniature city and more are saved by "relaying the visuals to Wendy" p 277. Only Nightingale and Mac remember some lost Deepsixer across a lake could count light flashes p289.
Unwanted media attention was part of much I skipped. Gunther urges Marcel to abandon the team p360, "Never let go" motto when Nightingale grips Hutch's tether implies they get together romantically, but epilogue does not say so. "Now that she faced possible termination, her life seemed curiously incomplete" p317. One long goodbye. I thought "space opera" meant over-detailed universe-building, by definition more emotions than things. Maybe this book is more meaningful when read within the series?
"Red shirt" disposable characters are sketched briefly, bravely, kindly, so we care about who we lose. We get final warnings "last thought" x 2 p 134, p 265 . Survival "e-suits" keep them warm, dry, and oxygenated, rations keep them fed. Earthquakes take their landers and 3 lives. Wildlife takes another life. Flood takes equipment . Lightning storm zaps elevator shaft where Hutch dangles overnight. Meteor storm takes casualties .
During natural disasters, Hutch's team finds evidence that tall "hawk"-like aliens rescued child-size "crickets", and six different languages in direction signs. Team waste time holding burial ceremonies for fellows soon to be consumed with planet. Artifacts and photos are detailed - and left behind. Huge miniature city and more are saved by "relaying the visuals to Wendy" p 277. Only Nightingale and Mac remember some lost Deepsixer across a lake could count light flashes p289.
Unwanted media attention was part of much I skipped. Gunther urges Marcel to abandon the team p360, "Never let go" motto when Nightingale grips Hutch's tether implies they get together romantically, but epilogue does not say so. "Now that she faced possible termination, her life seemed curiously incomplete" p317. One long goodbye. I thought "space opera" meant over-detailed universe-building, by definition more emotions than things. Maybe this book is more meaningful when read within the series?
December 18, 2023
Another enjoyable adventure set in space and on a planet that is about to be destroyed. More archaeology like in Book 1, as Hutch and a motley group explores the lost civilisation on the dying planet. The rescue is far-fetched, but you just go with it and it's part of the enjoyment of this book. Another excellent addition to this series.
February 22, 2020
Deepsix by Jack McDevitt
It’s been a few years since I read the first book in the Academy series (The Engines of God), but I’m on holiday and wanted to reacquaint myself with the setting, and see how things have moved in the sequel.
Firstly, and without spoilers, this book seems relatively self-contained. It mentions what happened in the first book but it has been years since the events of that novel. Instead we get another xeno-archeology mission with a memorable lot of suspense. The main character (Priscillia Hutchinson) is still the protagonist and it’s similar in many ways to the first novel but I found a major improvement was the bonding of the main characters.
‘Hutch’ and others become stranded on a planet (‘Deepsix’) that is soon to be ripped apart by a passing exo-planet/gas giant. As they search for a way to get off planet, the tension of their mission of survival unearths who they really are and you can see them warming to each other from their initially cold reception when they are all brought together. In particular, the character MacAllister I really resented and actually wondered why such a terrible person was a central member of the cast but over time the strain of trying to escape and look out for each other brought out that character’s better qualities. It was a fun read and the tension kept me going.
I also really enjoyed the rescue relief effort and the spirit of people pitching in to save the lives of those stranded on Deepsix. It’s touching. The epilogue is fitting and wraps things up well enough that I imagine the new characters introduced may not show up much in future novels. But I am eager to find out and return to the overarching mysteries introduced in book 1.
I think I enjoyed this book more than I would have if I had read it closer in time to the first in the series (as there are definite heavy similarities). But I still really enjoyed the story and characters.
4/5 stars
It’s been a few years since I read the first book in the Academy series (The Engines of God), but I’m on holiday and wanted to reacquaint myself with the setting, and see how things have moved in the sequel.
Firstly, and without spoilers, this book seems relatively self-contained. It mentions what happened in the first book but it has been years since the events of that novel. Instead we get another xeno-archeology mission with a memorable lot of suspense. The main character (Priscillia Hutchinson) is still the protagonist and it’s similar in many ways to the first novel but I found a major improvement was the bonding of the main characters.
‘Hutch’ and others become stranded on a planet (‘Deepsix’) that is soon to be ripped apart by a passing exo-planet/gas giant. As they search for a way to get off planet, the tension of their mission of survival unearths who they really are and you can see them warming to each other from their initially cold reception when they are all brought together. In particular, the character MacAllister I really resented and actually wondered why such a terrible person was a central member of the cast but over time the strain of trying to escape and look out for each other brought out that character’s better qualities. It was a fun read and the tension kept me going.
I also really enjoyed the rescue relief effort and the spirit of people pitching in to save the lives of those stranded on Deepsix. It’s touching. The epilogue is fitting and wraps things up well enough that I imagine the new characters introduced may not show up much in future novels. But I am eager to find out and return to the overarching mysteries introduced in book 1.
I think I enjoyed this book more than I would have if I had read it closer in time to the first in the series (as there are definite heavy similarities). But I still really enjoyed the story and characters.
