'The Engines of God' by Jack McDevitt
'The Engines of God' by Jack McDevitt

The good

  • The central mystery is great: humans discover the remnants of lost alien civilizations and are trying to figure out what happened to them.

  • The protagonist, Hutch, is a fun character.

The not so good

  • Although there’s a great mystery at the center of the book, the storytelling is a bit weak, and doesn’t give provide much in terms of excitement or a sense of discovery. Characters seem to figure things out at random, mostly to move the story forward, rather than as the result of logical deductions or thrilling finds. Action scenes are a bit muddled. The book is largely driven by plot points that seem irrelevant and not especially interesting (we must start terraforming today, not tomorrow!).

  • Maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of sci fi, but the answer to the central mystery turned out to be more or less the first thing I thought of, so it was a little bit of a let down. I still like the basic ideas behind the mystery, but each time another piece was revealed, I just found myself saying, “yep, no surprise there.”

  • In short, it feels like the book massively underutilizes the premise and characters.

Rating: 3.5 stars