Coming Home

By: Jack McDevitt

Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck

Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Thousands of years ago, artifacts of the early space age were lost to rising oceans and widespread turmoil. Garnett Baylee devoted his life to finding them, only to give up hope. Then, in the wake of his death, one was found in his home, raising tantalizing questions. Had he succeeded after all? Why had he kept it a secret? And where is the rest of the Apollo cache? Antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his pilot, Chase Kolpath, have gone to Earth to learn the truth. But the trail seems to have gone cold, so they head back home to be present when the Capella, the interstellar transport that vanished eleven years earlier in a time/space warp, is expected to reappear. With a window of only a few hours, rescuing it is of the utmost importance. 2600 passengers - including Alex's uncle, Gabriel Benedict, the man who raised him - are on board. Alex now finds his attention divided between finding the artifacts and anticipating the rescue of the Capella. But time won't allow him to do both. As the deadline for the Capella's reappearance draws near, Alex fears that the puzzle of the artifacts will be lost yet again. But Alex Benedict never forgets and never gives up - and another day will soon come around...

©2014 Cryptic, Inc. (P)2014 Recorded Books

Not the Best of the Series, But Good

If you like McDevitt you will like this book. It is not his best, and God knows the books in this series do not move quickly. But it is fun and the premises are both clever.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Respectable, double action mystery sci-fi

Coming Home is the latest Jack McDevitt installment in the Alex Benedict series. The main character, Alex is a combination Indiana Jones / Sherlock Holmes with the narrator, Chase, playing his Watson / gal Friday. This story involves two independent tales with Chase heavily involved in the rescue of a large cruise ship caught in space / time warp that Alex figured out in an earlier installment. Added to the mix is that Alex's uncle is on board. At the same time, Alex comes into possession of an "ancient" (25th century) artifact that suggests a connection to a missing cache of early space exploration items. The story jumps back and forth between these two separate plots.

This universe is set in the far future (beyond the 30th century) and a distant settled planet, although there are several Earth visits involved. One particularly unique feature of this series is the almost normal behavior of everyone in the story. People get hungry and go to restaurants; they go out to lunch with friends and discuss relationships; they go sightseeing on vacations, etc. There are no new sci-fi elements relative to earlier installments and the action scenes are muted and limited relative to earlier tales. McDevitt does provide a sense of the vastness of space which appears to slow down life in the future.

The narration is superb with an excellent range of voices with good pacing. This series and narrator have always been an enjoyable listen and this time out is no exception.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Good story, odd choices in performance.

I enjoyed the story. The directional choices for both the AI voices and the tone given to Khalid (sp unsure) were distracting. Overall differentiation between speakers too subtle to easily
differentiate who is talking.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Another good entry in the series.

Hated the voice used for the A.I.s. Why the narrator decided to make an advanced computer sound like the computer from the movie 'Wargames' I'll never understand. Hated that choice and it really ruined much of the narration for me. Otherwise, an entertaining story.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Needs a different narrator!

This is another solid Benedict novel by McDevitt. It's not the best, but certainly not the worst. A must read for sci fi fans and readers of the series. The biggest failing was the narrator. She made several choices for voices that did NOT work, and I found myself constantly having to adjust the volume to cope with her vocal range, which gets very soft and hard to hear and then borders on shouting. I would get another McDevitt book, but not another Van Dyck narration.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Boring

Nice ideas but so boring. The book just meanders along and goes nowhere. This book was pointless. Don't bother.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

An excellent story

I enjoyed the story very much as I have all of the Alex Benedict adventures.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

A space mystery with a twist

Jack McDevitt tells another interesting tale in the form of a space mystery revolving around a quest to find the artifacts of early space exploration. Jack writes with a realistic view of human nature wrestling with issues in a future space age. If you like mysteries and wonder how we might live in 10K years, this is an excellent book to enjoy.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great Story Weird Narration

Seriously, what is with Jennifer Van Dyck? She sounded like she was doing a bad William Shatner/Capt. Kirk imitation. Why. Does. Every. Word. End. In. A. Period? She got better as time went on but I seriously considered returning the book just because of her narration. Also, thank you Mr McDevitt for no romance. I couldn't have taken Van Dyck's stilted narration through a romantic scene. ~shudder~

Other than that the story was good. Like usual McDevitt wrote a mystery and even though it was a bit predictable in places, I enjoyed this book like I do most of the Alex/Chase books. I enjoyed thinking through the puzzles. Mc Devitt is a good storyteller.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

This series of books is officially ended

Any additional comments?

I've read each and every book in the Alex Benedict universe; some great, some good, some disappointing... Coming Home was just plain bad.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful