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Summary: My favorite McDevitt
Review: Eternity Road follows the trip of a post-apocalyptic group of people who, for a variety of reasons, are following in the footsteps of a previous expedition that sought a trove of artifacts and knowledge of the pre-apocalyptic world. McDevitt's no Hemmingway, but his novels are fun and intriguing. Eternity Road captures the wonder and outright confusion the characters feel as they try to understand a past that was lost to them because of a devastating plague that occurs 70 years from now. There are details one could quibble with, but McDevitt sets up and plays out the mystery nicely.I normally look for hard sci-fi centered on space exploration, but this was a nice diversion and I actually prefer it to Engines of God and Moonfall (although I liked them as well).
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Summary: My introduction to Jack McDevitt.
Review: "Eternity Road" was my first contact with Jack McDevitt's work, I was everafter hooked. I have since read "The Engines of God", and am currently in the process of reading "Ancient Shores". But as for "Eternity Road", IMHO, is an excellent work of Science-Fiction, and one of my favorite works in one of my favorite genres. The premise, very inviting. In fact, when I first saw this book, I didn't read any of it except for the back cover before deciding to purchase it. I was not disappointed. America of the distant future, but not with flying cars and a federation spread throughout space. The world as we know it has not existed for many hundreds of years. It is a world of the horse and cart, with no electricity or running water. In fact, the majority opinion among the inhabitants is that the world is flat, with those who believe it to be round a slowly disappearing minority. The only real technology the world still possesses, interestly enough, are firearms. A few brave souls from this truly alien world begin a journey to find the lost history of their world. At once exciting, enlightening, and tragic. A story I would recommend for any Sci-Fi fan.
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Summary: Although flawed, enough here to entertain and delight
Review: McDevitt certainly knows how to tell a story. Here, he breathes new life into the post-disaster re-building civilization genre. The characters are compelling, and the book has haunting images. The book is chock full of exciting adventure. I agree with other reviewers that the book runs out of steam, and the ending seems anti-climactic. Often, the characters behave in absurd ways. For example, in their quest to retreive the lost secrets of the 21st century, they (for no apparent reason) decline a perfectly good opportunity to download an encyclopedia from a sentient computer. Nevertheless, the book has enough virtues to overcome these flaws. Although the book has an often wistful mood (that sometimes becomes maudlin), it also has humor. My favorite scene involves the robot who still stands guard at the bank - a scene you can't recall without smiling.
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Summary: Interesting look into a grim future
Review: McDevitt's imaginative writing skills really shine in this novel. Although agreably a little shallow on character development, it nonetheless entertains the reader from cover to cover.
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Summary: Appealing Story, Fun Adventure
Review: An interesting vision into an unnerving, yet compelling, future. McDevitt does a good job telling a story and keeping it moving along. The characters are just three dimensional enough to be interesting, but not so overloaded with baggage as to weigh down the reader. By far, the concept and the clean way the story is told is the most appealing part of this work. All in all, a fun adventure to a future I hope does not happen.
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Summary: And the book stops short...
Review: An easy sci-fi read, doesn't weigh you down with the nitty gritty details about how these people got to this point, being post-apocolyptic and all, but the part that began to grate on me is, with all these ruins to look at, you're telling me that no one could figure out how a car engine works? The rudimentary concepts of mechanics seems to have evaporated with the majority of the population. There seems to be this major lack of drive or ambition. Early on I thought they were just lazy aliens.
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Summary: An engaging read, but not my favorite McDevitt book.
Review: "Eternity Road" Jack McDevitt's post apocalypse novel, while not his best work, is nevertheless completely engaging. I read the entire work within one day. This is a classic "quest" tale -- and, like many such quests, the answers at the journey's end are not quite what was expected by the participants in the quest. I found many (but not all) of the details believable. A sentient computer still runnning trains -- but only a handful of books surviving the disaster. An apparently immediate rediscovery of religion -- and virtually no remembrance of the belief structures of only a few centuries before. But for these minor flaws, the reader is treated to a group of engaging, well developed characters, profound love, interesting speculation, and high adventure. This book is definitely worth the time.
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Summary: Entertaining Post Appocalyptic fiction, but flawed.
