Seeker

An Alex Benedict Novel

By: Jack McDevitt

Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck, Jack McDevitt (Introduction)

Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Thousands of years after an entire colony mysteriously disappears, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict comes into possession of a cup that seems to be from the Seeker, one of the colony's ships. Alex and his assistant, Chase Kolpath, follow a deadly trail to the Seeker, strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.

BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Jack McDevitt.

©2005 Cryptic, Inc. (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Nebula Award, Best Novel, 2006

"Ideas abound in McDevitt's classy riff on the familiar lost-colony theme. The novel delivers everything it promises with a gigantic whallop." (Publishers Weekly)
"The logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke." (Stephen King)
"Jennifer Van Dyck keeps the story exciting as she recounts each find, telling of artifacts that are much older than anything Indiana Jones ever got his hands on. Jack McDevitt himself reads the introduction." (AudioFile)

Antiquarian from the future.

Would you listen to Seeker again? Why?

Yes primarily because it was a good future mystery. Second because I'm sure I missed a few fun bits. While this is not the first of the series ( although the 1st I've read) it can be read out of serie. Easy to come up to speed on characters and story continum.

What did you like best about this story?

I liked the mystery aspect.

Which character – as performed by Jennifer Van Dyck and Jack McDevitt (Introduction) – was your favorite?

Chace (sp) while Alex is realisticly the primary or lead character in these stories. Chace is the posibly more simpathetic, engaging, competent character

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No, not that type of book for me.

Any additional comments?

I chose this simply due to ratings. I read mixed reviews of the first in the series but still wanted to sample the serie.. Now, I would have liked to have started with the first and while I'm certain I'll enjoy it imagine it may be fractionally better reading it first.

A solid little number..

SUMMARY: archaeologist/antique dealer duo Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath (well, probably better to describe them as salvage team) find an artifact in the form of an old cup, from a lost colony ship. In turn this leads them on a voyage to discover what happened to the ship, its crew and passengers....

On it's on it was a good story, albeit a little sluggish in parts - in the end I was still left wanting more.. due to the bold description that Jack McD is the next Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke.

With the hype it was a close 3 - but I am giving this a 4 out of 5 because I enjoyed the book on its own merits. There's a good level of detail and the narration is what I would call mature and firm.

Worth every moment

This is a great story! Worth every minute of your time. One Jack McDevitt’s best!

A Multiple Listen; adventure, archaeology, & SF!

Update: I have listened to this book maybe eight times, recommended it to a few dozen people. No complaints coming back!

Chase Kolpath and Alex Benedict come alive through the reading by Jennifer Van Dyck. Really unique fun novel, story line, multiple concepts woven together through an engaging and well written story (A bit of an Indiana Jones in the future in this book). My perception on Jack McDevitt novels is that takes a long time to "get going" but when it does, then the story takes off like a rocket (Engines of God being the best example I can think of at the moment). Not so with Seeker. Lots of activity, action, page turning going on in this book, early one, and in every chapter.

Further, this particular reading has propelled Jennifer Van Dyck to be in my top few female readers. She does a stellar job with voices, pacing, differentiating spoken word from narration, etc. I've bought JVD read SF/Crime/Mystery novels if the novel sounded remotely interesting because just listening to her read the story was enjoyable. Highly recommended reader!

One point to note - this series is advertised and sold as an "Alex Benedict story". I don't think that is accurate. Rather, I'd classify Polaris, Seeker, Firebird, Devils Eye, as an "Alex and Chase SF Archaeology Adventure", or something like that. I don't think that the "Watson/Holmes" vibe is as well written as ACD did, even though many have made that comparison. Holmes drew better conclusions more often, and was more accurate then Alex is (as in Echo).

Pretty meh

Never really builds up any conflict or suspense and the world/concepts provided are not interesting enough. Not a super interesting setup either compared to other sci fi books.

horrible audio, she makes everyone whisper,

good story, narrator..... everyone is whispered or weird. won't listen to her again.

I like the story but narrator killed it dead

Thin plot pivots

I enjoyed this book but it I always get a chuckle because it's 10000 years in the future and humans are still using paper. They don't understand basic encryption which humans obviously figured out a long time ago. Also, major plot events pivot on Alex and Chases refusal to install an alarm system or consider that someone might be trying to kill them for a third or fourth time. Once is understandable. 3 times? Jack you have a universe of options. Get more creative.

Still, a good book.

A woman's view of events

If you could sum up Seeker in three words, what would they be?

feelings, personal, woman

Any additional comments?

If you find a destination by land marks rather than by miles and street numbers then this book might be for you.

Not really my type of book

What did you like best about Seeker? What did you like least?

The characters were pretty good and I was able to finish the book but, it really didn't turn out to be what I was expecting.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The futuristic combination of aliens and humans.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The performance was pretty good. Had no problem distinguishing characters.

Could you see Seeker being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No.

Lots of detective work in this one

I'd never read a Jack McDevitt novel before, but dang, he's got to be the King of World-Building, as he's put together a pretty amazing vision of our culture some 10,000 years from now.

What I liked about it is that human nature hasn't changed much at all in this future. Technology has, sure, but not much else.

I also enjoyed all of the main characters' detective work, chronicled in great detail. Chase and Alex get a lot of good breaks but only because they did their research, followed every lead, and didn't give up.

You can tell McDevitt has been a seeker himself and knows what it's like to hunt something down.

This was my first time with this narrator. She did a great job with all the characters and their accents.