4/5 stars
November 22, 2013
Deepsix by Jack McDevitt is the second novel in McDevitt’s academy series (or Priscilla Hutchens series, whichever you choose to name it). Maleiva III is a planet that is headed for a catastrophic collision with a huge gas giant named Morgan's World. Within weeks before the collision will occur, Priscilla Hutchens (Hutch) is recruited by the Academy of Science and Technology to lead a team to explore, record, photograph, and even collect artifacts of former civilizations (especially from advanced technological civilizations). An attempt to explore the planet about twenty years earlier had ended in disaster when several team members were killed by vicious indigenous creatures. Hutch and her hastily- assembled team are well aware of the danger, but there isn’t time to bring in a well prepared team of experts, a well-armed protective force, or the equipment that would ordinarily be used, before the planet and everything on it will be swallowed by the gas giant. Hutch and her motley team, including a wealthy writer, a reporter, and others discover some ruins that suggest a nontechnical and unscientific society once inhabited the planet. However, they also encounter a very malicious environment, which is exacerbated by the effects of the approaching gas giant, and distinctly unfriendly wildlife. Both the members of the group and their equipment suffer casualties and survival quickly becomes a constant desperate struggle to get off the planet before it is exploded by the approaching giant. As is usual, McDevitt includes a large number of very diverse and interesting characters in this novel. His characters on the planet endure a punishing struggle, hopeless fear, and the numbing loss of their team members. In addition, a large group of mostly untrained volunteers guided by a few knowledgeable and skilled leaders takes desperate actions in an attempt to rescue Hutch and her group. However, it is difficult and dangerous to attempt to control chaos. McDevitt also provides very interesting doses of future scientific accomplishments to satisfy the reader’s desire for science in their fiction. This is a very rich and enjoyable science fiction novel and I recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and/or adventure/suspense novels.
August 24, 2012
This is a terrific big-concept sf adventure, the second in the Priscilla Hutchins series, in which Hutch and some of her associates are stranded on a planet that's going to fall into a wandering star real, real soon... The clock is ticking, the only spaceships anywhere nearby don't have any rescue craft, but something's got to be done right now. It's a very exciting read, with ingenious solutions to fascinating hard-science problems. There's a large cast of supporting characters that are occasionally difficult to keep straight, and I found myself wishing for one of those Dramatis Personae cast lists that such adventures sometimes feature. I think it would make a great film!
January 26, 2021
The Academy books take scifi a direction I never thought I would enjoy, focused on exploration, science, and politics. From discovering new worlds to rescue missions, discovering primitive alien races, ancient worlds with hyper-evolved predators, to alien artifacts and strange stellar events, the stories manage to stay pretty fresh and varied with a semi-consistent cast between books thanks to increased life-spans.
While I lean more towards war and conflict-focused scifi (or any fiction, really), these are the books I'd point anyone towards looking for non-violent scifi that still hits most of the scifi musts.
While I lean more towards war and conflict-focused scifi (or any fiction, really), these are the books I'd point anyone towards looking for non-violent scifi that still hits most of the scifi musts.
April 18, 2018
A great story about the results of an ad hoc mission to explore a doomed planet and the results when your resources are slowly lost and you are under attack. An innovative solution arises and then the countdown begins to see if they can be saved.
February 14, 2019
Wow, I enjoyed this so much. A lot of action laying out in a mostly realistic manner.
May 1, 2015
This is the second Priscilla Hutchins novel, also known as Academy series #2, for the Academy of Science & Technology, which employs Hutchins as a super-luminal (i.e. faster-than-light) starship pilot and part-time explorer. Despite living in an era of highly advanced technology in the fields of anti-gravity, personal force-fields, and medical longevity treatments, it still takes weeks or even months in hyperspace to travel between star systems, and complications are inevitably encountered when exploring new worlds to look for evidence of alien civilizations.
In fact there is only one other known “living” alien civilization, the Nok, who are stuck in a warlike era comparable to humanity’s 19th-20th centuries. However there is ample evidence of numerous other alien civilizations – all of them long vanished: one race has even left literally monumental relics on numerous worlds, others have apparently been exterminated by the mysterious “Omega” clouds which emerge from the central region of the galaxy at semi-regular intervals and target planetary constructions characteristic of civilization, as in straight walls or geometric shapes.
An abortive exploration of the planet Malieva III, nicknamed Deepsix, was terminated by the loss of six crewmembers to alien fauna, and nearly fifteen years later ships have gathered to observe and record a unique event, the collision of two planets: a Jovian supergiant called Morgan with a rogue orbit is on its way to a ‘head-on’ collision with Deepsix. With bare weeks to spare, the observers discover evidence of a primitive civilization on Deepsix, and the only Academy vessel within reach, piloted by Priscilla Hutchins, is directed to divert to Deepsix to record and preserve as much of the alien culture as possible in the limited time remaining before the utter destruction of Malieva III.
Through a calamitous series of events and unfortunate coincidences, the only two surface-landers at the Malieva system are destroyed, and the landing team members are faced with the dilemma of surviving on the rapidly deteriorating surface of Deepsix, with steadily increasing tidal surges, seismic activity, and raging atmospheric storms, as well as orbiting meteor showers preceding the onrushing supergiant Morgan. Meanwhile, an enormous alien artifact has been discovered in orbit above Deepsix, a 700-km long shaft and counterweight for a former ‘Skyhook’ elevator assembly, long abandoned, but clear evidence of an advanced civilization which had apparently used it to evacuate at least some of the primitive aliens from the surface of Deepsix, before abandoning the planet to a several-millennia-long age of glaciation.
When the possibility of rescuing the stranded exploration team via shuttle lander is eliminated, the team of observers come up with a bold plan: to salvage a portion of the alien skyhook and use it to dip deep into Deepsix’s atmosphere and literally scoop up the team flying a suborbital lander which had been abandoned during the original aborted survey of Malieva III.
