Book Review: Odyssey

Odyssey
Author: Jack McDevitt

Odyssey is the fifth book in the Priscilla Hutchins series. You can read my reactions to the second, third, and fourth in previous entries. [I suppose I should write a review of the first at some point.] Let me net it out though: These are good books.

Odyssey features Priscilla Hutchins more prominently than Omega did, though she is still not so much the center of the action as she is the center of the plot. Into the action, author Jack McDevitt brings back an intriguing (and frustrating) male character from Deepsix, Gregory MacAllister. MacAllister is a cynic with a capital "C" but, as it happens, he's also a brilliant observer of humanity in all its flawed aspects.

To counter MacAllister, who believes that spending money on space exploration is a waste, McDevitt adds Amy, a smart (but not Wesley Crusher-precocious) teenager who wants to be a starship pilot, and Valya, an actual pilot.

The plot gets going because people are seeing unexplained "vessels" in space ("moonriders" is the name given to these UFOs,) and enough of the right people agree that a mission should be put together to try to capture some information about them if they can be found.

I will not spoil anything, but I will say that I found the story to be extremely interesting for the first 300 pages, and thrilling for the final 100. As enamored as I am about action movies, I surprise myself by enjoying the character development and interaction, as well as the politics, sociology and hard science fiction, so much that I don't miss the non-stop action I sometimes expect from my entertainment.

In Odyssey, McDevitt has written a novel in his vision of the future that very nicely speaks to themes of our time. In fact, the themes are somewhat timeless, and it's the MacAllister character who makes this most possible. Though he may be frustrating in his cynicism, I'm glad he was along for the ride.