[REVIEW] Jack McDevitt, Odyssey

[rfmcdonald]

Jack McDevitt's science fiction novels have always struck me as refreshing for their author's willingness to imagine a space opera universe without clichéd space opera tropes: rapid FTL travel without any immediately appealing destinations, intrepid characters who can't pierce to the heart of the mysteries they encounter, truly inscrutable alien species. Odyssey, the latest installment in his Priscilla Hutchins series, continues this tradition, pitting Hutch and her colleagues up against the mysterious alien moonriders (UFOs, briefly) and equally inscrutable human bureaucracies and mass movements. Odyssey works well as an exploration of the unknown and as a nearly-explicit critique of space opera. It fails, though, when it comes to examining the mechanics of McDevitt's future society, where (among other things) the terms of the debate between proponents of religious and secular worldviews have apparently changed not a whit since the early 21st centuy. I'd still recommend Odyssey to fans of the genre, but be forewarned.