There are a more outright coincidences than most other McDevitt novels, and the rescue becomes far more time-critical than makes for a wholly satisfying story. However the description of Malieva III's destruction at the conclusion is appropriately awesome!
Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert
I would like to see a story in which humanity at some later date encounters the starfaring ‘Hawks’ who built the Skyhook or the primitive ‘Crickets’ who were rescued by the Hawks, or both.
In fact there is only one other known “living” alien civilization, the Nok, who are stuck in a warlike era comparable to humanity’s 19th-20th centuries. However there is ample evidence of numerous other alien civilizations – all of them long vanished: one race has even left literally monumental relics on numerous worlds, others have apparently been exterminated by the mysterious “Omega” clouds which emerge from the central region of the galaxy at semi-regular intervals and target planetary constructions characteristic of civilization, as in straight walls or geometric shapes.
An abortive exploration of the planet Malieva III, nicknamed Deepsix, was terminated by the loss of six crewmembers to alien fauna, and nearly fifteen years later ships have gathered to observe and record a unique event, the collision of two planets: a Jovian supergiant called Morgan with a rogue orbit is on its way to a ‘head-on’ collision with Deepsix. With bare weeks to spare, the observers discover evidence of a primitive civilization on Deepsix, and the only Academy vessel within reach, piloted by Priscilla Hutchins, is directed to divert to Deepsix to record and preserve as much of the alien culture as possible in the limited time remaining before the utter destruction of Malieva III.
Through a calamitous series of events and unfortunate coincidences, the only two surface-landers at the Malieva system are destroyed, and the landing team members are faced with the dilemma of surviving on the rapidly deteriorating surface of Deepsix, with steadily increasing tidal surges, seismic activity, and raging atmospheric storms, as well as orbiting meteor showers preceding the onrushing supergiant Morgan. Meanwhile, an enormous alien artifact has been discovered in orbit above Deepsix, a 700-km long shaft and counterweight for a former ‘Skyhook’ elevator assembly, long abandoned, but clear evidence of an advanced civilization which had apparently used it to evacuate at least some of the primitive aliens from the surface of Deepsix, before abandoning the planet to a several-millennia-long age of glaciation.
When the possibility of rescuing the stranded exploration team via shuttle lander is eliminated, the team of observers come up with a bold plan: to salvage a portion of the alien skyhook and use it to dip deep into Deepsix’s atmosphere and literally scoop up the team flying a suborbital lander which had been abandoned during the original aborted survey of Malieva III.
There are a more outright coincidences than most other McDevitt novels, and the rescue becomes far more time-critical than makes for a wholly satisfying story. However the description of Malieva III's destruction at the conclusion is appropriately awesome!
Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert
I would like to see a story in which humanity at some later date encounters the starfaring ‘Hawks’ who built the Skyhook or the primitive ‘Crickets’ who were rescued by the Hawks, or both.
February 21, 2019
I am catching up on this series, and I like it. Interstellar adventure with mysterious extinct civilizations. Instead of evil villains, there are several misguided humans who cause major problems. The plot was maybe too similar to the first book, and I'm hoping the next ones aren't the same: a race to save people and/or artifacts on a planet before destruction. The main character, Hutch, is getting older and is a good protagonist. She's pretty low key, and characters with bigger personalities tend to take center stage, which is fine.
I had some problems with the book. As with the previous book (and as far as I know, all McDevitt's work and that of many others), the division between the genders (only two, but I can live with that) is too much. Men and women can do the same work (women are well represented in all jobs), but they think differently and feel separate from each other. Women are introduced by their looks and by how attractive they are to men. Two examples: "Kellie was attractive, tall with dark bedroom eyes, sleek black skin, and soft shoulder-length hair. Marcel knew that she found no difficulty having her way with men, and that she tried not to use her charms on him. Bad form, she'd told him once." Really??? And "Shira was not a classic beauty. Her ears were too big, her nose a little long....But she was nevertheless attractive in a way he couldn't formulate." Men, on the other hand, are defined by where they are on the social scale: alpha, or cringing lone wolf, or trying-to-please-his-betters beta. People's worth is determined by what they've done with their lives; ordinary people (like the "fat tourists" mentioned at one point) don't have much value. To me, all this already seems a throwback to an earlier day, though I know there are still parts of our culture where it's true. I'd like to think that people would be more egalitarian by the the time this book is set in.
One of the main characters is Gerald MacAllister, a writer/editor famous for his put-downs of everything and everybody, and very much an alpha. Quotes from his books introduce each chapter. He is sexist, elitist, and manipulative (most of the big problem is his fault, for manipulating a spaceship captain who is less alpha into letting him use the only lander for a jaunt to the planet). Unfortunately, he seems to me to be a more extreme version of the attitudes of the author (see previous paragraph).
Even so, I enjoyed the book and will continue with the series.
I had some problems with the book. As with the previous book (and as far as I know, all McDevitt's work and that of many others), the division between the genders (only two, but I can live with that) is too much. Men and women can do the same work (women are well represented in all jobs), but they think differently and feel separate from each other. Women are introduced by their looks and by how attractive they are to men. Two examples: "Kellie was attractive, tall with dark bedroom eyes, sleek black skin, and soft shoulder-length hair. Marcel knew that she found no difficulty having her way with men, and that she tried not to use her charms on him. Bad form, she'd told him once." Really??? And "Shira was not a classic beauty. Her ears were too big, her nose a little long....But she was nevertheless attractive in a way he couldn't formulate." Men, on the other hand, are defined by where they are on the social scale: alpha, or cringing lone wolf, or trying-to-please-his-betters beta. People's worth is determined by what they've done with their lives; ordinary people (like the "fat tourists" mentioned at one point) don't have much value. To me, all this already seems a throwback to an earlier day, though I know there are still parts of our culture where it's true. I'd like to think that people would be more egalitarian by the the time this book is set in.
