{"id":1199,"date":"2016-01-09T19:04:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T01:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2016-01-13T08:54:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T14:54:41","slug":"sail-along-ancient-shores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/sail-along-ancient-shores\/","title":{"rendered":"Sail Along Ancient Shores<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ancient<\/a>Ancient Shores<\/em><\/a>
\nJack McDevitt<\/a>
\nHarper Collins
\nmass market paperback $7.99
\nebook $6.99<\/p>\n

Jack McDevitt has long been one of my favorite science fiction writers. \u00a0In addition to his clean prose and in-depth characterizations, his novels tend to have an element of mystery. \u00a0I think to a large extent that’s what I like about his work.<\/p>\n

Still, McDevitt is prolific enough that I haven’t read all of his work. \u00a0Until recently, Ancient Shores<\/em> fell into this category. \u00a0When I found out that this year’s novel (McDevitt typically has a new release in either November or December each year) was the sequel, I knew I needed to read Ancient Shores<\/em>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Here’s the premise. \u00a0About 10,000 years ago, there was a large lake covering much of south-central Canada and portions of North Dakota and Wisconsin called Lake Agassiz<\/a>. \u00a0The lake eventually drained during a period of glacial retreat.<\/p>\n

Ancient Shores<\/em> opens when a farmer uncovers a boat while digging on a hill on his farm. \u00a0It’s no place for a boat to be, and furthermore, the boat is made of unknown material. \u00a0The investigation of this mystery soon leads to the discovery of what’s becomes known as The Roundhouse. \u00a0It’s a cylindrical structure atop a bluff that was once the shoreline of Lake Agassiz. \u00a0It’s also on a Sioux reservation.<\/p>\n

Before long a startling discovery is made. \u00a0The Roundhouse contains machinery that allows instantaneous transportation to other worlds. \u00a0In Ancient Shores, three of these \u00a0destinations are explored: \u00a0a paradise world near the Horsehead Nebula, a space station outside the galaxy, and a strange place the explorers call The Maze.<\/p>\n

There aren’t a lot of answers given in Ancient Shores<\/em> as to where this technology comes from or who built it. \u00a0Remember the mystery aspect of McDevitt’s work I mentioned?<\/p>\n

What McDevitt does is show how disruptive such a discovery would be. \u00a0After all, if you could introduce instantaneous travel from one place to another, what effect would that have on the transportation industries such airlines, bus lines, and the oil industry? \u00a0What are the theological implications of such a discovery? \u00a0How will the Sioux, who own the land, be affected by The Roundhouse? \u00a0How would the international balance of power be affected?<\/p>\n

And where are the aliens who built The Roundhouse? \u00a0Why did they abandon it? \u00a0What happened to them? \u00a0Are they still out there, and if so, will they come back?<\/p>\n

Of course not all of these questions are answered. \u00a0Which to me added to the realism of the scenario. \u00a0For every question we answer about the universe, we often discover two more. \u00a0McDevitt did an excellent job of examining these things. \u00a0He introduces more characters than you typically find in a novel of this length my hardcover copy is 400 pgs) or even in an epic fantasy. \u00a0I’m impressed by not only how he could keep track of them all, but how easy he made it for me to keep track of them.<\/p>\n

Ancient Shores is everything science fiction should be. \u00a0It’s got character growth, a scientific mystery, logical extrapolation, and a sense of wonder and adventure. \u00a0Check it out.<\/p>\n

I’ll review the sequel Thunderbird<\/em> next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ancient Shores Jack McDevitt Harper Collins mass market paperback $7.99 ebook $6.99 Jack McDevitt has long been one of my favorite science fiction writers. \u00a0In addition to his clean prose and in-depth characterizations, his novels tend to have an element of mystery. \u00a0I think to a large extent that’s what I like about his work. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[736],"tags":[808,807],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jack-mcdevitt","tag-ancient-shores","tag-jack-mcdevitt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-jl","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1214,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}