Posted: Oct 13, 07 7:48pm
Okay, time's up. If you were reading along for our first Book Club selection, you should be done. But don't worry, I won't give away the ending. I'm just going to offer some general impressions and hopefully if you did read it you can jump in with your thoughts.
Our selection was Seeker, by Jack McDevitt:
http://www.amazon.com/Seeker-Jack-McDevitt/dp/0441013759/
It's a mystery novel -- in the distant future a pair of treasure hunters goes seeking a lost civilization. Basically it's a play off the Atlantis mythology: a missing civilization, romaticized by so many because it's been missing for so long.
In that sense I understand the comparisons of Jack McDevitt to Asimov-- he has written a mystery novel that just happens to be set in the far future. I didn't think it quite stood up to the best of Asimov, but it was definitely a good fun read.
I liked some of the ideas McDevitt has come up with. He envisions for example a future where everybody has an A.I. working for them. There's no more Googling to search for something, you talk to your A.I. and it goes finding things for you on the vast communications grid.
But some things didn't quite ring true. Like in his future terrorism has become so unthinkable that someone is able to easily smuggle a bomb onto a shuttlecraft because there is no security check for that kind of thing. And yet in this future there is still a police department and crimes where the criminals have their minds wiped. Those seem at odds to me--how could you still have violent criminals and yet not have bomb-sniffing security on your shuttlecraft?
Overall it wasn't bad. Good enough that I'm going to try and pick up a couple more of his novels, this was my first one from him.
So if you read this book, either for the book club or previously, what are your thoughts?