One of the main characters is Gerald MacAllister, a writer/editor famous for his put-downs of everything and everybody, and very much an alpha. Quotes from his books introduce each chapter. He is sexist, elitist, and manipulative (most of the big problem is his fault, for manipulating a spaceship captain who is less alpha into letting him use the only lander for a jaunt to the planet). Unfortunately, he seems to me to be a more extreme version of the attitudes of the author (see previous paragraph).
Even so, I enjoyed the book and will continue with the series.
November 23, 2021
A nice story, somewhere between soft and hard SF. The main "antagonistic force" here is an impersonal, natural catastrophe which generally isn't something I enjoy, but the plot (especially the second part) is quite tense, the fragments referring to xenoarcheology are really interesting and some of the characters are nicely written. Really enjoyable.
March 7, 2013
I’ve read several of the “Hutchins” series of novels by Jack McDevitt. What strikes me about them has to do with a strong female lead, “Hutch”, her adventures as a pilot for the Academy as they explore the ruins of what was once a thriving civilization across the galaxy but faded out when humans arrived.
“Are we next” is kinda the question the books imply in this series.
In “Deepsix”, Nightingale (“Randy”) leads a exploratory colony to the planet Deepsix. The life on this planet is deadly and soon makes short work of the people there. In typical overreacting, the place is shut down and quarantined for twenty years. Randy is despondent and blames himself for the disaster, and so does everyone else!
Several of the characters I really liked, such as “McAllister.” If you want to see a Rush Limbaugh knock-off, it’s McAllister. Opinionated and abrupt, writes for galactic news (I guess some things will never change in our future).
The other is Priscilla Hutchins, who is ordered to Deepsix to do some reconnaissance before the planet is met with a gas giant, the planet Morgan. She is strong, regrets not meeting her mom’s goals and realizes she should make a few of her own. Some minor flashback from earlier books is briefly mentioned.
The book shifts drastically from archeology to planetary destruction, what despair and desperation will do to one, and how greed and power trump life any day. Quite a story.
Hutch finds herself stranded on the planet, with only a few people, as an earthquake destroys one lander and an inept “pilot”, newswoman, destroys another and gets herself killed in the process. The rest of the book deals with the deadline, some not wanting them rescued, and the deux ex machina of an alien device that just might help them get off the rock before it is wiped out.
Bottom Line: I did not care for some characters, several needed fleshing out. The captain that allowed passengers to go to the surface just before the disaster, several and sundry crewmen and women, and a few die that I did not care for. The book builds suspense well and the pacing is decent.
Kindle Edition: The Kindle edition has several spelling errors that are really distracting. Clearly the scan did not go well from text to electronic font. Clean it up!
Recommended.
“Are we next” is kinda the question the books imply in this series.
In “Deepsix”, Nightingale (“Randy”) leads a exploratory colony to the planet Deepsix. The life on this planet is deadly and soon makes short work of the people there. In typical overreacting, the place is shut down and quarantined for twenty years. Randy is despondent and blames himself for the disaster, and so does everyone else!
Several of the characters I really liked, such as “McAllister.” If you want to see a Rush Limbaugh knock-off, it’s McAllister. Opinionated and abrupt, writes for galactic news (I guess some things will never change in our future).
The other is Priscilla Hutchins, who is ordered to Deepsix to do some reconnaissance before the planet is met with a gas giant, the planet Morgan. She is strong, regrets not meeting her mom’s goals and realizes she should make a few of her own. Some minor flashback from earlier books is briefly mentioned.
The book shifts drastically from archeology to planetary destruction, what despair and desperation will do to one, and how greed and power trump life any day. Quite a story.
Hutch finds herself stranded on the planet, with only a few people, as an earthquake destroys one lander and an inept “pilot”, newswoman, destroys another and gets herself killed in the process. The rest of the book deals with the deadline, some not wanting them rescued, and the deux ex machina of an alien device that just might help them get off the rock before it is wiped out.
Bottom Line: I did not care for some characters, several needed fleshing out. The captain that allowed passengers to go to the surface just before the disaster, several and sundry crewmen and women, and a few die that I did not care for. The book builds suspense well and the pacing is decent.
Kindle Edition: The Kindle edition has several spelling errors that are really distracting. Clearly the scan did not go well from text to electronic font. Clean it up!
Recommended.
November 22, 2014
I liked this book a little less than Engines of God. For the most part, I enjoyed the characters that were on the ground--though they were the only ones I could keep in my head (and only the core ones of that). Hutch remains really awesome, but I also liked McAllister--in terms of characterization and growth... and Nightingale was interesting but I don't think in the end he was handled well. Basically I don't like how his cowardice was ultimately presented. I mean...he fainted because of pain. So it makes him a coward? But you can't help what your body decides to do or how much fear you have.
Story wise it was interesting. I guessed to solution early on and because I knew the solution, I could sort of guess the problems they were going to undertake. That wasn't a bad thing and it did manage to surprise me in the end.
The parts that annoyed me was that, once again, it seemed, everything on the damned planet was trying to kill them. Or near enough. (and the birds never really did play that much significance) And they find natives? The crickets in the furs? Also trying to kill them? Why though? For a book cemented in archaeology there was no exploration of living people. Like why did the crickets come and try to kill them? Why did they have to?