Review: "Eternity Road", An intriguing post-apocalyptic story with a stop short ending. The story starts off about 1000 years after a plague has wiped out most of humanity. The society has rebuilt itself into feudal-like states. The knowledge of the past and its workings have long been forgotten. All that is left are buildings, computers, and roads. The people of the world of the past are referred to as "Roadmakers", since the highways and streets are the only things left behind that are intact and usable. Since knowledge of the past is so valuable, ancient books are worth more than a king's ransom. Thus is the start of "Eternity Road." The main character, Chaka Milano has inherited a book from her deceased father. Mark Twain's "Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court". The book is invaluable to the people in this story since, in it leads to the question of where did Chaka's father get the book and are there anymore? Turns out that Chaka's father went on an expedition to a almost mythical place called "Haven". A city with fantastic sights, such as a dragon, ghosts and a wealth of Roadmaker books. Knowledge of the past, which would prove to be invaluable to the people of the future. It is Knowledge of the things we consider mundane that become almost magical to the primitive people of "Eternity Road". The dragon for example is nothing more than a subway train or commuter rail. The train's long body and bright headlight take advantage of the people's preconceived notion and lack of knowledge that the beast is not a beast but a simple vehicle of mass transit. The disembodied voice that greets Chaka and her companions at the train station is at first mistaken for a ghost of a long dead Roadmaker is discovered to be in fact an artificially intelligent computer that runs the rail system. You almost grieve and marvel at the same time the loss of the wealth of information, and the lack of know how by the people that have inherited the earth. When Chaka visits a radio telescope array, she is greeted by the AI that runs the SETI research. The AI informs mistakes her for the professor that is conduction the search for alien intelligent life. Chaka is informed by the AI in a matter of fact way, that the project has discovered 17 star systems that have 'intelligent' signals from them. A discovering that would alter the way life is today, but to Chaka it means very little to her and to her quest for Haven. The characters and story are very moving to almost poetic, but where McDevitt fails is in trying to end the story. The constant and steady flow of the book comes to an abrupt ending has he hits the breaks. McDevitt finishes the story with a 2-page epilogue outlining the lives of the characters. It's a shame that the author chose to end the story in this manner since there were many unanswered questions. A sequel was surely worthy of the book, but as too why McDevitt choose to hit the skids is beyond me. I'd recommend this book, but only with a warning that the story ends on a brief note.
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Summary: A Fun Read, but I Need Some Answers
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this book, but once it got rolling along, I couldn't wait to see what happened next. It was interesting to discover the interpretations of the ruins and their confusion over the technology and the author was very good at guiding you up the Mississippi to Chicago, Detriot, and up through New England. It had me pulling out a map and tracking their route as I read. I do still have some questions. For instance, I know their was a plague, but obviously there were people left alive that would understand civilization and that surely the simplest information such as cars, engines, etc. would be passed down through the generations. Why the complete ignorance when the ruins are there to study? Also, I would have liked some more information on the people who kept up Haven until it was abandoned. From the description of the books, they were only a couple of centuries old. And I would have liked more information on the other levels of Haven. Maybe that would have answered that question. One other thing - at one point before they went in the door to Haven, the author described a set of eyes watching through the rock. What was that? Unlike others, I actually liked the ending, but would have liked to learn more about the history or Haven. Maybe a sequel?
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Summary: Took me a while to get through
Review: "Eternity Road" takes place in the far future. People live in a post-apocalypse world and live in awe of the "Roadmakers" - an ancient civilization who were mysteriously wiped out by a plague. Everywhere the remains of Roadmaker society can be found. Crumbling roads and ruined buildings covered in vines. This sounded like a good story, when I found it in the bookshop. I am a fan of post-apocalypse science fiction. Unfortunately, I got the feeling that I had read this story before. A group of people embarking on a quest, finding ruins, meeting different characters, finding ruins, stopping at different places, finding ruins, getting into danger, finding ruins, performing acts of bravery, finding ruins, love interest between the heroes, and then finding more ruins until they eventually reach their goal. Maybe the post-apocalypse theme is a bit worn out. Or maybe it's because I've read so many apocalyptic stories that the book didn't seem all that original any more. A much better book in my opinion is "The Chrysalids" by John Wyndham. Another good book is "The White Mountains" by John Christopher. Not forgetting "The Postman" by David Brin. I'm not criticizing the way "Eternity Road" is written, but to me the story did take a while to get going, and I was relieved when I finally finished. Some time afterward I donated the book to the local library.
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