Review - Starhawk by Jack McDevitt

Title: Starhawk
Author: Jack McDevitt

Space exploration in the late twenty-first century is dangerous, as imagined by Jack McDevitt in his "Hutch" (or Academy) novels.  But, much as it was in the late twentieth, it has become commonplace enough that the general public takes its safety for granted, and politicians attack it for its use of resources, which could be better spent on "real life" issues.

Good science fiction projects from our current time, from our current circumstances, and examines how we will react, personally and as a species, if things change. 

In McDevitt's Hutch novels, a couple of big things have happened to the human race since our time:

1. Faster than light travel exists -- though it is not nearly so convenient as our movies would portray it.
2. Our exploration of space has proven that we are not alone, but that life of any sort is much rarer than we hoped, and intelligent life is much rarer than that.

This is the backdrop for all of the Hutch novels.  The last one I read, and reviewed, was Cauldron.  I thought it was probably going to be the last in the series in which Priscilla Hutchins (aka "Hutch") was a central character.  Then late last year I learned that Starhawk was on its way.  I put it on my Christmas list and (thanks Dad and Mom!) received it.

I didn't quite know how this series would continue, and I am still wondering, because McDevitt decided to go back and do a prequel!  When we read the very first Hutch novel, Priscilla Hutchins was already an established captain of interstellar ships.  So, naturally, she had a back story.  But in the series of six novels, we never really learned about her past.  So Starhawk allows us to get to know Priscilla just as she's starting her career.

As I said, good sci-fi posits some changes, but then it often takes the reality of human existence and lets it flow around these changes -- like a stream of water which encounters rocks, but always incorporates them into the inevitable flow down hill.

So, as I mentioned above, there is politics.  There is science.  There are corporations.  There are people  concerned about what politicians, scientists and corporations are doing.  There are different ways of approaching problems, based on different kinds of people and their differing goals.  All of this could be the set up for a soap opera. 

It's not.

This story does a great job of showing us how Priscilla Hutchins became the strong captain we had met in the other books, and it tells a moving and very interesting science fiction story along the way.  We meet people we'll hear about (and in some cases interact with) if we read the other stories.  And we get a sense of the wonder, and danger, of exploration.

I think I may go back and read Engines of God again, to decide which of the books is better read first -- the first one starring Hutch, or the one in which she gets the nickname in the firstplace.