The Engines of God

By: Jack McDevitt

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Humans call them Monument-Makers. An unknown race, they left stunning alien statues scattered on distant planets throughout the galaxy, encoded with strange inscriptions that defy translation. Searching for clues about the Monument-Makers, teams of 23rd century linguists, historians, engineers and archaeologists have been excavating the enigmatic alien ruins on a number of planets, uncovering strange, massive false cities made of solid rock. But their time is running out.

Earth's ravaged environment is quickly making it unlivable, and colonizers want to begin terraforming these abandoned worlds for human habitation. Only interstellar archaeologist Richard Wald and starship pilot Priscilla Hutchins are convinced that uncovering the secrets of the monuments may hold the key to survival for the entire human race.

©1994 Cryptic, Inc. (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Splendid. Not since Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama has the discovery of artifacts of alien intelligence been treated so skillfully." ( Baltimore Sun)
"McDevitt is at his best award-winning style in this intelligent and wide-ranging novel." ( Kirkus Reviews)
"With plenty of startling plot twists, a heavy dose of intrigue, and an unusual amount of character development for science fiction, McDevitt holds us fast right through to a thrilling finish." ( Booklist)

Conceptually intriguing, but uneven writing style

The basis premise concerns 200 years in the future where faster than light drives have allowed some exploration of our galaxy. The startling discoveries have all been related to a mysterious alien race referred to as the Monument Makers (MM) from their habit of leaving gigantic sculptures scattered around including our solar system. At the same time evidenced is found of alien civilizations past and present, although none even at our technological level.

The major thrust is to understand what happened to the MM. This leads to archeological investigations that form the bulk of the action which in turn leads to solar system hopping. The plot twists are fascinating and unexpected.

Unfortunately there are several aspects that really detract from the overall story. The characters are largely forgettable. Most of their actions come off as a high school theatrical production. At the same time, the injected elements creating drama are forced, seem arbitrary, and aren't necessary to drive the plot forward. Finally, the authors drags out certain sections with too much detail that becomes dull and boring. The ending is satisfying up to a point, but leaves open much of the opening questions.

Killer crabs

In the beginning the narration is kind of funny, a little but quirky but this gets old real fast. Its like whoever produced the audio portions of this book did not bother to listen to it themselves. someone should have sat down with the reader and explained to him that stretching out the last word in a sentence does not make the sentence more meaningful, its just annoying. This is 14 hours trapped in a room with someone who wants to show off his voiiiccceeeee. Also there a a few spots where the reader stops mid-sentence(completely understandable) and restarts and this makes the final book. As much as I hated the reading, he did a good job when compared... he did a god job when compared with the material he had to work with. The future is a strange and wonderful place with silly sounding aliens, killer crabs because your editor said you had to have an action scene, and beautiful woman scientists who have daddy issues and live for the words, "my god you're gorgeous," or "Jesus you're gorgeous," or the deep and meaningful "my god you are goreous." Finally if I hear the name Quraqua one more...time... oh yeah beware of right angles the destroy of worlds.

Terrible Narrator, Weak Story

I regret I did not read the reviews, worst purchase yet. Should rate with a zero. The readers low scratchy voice was very difficult to listen to for any length of time.

Narration not so good

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Better narration. I really struggled to identify the different characters in this audible book. It was quite frustrating to the extent that I needed to stop and replay several times to determine who was who. In the end I have given up finishing this audible story. I have nearly all the other Jack McDevitt books and have not had this problem before. So definitely down to the narrator.

Not quite interesting enough.

This book is unfortunately not what I was hoping for, if this is the best book about the discovery of artifacts of alien intelligence since Rendezvous with Rama then keep artifacts of alien intelligence away from me please (I thought Rama was a masterpiece by the way). I thought Engines of God was rather boring and things did not quite add up for me. To be fair I really enjoyed the last hour or so but that leaves 14 hours that I did not particularly like. This could have made a good short story or the slow start of a long space opera. I would like to see somebody with firepower take on these Omega-clouds but I don't think I'll stick around, I just didn't like the characters well enough. Too slow and not interesting enough.

