By: Jack Mc Devitt
Deepsix is the second in the "Academy" novels by Jack McDevitt. Although similar in style and action to its predicessor The Engines of God, it pales in comparison. EoG is a gripping story of archeological expiditions in the near future on other planets that uses a good deal of action and adventure to 'up the stakes'. Deepsix on the other hand, is more of an action/adventure novel, using the archeology bit as a backdrop for setting the stage.
While this dynamic doesn't 'fail', it is no where near as interesting. In the first book, the archaeologists are in a race against time to solve a 10,000 year old mystery before the planet they are working on becomes terraformed, and failure in the terraforming or unraveling of the mystery may each spell the end of the human race. However, that whole tension is dropped in the second novel.
Deepsix finds our EoG protagonist, pilot Priscilla Hutchins on a mission to examine recently discovered artifacts on a planet beforei t gets obliterated in a major cosmological event. She lands on the planet with plenty of time to spare, but of course she and her compatriots become stranded, and rescue looks impossible. The archeology of the new planet provides none of the mystery that was present in EoG and serves mostly as an explanation as to why they'd be on the planet in the first place (as well as an almost literal) Deux Ex Machina for getting them off.
Perhaps the book isn't as bad as all that, but compared to its predecessor, it doesn't live up. I'll continue with his series though- I've read he picks up some of the threads he dropped in later books. We'll see!
2 comments:
I find there are a lot of sci-fi series that don't live up to the first book. It sounds like the plot in the first one was really great but got resolved. I'll check out the first one though.
do, and now that i've read chindi, i'd say its worth skipping deepsix and going directly to the third book. Deepsix is ok in parts, but Chindi is much better. And nothing happens in Deepsix that gets built upon in Chindi except for a few offhanded references which don't add to the plot.
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