Also, I keep reading this throughout the books-- but why do they keep saying that there is no intelligent alien life when the Nok are right there? Is it because they are pre-industrial and keep having wars? I mean it's human history practically but they certainly have culture. Language. Even war itself you have to be intelligent to do it so... /shrug/
On the whole, the little things that irked me in the last book, irked me a little more in this book and I'll read on because his writing is good and the pacing is great, but I sort of hope that, if I can't stop being irked, at least to keep it at the same level.
Story wise it was interesting. I guessed to solution early on and because I knew the solution, I could sort of guess the problems they were going to undertake. That wasn't a bad thing and it did manage to surprise me in the end.
The parts that annoyed me was that, once again, it seemed, everything on the damned planet was trying to kill them. Or near enough. (and the birds never really did play that much significance) And they find natives? The crickets in the furs? Also trying to kill them? Why though? For a book cemented in archaeology there was no exploration of living people. Like why did the crickets come and try to kill them? Why did they have to?
Also, I keep reading this throughout the books-- but why do they keep saying that there is no intelligent alien life when the Nok are right there? Is it because they are pre-industrial and keep having wars? I mean it's human history practically but they certainly have culture. Language. Even war itself you have to be intelligent to do it so... /shrug/
On the whole, the little things that irked me in the last book, irked me a little more in this book and I'll read on because his writing is good and the pacing is great, but I sort of hope that, if I can't stop being irked, at least to keep it at the same level.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2017
Secondo capitolo della saga dell'accademia. Di cui solo il primo e il sesto sono stati tradotti in italiano (Urania). E quindi L'HO LETTO IN INGLESE.
Sono incappato in McDevitt per caso. Nella bellissima biblioteca di Malcesine, nel mucchio dei libri in regalo, ci ho trovato il volume più recente pubblicato da Urania. Il sesto capitolo. Così ho iniziato dal sei. Purtroppo visto che mi sono praticamente spoilerato un po' di cosette.
Poi mi son letto l'uno, sempre Urania, e finalmente sono approdato al due, in lingua. L'approccio non è stato facile. Ci sono un miliardo di parole più o meno desuete o specialistiche. Ma gliel'abbiamo fatta.
Qua e là mi sono un po' perso. Il nostro pecca, come spesso accade nella SF di spiegazionismo, ma comunque è abbastanza funzionale nel dipingere un prossimo futuro di viaggi spaziali in cui però la questione medio orientale è ancora calda.
Era un bel po' che non leggevo qualcosa di SF, e per la prima volta è un contemporaneo. Una graditissima sorpresa. Anzi mi domando perché non vi siano film e serie tv tratte (o ci sono e lo ignoro).
Venendo a noi, Deepsix finora è il mio capitolo preferito.
Se volete una fantascienza hardcore, seria, con: astronavi, pianeti, esplosioni, animali alieni, civiltà perdute, archeologia spaziale, misteri, iperspazio... Non cercate oltre, abbandonate a cuor leggero la paccosa SF per signora che spopola nei cinema oggi (dove non c'è più nulla di scientifico) ed è tutta una metafora del presente.
All'Accademia troverete razionale, spaziale, futuribile, coinvolgente avventura. Soprattutto PLAUSIBILE (ammettendo il concetto relativista secondo cui possiamo piegare lo spazio e navigare attraverso le distanze siderali).
Menzione d'onore per la protagonista della saga, Hutch, Priscilla Hutchinson: i personaggi femminili dominano l'azione, tirano avanti la carretta come e meglio dei colleghi. Ma non c'è traccia di pseudo-femminismo piacione e ipocrita.
Sono incappato in McDevitt per caso. Nella bellissima biblioteca di Malcesine, nel mucchio dei libri in regalo, ci ho trovato il volume più recente pubblicato da Urania. Il sesto capitolo. Così ho iniziato dal sei. Purtroppo visto che mi sono praticamente spoilerato un po' di cosette.
Poi mi son letto l'uno, sempre Urania, e finalmente sono approdato al due, in lingua. L'approccio non è stato facile. Ci sono un miliardo di parole più o meno desuete o specialistiche. Ma gliel'abbiamo fatta.
Qua e là mi sono un po' perso. Il nostro pecca, come spesso accade nella SF di spiegazionismo, ma comunque è abbastanza funzionale nel dipingere un prossimo futuro di viaggi spaziali in cui però la questione medio orientale è ancora calda.
Era un bel po' che non leggevo qualcosa di SF, e per la prima volta è un contemporaneo. Una graditissima sorpresa. Anzi mi domando perché non vi siano film e serie tv tratte (o ci sono e lo ignoro).
Venendo a noi, Deepsix finora è il mio capitolo preferito.
Se volete una fantascienza hardcore, seria, con: astronavi, pianeti, esplosioni, animali alieni, civiltà perdute, archeologia spaziale, misteri, iperspazio... Non cercate oltre, abbandonate a cuor leggero la paccosa SF per signora che spopola nei cinema oggi (dove non c'è più nulla di scientifico) ed è tutta una metafora del presente.
All'Accademia troverete razionale, spaziale, futuribile, coinvolgente avventura. Soprattutto PLAUSIBILE (ammettendo il concetto relativista secondo cui possiamo piegare lo spazio e navigare attraverso le distanze siderali).
Menzione d'onore per la protagonista della saga, Hutch, Priscilla Hutchinson: i personaggi femminili dominano l'azione, tirano avanti la carretta come e meglio dei colleghi. Ma non c'è traccia di pseudo-femminismo piacione e ipocrita.
June 14, 2012
I remember reading this for the first time and being unable to put it down, it was that action-packed and terrifying. Jack McDevitt does for space-age SF what Michael Crichton did for the earthbound kind: science as the background for what's essentially a thriller. A team goes down to the surface of a planet that's days away from being torn apart and absorbed by a Jupiter-sized rogue world, because naturally this planet turns out to have been inhabited by an alien race, only no one noticed twenty years ago when it was first surveyed, and then naturally they get stranded. This is not an unfamiliar setup, but then it's not supposed to be; thrillers work because they are built from the same set of plot elements that are guaranteed to make you stay up all night, in between going outside to make sure there's not a gas giant looming over the horizon. There are some inconsistencies, especially with Gregory McAllister's character, who is an abrasive and confrontational misogynist, except when he isn't. One minute he's thinking condescending thoughts about Hutch, the (female) team leader, and the next he's deferring to her expertise. His books are well-respected, but he destroyed the career of one of the team members by accusing him of negligence and cowardice, despite having no actual knowledge about the supposed event. By the end of the book, he's become humbler and less of a jerk, but that change comes about primarily by authorial fiat. As annoying as all this is, it's the plot that matters most, so I'm satisfied to accept the end result and see it carried forward into the rest of the series.
December 24, 2015
If you read The Engines of God by McDevitt, this basically takes off right after that story, which is ironic, because I believe he wrote this story first. In any case, a rogue planet is scheduled to collide with another one called Maleiva III (also known as Deepsix) in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, a local spaceship that doesn't have a landing craft reports seeing ruins of buildings on the planet below. The Academy of Science and Technology decides to send Hutch, the hero of The Engines of God to go down to the planet and take pictures and salvage whatever artifacts they can and then get out before the disaster happens. Of course, the media hears about it, and a reporter and a famous author decide to go down to the planet's surface for an interview as well. An earthquake happens and both parties get stranded.
That's the problem. The rest of the story is coming up with a solution to rescue as many of the survivors as possible as the monstrous rogue planet comes closer and closer to destruction.
McDevitt has the characters come up with a logical solution, then when that doesn't work, try something else, and in the end they rely on luck, ingenuity and courage they didn't know they had to survive. Some of the science may bog the reader down a bit, and I found myself skimming the technicalities at a point or two. But at its heart, this is a died-in-the-wool adventure story that will appeal to pretty much everybody.
That's the problem. The rest of the story is coming up with a solution to rescue as many of the survivors as possible as the monstrous rogue planet comes closer and closer to destruction.
McDevitt has the characters come up with a logical solution, then when that doesn't work, try something else, and in the end they rely on luck, ingenuity and courage they didn't know they had to survive. Some of the science may bog the reader down a bit, and I found myself skimming the technicalities at a point or two. But at its heart, this is a died-in-the-wool adventure story that will appeal to pretty much everybody.
July 24, 2025
2223. La planète Deepsix est menacée de destruction totale par une collision cosmique. Du coup, l'intérêt pour ce monde oublié et maudit, parce qu'une mission d'exploration y a été décimée vingt ans plus tôt, se réveille. Sans compter qu'en plus sur deux semaines avant le cataclysme, on découvre des ruines de vie civilisée sur la planète. Une expédition archéologique est montée en urgence pour essayer de sauver le maximum d'informations et vestiges avant que tout disparaisse. Mais quand l'expédition se retrouve coincée en surface, à une poignée de jour de l'apocalypse, une course contre la montre s'engage, au sol et en orbite, pour sauver les survivants.
On retrouve Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins dans une aventure matinée de hardscience (légère). Et il s'agit vraiment d'une aventure épique, avec un suspens terrible jusqu'à la fin cataclysmique. Le tout assaisonné de personnages relativement complexes, de découvertes archéologiques plus ou moins approfondies, et de mystères pas tout résolus.
C'est extrêmement prenant et pleins de rebondissement. On s'attache assez vite aussi à l'ensemble des personnages. Bref, une lecture très plaisante, de la bonne sf intelligente d'aventure.
On retrouve Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins dans une aventure matinée de hardscience (légère). Et il s'agit vraiment d'une aventure épique, avec un suspens terrible jusqu'à la fin cataclysmique. Le tout assaisonné de personnages relativement complexes, de découvertes archéologiques plus ou moins approfondies, et de mystères pas tout résolus.
C'est extrêmement prenant et pleins de rebondissement. On s'attache assez vite aussi à l'ensemble des personnages. Bref, une lecture très plaisante, de la bonne sf intelligente d'aventure.
September 21, 2017
As template-driven action, it barely qualifies. And, as a victim of sequelitus, it does what the first one did...in spades. What we have here (again) is a group of "highly qualified" experts and a small amount of rocket scientists who (continually) fail to use any common sense until they escape at the last moment buy McGuyver-ing and non-psychics-ing. I have serious doubts about the third book.
June 19, 2019
While essentially a rehash of the plot from The Engines of God, Deepsix still makes you care about the plight of the Hapless Humans In Space. The women are all still "lovely" but the men have moved on from all being "beefy" to an assortment of old cowards and fatheads.
While there's not much character development evident, this story was interesting and exciting enough for me to check out the next Hutch adventure.
While there's not much character development evident, this story was interesting and exciting enough for me to check out the next Hutch adventure.
