Rating: 
Summary: Great fun, good ideas and super suspense!
Review: Great fun from cover to cover! McDevitt takes a classic SF premise and from a dozen angles develops it into a tale rich with credible insights, ideas and details, all of which give a good and gritty feel to his wonders, life to his characters, and a reigning believability that dramatically heightens the suspense. And though the finale is full of tension, the surprises of its resolution put a HUGE grin on my face. Superb SF entertainment.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to his last...
Review: Having discovered McDevitt's Engines of God, I was very eager for his next one. Ancient Shores has it's moments, but by and large was not very satisfying. The main thrust of the story, the discovery of some VERY old artifacts in a farm lead us into the outer reaches of space, however the story stays rooted on Earth. making the story more of a statement of how soceity would react to these discoveries. While all this is interesting, I wanted the stars. Keep'em coming Jack.
Rating: 
Summary: Idea-Driven Science Fiction
Review: Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Eternity Road, I quickly picked up Ancient Shores and while the two were very dissimilar, Ancient Shores was no less enjoyable.McDevitt is the logical successor to some of the greats like Heinlein and Asimov. His science fiction isn't always "hard sci-fi" - he often prefers to rely on strong ideas and characters to drive his stories. He seems to have fun with his novels, not allowing himself to take his characters or ideas too seriously. While Ancient Shores revolves around the discovery of an ancient craft of unknown origin in a field in North Dakota, it's not the scientific discovery that McDevitt focuses on but the effect that such a discovery has on the people involved a well as the larger societal, technological, and economic implications. In addition, McDevitt examines the plight of the Native Americans in the region and portrays their strong belief in the sanctity of their land. Ancient Shore ends with a bang...some might say a cheesy bang but its an emotionally satisfying conclusion to a well-done novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Why was this nominated for an award?
Review: Hmm. Is there anything nice I can say about this book. The central idea of the alien artefact and why it was found where it was found, is good. Some of the descriptions in and around the alien artefact is good as well. The general standard of writing is competent, though tending to be dull. That's really the best I can say about it. Now for a rundown of the major things I think are wrong with it. The main character is meant to be Tom Lasker. He is the only person mentioned in the cover blurb. Tom starts the story and finds the first alien artefact all in the first chapter. Then slowly fades into oblivion. The real protagonist, Max Collingwood, of the story isn't mentioned until chapter two. This is the first indicator of the structurlessness of the book. Next, when the main character does finally show up he goes into interminably long and tedious details about WWII combat aircraft. By the end of the book I felt I'd be able to build and fly one of the bloody things. and to top off all this tedium is the fact that the planes have nothing what-so-ever to do with anything else in the book. The book is about the discovery of two alien artefacts the first of which is a yacht. There are no details given about normal yachts in the book. Is this because Jack only knows about WWII planes? The second focus of this book is the sociological impact of the discovery of the alien artefacts and my next bone of contention. The book follows the movie trend of being designed for people with an attention span of no more than five minutes. It is full of little ten page snippets which bear no relation to each other or the main characters and events of the book. Each snippet starts with an annoying four page potted bio of the main character in the snippet. Once this irrelevant side-track reaches it's end the character and events are never seen or heard of again. The point of these snippets is to show the impact of the alien artefacts on different sections of society. Half of Jack's snippets don't seem to be a logical extrapolation of the events and their impact. They are unconvincing as the result of the discovery of the alien artefacts. The final annoying thing is the gratuitous use of real people, (Sagan, Benford, Le Guin Hawking, etc.) as characters in what is otherwise complete fabrication. It smacks of nepotism. How many famous friends can I persuade to be in my novel to lift it out of the gutter. This is of course assuming Jack actually asked these people if they would mind appearing in his novel. Because of all this I couldn't give it more than two stars and was sorely tempted to give it one.
Rating:
Summary: Great potential, went nowhere
Review: I hate to give this book such a low rating, as Jack McDevitt's other novels are truly outstanding. Ancient Shores had a great potential: great characterization, drama and suspense. But the plot, although intriguing for most of the book, focused too much on political issues and human reaction.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic tale of our times
Review: I just finished this and it obviously is a well-written, evenly paced book. However, equally obvious this is not SF (strictly speaking) but rather meta-SF. By this I mean that SF pictures how changes in technology lead to future societies, with new problems, new solutions, etc. "Ancient shores" shows how the existence of SF, as a genre, affects the here and now. It is about SF: meta-SF. True, there is indeed an ancient alien device unearthed and it does do incomprehensible things, but the actual nature of the alien artifact does not influence the story. The archaeological alien device is more of a sideline, probably inserted by force of habit. It could be interchanged for a magical flying carpet or a bridge playing computer transported back out of the future, without any effect on the story whatsoever. The book is a string of scenes picturing contemporary society and presents McDevitt's views of the world we live in. For such a contemplative book it is a miracle of concise writing. McDevitt covers a wide range of topics and does this lightly.
Rating:
Summary: Good premise, but the details disappoint
Review: I wanted to like this book. Like other reviewers pointed out, the first few chapters were compelling enough to keep me reading. Then the story started spinning out of control. Neither the characters nor the governments depicted by the author behaved in a believable manner. The book offered many possible threads towards the end, only to leave them dangling. The characters seemed to be going along for the ride throughout the book, not really shaping events, but rather always at the mercy of them. They offered little more than a long string of disappointments to this reader. One would hope that mankind would respond with a little more maturity if such events ever took place.
Rating:
Summary: Great beginning and middle, but the end...
Review: I was recommended this book by a friend and enjoyed it enough that I want to read some other works by Jack. Fantastic plot and believable characters. By the middle of the book it became a page turner. (Now here comes the spoiler)The problem with the book is: 1) left you wanting a lot, lot more. Talk about a major tease; 2) The climax to a building political and violent situation is a resolution that is totally cheezy and makes you feel ripped off. If it wasn't for these two things I would have given the book a 5 stars
Rating:
Summary: Positively simakian.
Review: I was surprised to see Harlan Ellison recommend this because its pretty old-fashion. The science in its pretty ridiculous, but its a neat story. It reminded me of the Simak novella "The Big Front Yard".
Rating:
Summary: Sturgeonesque --- bucollic SF, very well done
Review: Imagine you find a sailing ship burried on your land --- except there's no ocean around, and hasn't been one for tens of thousands of years. Then imagine that the metallurgists can't identify the material the sailing ship is made from. That's the beginning of this Jack McDevitt novel ... the first McDevitt novel I've read (I'd seen his short fiction before). It won't be the last. In the best SF style, McDevitt just keeps asking question after question after question, and the answers get bigger and bigger and bigger. A really first-rate book, despite the terrible cover art.
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