Big idea, Clarke-like SF

The Earth is facing environmental catastrophe in the 23rd century. Humans have spread to other star systems, but generally not found a lot of Earth-like planets, and those they have found are already inhabited. A handful of intelligent alien races have been discovered, but all are primitive compared to humanity. Most alien races discovered, however, are long dead, and the most prominent is one that apparently traveled to other stars, as their monuments have been found across the galaxy.

Earth has generally taken a "hands off" approach to living natives, but as pressure mounts to begin terraforming habitable worlds as an escape plan, this "Prime Directive" morality begins to seem less desirable. There is an interesting reversal of the classic sci-fi trope, and subtle commentary on colonialism and how we might justify it in the future, when an argument is made to colonize an inhabited planet "for the natives' own good." They are in the middle of a savage global war, and it is claimed that some of them have become aware of the existence of their alien watchers, and are begging for intervention. That technological aid and imposed peace would incidentally involve Earthlings resettling on their hosts' planet would be only a logical extension of a benevolent intervention...

This is a fairly hard SF novel that will appeal to fans of "big idea" SF, particularly if you like academic/scientist protagonists. Jack McDevitt gets compared a lot to Arthur C. Clarke in the blurbs for this book, and that's a fair comparison. Also an unfortunate one as far as I'm concerned, because like Clarke's science fiction, The Engines of God did little to stir any passion in this science fiction fan. It was a perfectly well written book, it was just dry and flat and even the high stakes did not truly engage my interest.

Mediocre

What did you like best about The Engines of God? What did you like least?

The premise/mystery about the monument makers was the most intriguing part. I was hoping he was going to play off that more, but instead the focus of the story just became the cheap thrill of whether or not they would make it off the planet in time. I'd expect something that mundane to be maybe a climactic end to a chapter, but not the main focus of the book.
The narratation was terribly annoying. He has a nice voice, but feels the need to draw out every final vowel in each sentence to sound dramatic. Yikes. Make sure you listen to the sample to be sure you can put up with this before buying it.

Thumbs down

No plot; nothing happens. One-dimensional, unsympathetic characters. Everything that might've been a surprise is telegraphed ahead of time. NO answers are provided, just wild speculations… but that isn't TOO surprising, as that's how the characters do all their own thinking, despite the fact they're supposed to be scientists. What little tension exists is drawn out so long that it wouldn't hold a rolled-up newspaper together. The only aliens that show up onscreen are a rampaging horde of stupid critters that seem added only because someone said there should be action in the book SOMEWHERE.

It's too late for ME to get this time back, but YOU still have time! Shields up! Warp speed! RUN!

Boring

Very boring nothing happens.

Asimov Lives!!

Asimov warned that Sci-Fi needs to be driven by the "Sci" or it's just plain "Fi". Too often contemporary SF wants to be socio-political screed warped to some other similar culture or world. It's preaching in drag. McDevitt's piece has a spark of BIG TODAY ISSUE as part of the fuse to its powder, but its peripheral. He pulled in my imagination with a "Sci" mystery wrapped in a philosophical then cultural puzzles. Sweeeeet!

Tom Weiner's read's just fine. Oh sure a couple of the character voices overlap, but he's good enough. Love the risky way McDevitt treats important characters. And there's neither sexist damsel in distress nonsense, nor over reach to make all the men bumblers. He's created a cast of equals.

Now this cast ain't vying to create great literature… what they do is rise a tad beyond comic books, but that tad's fun, the plot's reasonably thrilling. And yeah, there's a cinematic thrum throughout. McDevitt should be, if he's not, a screen writer. I'll buy the next in this series...

Unlistenable

I can not rate the book overall or the story. I managed 5 minutes. The naration is terrible.

McDevitt does it again!

What did you like most about The Engines of God?

It's an excellent story with believable characters. McDevitt is good on Big Ideas and his characters are believable, if not always likeable!

What does Tom Weiner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Tom is a good reader, not trying to be clever, but has clearly prepared and knows how to pronounce the difficult words and names!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes - Unfortunately not possible though!