October 16, 2018
Seat of the pants excitement! This reads like a thriller, but is really hard science fiction. Perhaps my favorite of the Academy series.
June 26, 2018
I read The Engines of God because I had an interest in "xenoarchaeology" and it was one of the few books that was repeatedly recommended for this subject in particular. It was a narrow selection to be sure and when I heard there was a whole series of books in this series, I was quite excited. The fact that The Engines of God turned out to be quite interesting for the most part, only sold me further on the series.
But I had some issues with the first book, which you can read in my review of it, but it can basically summed up with this: very fascinating in parts, extremely dull in others. Personally, I didn't think the archaeology aspects were given enough room and I don't think Jack McDevitt is particularly good at writing more adventurous action sequences, at least not this far in his career. Or perhaps it's intentional, who knows? Either way, the parts of the book more focused on "pulse pounding action" were far from my favorites.
And unfortunately, it seems McDevitt thought those aspects were what made his book good. I was perfectly ready to accept that the whole series wasn't going to be about archaeology in space so I was at first pleasantly surprised when that didn't seem to be the case. When they discover ruins on the doomed planet, I thought "Oooh, an excavation under pressure, that can be quite fascinating." But that is soon quickly forgotten of in favor of a far more generic "saving people at the last second"-plot that isn't particularly interesting. It's very much by the numbers with the added twist that most of the characters are quite dumb. Dumb decision is the flavor of the day and if there's a way for them to mess something up, they're almost guaranteed to make the worst choice.
There is far too much that goes wrong here just to set up a relatively weak finale that could've been achieved far easier. But McDevitt seems to have had his heart set on this finale because he takes excruciatingly long to set it up, trying to play it up as something exciting when... it simply isn't. Far too often does he cut away from the emotional theater playing out on the planet to focus on characters (way too many of them) that I simply don't care about. And they're introduced at break neck speed too: scientists that don't really figure into the plot, crewmembers who don't do anything particularly interesting and engineers talking about things that I don't understand. Sci-fi is a great tool to teach people about the science that fuels your universe but here it's taken to such extremes that he spends paragraphs after paragraphs explaining welding or how gravity works.
Just because you know your science, doesn't mean it should be all your book is about. I've read harder sci-fi books that spend less time on their science than this one.
And when you have this many characters, it inevitably means that you can't do them all justice. And with so many supporting characters that I can't even remotely name, it leaves so little time for the main characters to develop as well. Because spending just one page introducing one of fifty supporting characters is one page less spent on the main characters. And in a story that basically centers around the emotions and agony of the people facing imminenet death, that's incredibly poor form. And it gets doubly annoying and tedious when you insist on throwing names around almost constantly. Not only does every supporting characters have a first and last name, some characters are merely mentioned in passing. Even the ship AIs have names and what's the point of that? There was actually one name that kept popping up that I didn't even realize was an AI until well towards the finale when I suddenly went "OH! I thought that was a pilot."
It resulted in me simply very cold and indifferent towards the characters whom I'm supposed to sympathize with. No deaths every felt truly heartwrenching because I ultimately knew they were mere fodder who stood very slim chance of surviving. My buy-in for the text was small and I never really got into it. Perhaps I will grow to love some of these characters more if they keep appearing, and the epilogue certainly hints as much, but considering that barely any characters from the previous book appeared here suggests that's not the case.
I heard a rumor that McDevitt wrote this story first, then The Engines of God and that would explain why so many characters that were suggested to have an impact on Hutch's life were mere footnotes here. It's one theory anyway.
Another is that McDevitt simply isn't very good at building lasting, endearing relationships in his stories and simply decided to avoid all of that. Which is fair, if you're not good at it then don't force it too hard. But at the same time, maybe don't suggest things work out in a certain way either?
Much of the emotional climax ultimately felt forced because of this. Suddenly characters were deeply in love despite not really having any sort of emotional connection before? Or at least, that's how it felt. Granted, I understand that in situations like this, things may not always make sense emotionally but it still felt incredibly out of left field.
The only character given any sort of emotional depth at all was the character I least expected. And it wasn't Hutch. Lord knows Hutch is a plank of wood in terms of characterization. She does what she has to keep the plot moving but that's about it. Or, in some cases, to make sure the plot doesn't move forward. The majority of stupid decisions her is easily hers and it does not endear me to her. No, the character who strangely the deepest was MacAllister. I didn't like him as a person but by God do you know what drives the man by the end of the book. This was easily a story about him and the others mere dressing for him to reflect off of. Which is an interesting way to write a story, sort of like Rockatansky in the Mad Max movies, rarely the focus of the story in his own movie.
I just wonder if it was intentional?
But there are aspects of this that I really enjoyed. When the archaeology does take focus, it's mostly an interesting read. It was a bit shaky in the beginning but nearer to the end there's a segment all about the exploration of a lost culture and it was a fascinating read. But this is EXACTLY what he did in the previous book as well: set something up as interesting then completely throw it to the wind for some cheap thrills then curve around then end on an action climax that could've been pulled out of any generic sci-fi story ever. And I seriously question the science behind it, seems like it wasn't entirely plausible but I'm not learned in these things so I shall merely log my skepticism and move on.
I really do hope that he used this to write a far more interesting third book. I'm still sold on the series and the threads he weaves does hold quite the potential. I just hope he, at some point, take all the dangling threads and tries to tie a pretty bow on the whole thing.
Guess we'll just have to see. It's not a complete waste of time, it's interesting enough on its own and if you have nothing better to do, it's a quick and easy read. I do wish they'd edited it a little harder and there were quite a few spelling and grammatical mistakes in my edition but it's very readable.
But I have a feeling this could easily have been skipped in the series and little would've been lost.
But I had some issues with the first book, which you can read in my review of it, but it can basically summed up with this: very fascinating in parts, extremely dull in others. Personally, I didn't think the archaeology aspects were given enough room and I don't think Jack McDevitt is particularly good at writing more adventurous action sequences, at least not this far in his career. Or perhaps it's intentional, who knows? Either way, the parts of the book more focused on "pulse pounding action" were far from my favorites.
And unfortunately, it seems McDevitt thought those aspects were what made his book good. I was perfectly ready to accept that the whole series wasn't going to be about archaeology in space so I was at first pleasantly surprised when that didn't seem to be the case. When they discover ruins on the doomed planet, I thought "Oooh, an excavation under pressure, that can be quite fascinating." But that is soon quickly forgotten of in favor of a far more generic "saving people at the last second"-plot that isn't particularly interesting. It's very much by the numbers with the added twist that most of the characters are quite dumb. Dumb decision is the flavor of the day and if there's a way for them to mess something up, they're almost guaranteed to make the worst choice.
There is far too much that goes wrong here just to set up a relatively weak finale that could've been achieved far easier. But McDevitt seems to have had his heart set on this finale because he takes excruciatingly long to set it up, trying to play it up as something exciting when... it simply isn't. Far too often does he cut away from the emotional theater playing out on the planet to focus on characters (way too many of them) that I simply don't care about. And they're introduced at break neck speed too: scientists that don't really figure into the plot, crewmembers who don't do anything particularly interesting and engineers talking about things that I don't understand. Sci-fi is a great tool to teach people about the science that fuels your universe but here it's taken to such extremes that he spends paragraphs after paragraphs explaining welding or how gravity works.
Just because you know your science, doesn't mean it should be all your book is about. I've read harder sci-fi books that spend less time on their science than this one.
And when you have this many characters, it inevitably means that you can't do them all justice. And with so many supporting characters that I can't even remotely name, it leaves so little time for the main characters to develop as well. Because spending just one page introducing one of fifty supporting characters is one page less spent on the main characters. And in a story that basically centers around the emotions and agony of the people facing imminenet death, that's incredibly poor form. And it gets doubly annoying and tedious when you insist on throwing names around almost constantly. Not only does every supporting characters have a first and last name, some characters are merely mentioned in passing. Even the ship AIs have names and what's the point of that? There was actually one name that kept popping up that I didn't even realize was an AI until well towards the finale when I suddenly went "OH! I thought that was a pilot."
It resulted in me simply very cold and indifferent towards the characters whom I'm supposed to sympathize with. No deaths every felt truly heartwrenching because I ultimately knew they were mere fodder who stood very slim chance of surviving. My buy-in for the text was small and I never really got into it. Perhaps I will grow to love some of these characters more if they keep appearing, and the epilogue certainly hints as much, but considering that barely any characters from the previous book appeared here suggests that's not the case.
I heard a rumor that McDevitt wrote this story first, then The Engines of God and that would explain why so many characters that were suggested to have an impact on Hutch's life were mere footnotes here. It's one theory anyway.
Another is that McDevitt simply isn't very good at building lasting, endearing relationships in his stories and simply decided to avoid all of that. Which is fair, if you're not good at it then don't force it too hard. But at the same time, maybe don't suggest things work out in a certain way either?
Much of the emotional climax ultimately felt forced because of this. Suddenly characters were deeply in love despite not really having any sort of emotional connection before? Or at least, that's how it felt. Granted, I understand that in situations like this, things may not always make sense emotionally but it still felt incredibly out of left field.
The only character given any sort of emotional depth at all was the character I least expected. And it wasn't Hutch. Lord knows Hutch is a plank of wood in terms of characterization. She does what she has to keep the plot moving but that's about it. Or, in some cases, to make sure the plot doesn't move forward. The majority of stupid decisions her is easily hers and it does not endear me to her. No, the character who strangely the deepest was MacAllister. I didn't like him as a person but by God do you know what drives the man by the end of the book. This was easily a story about him and the others mere dressing for him to reflect off of. Which is an interesting way to write a story, sort of like Rockatansky in the Mad Max movies, rarely the focus of the story in his own movie.
I just wonder if it was intentional?
But there are aspects of this that I really enjoyed. When the archaeology does take focus, it's mostly an interesting read. It was a bit shaky in the beginning but nearer to the end there's a segment all about the exploration of a lost culture and it was a fascinating read. But this is EXACTLY what he did in the previous book as well: set something up as interesting then completely throw it to the wind for some cheap thrills then curve around then end on an action climax that could've been pulled out of any generic sci-fi story ever. And I seriously question the science behind it, seems like it wasn't entirely plausible but I'm not learned in these things so I shall merely log my skepticism and move on.
I really do hope that he used this to write a far more interesting third book. I'm still sold on the series and the threads he weaves does hold quite the potential. I just hope he, at some point, take all the dangling threads and tries to tie a pretty bow on the whole thing.
Guess we'll just have to see. It's not a complete waste of time, it's interesting enough on its own and if you have nothing better to do, it's a quick and easy read. I do wish they'd edited it a little harder and there were quite a few spelling and grammatical mistakes in my edition but it's very readable.
But I have a feeling this could easily have been skipped in the series and little would've been lost.
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