Rating: 
Summary: High concept, excellent execution
Review: Ok, you've read scifi since you were a kid, right? Ever read a ghost story in a universe that man has been exploring for over 1,000 years and the planets of hundreds of stars and has yet to discover any life? Not just intelligent life, no DNA, no RNA, no nothing?Me neither. I consider this one of the finest scifi books ever. Loads of orgionality, believeable characters, a male writer writing a female protaganist, and a very creditable murder mystery that Stuart Woods could have been happy to sign his name to. Jack McDevitt is a major talent not only in scifi, but in American Literature. DON'T MISS THIS ONE.
Rating: 
Summary: It's All Down Hill From Here
Review: Okay, first of all I'm a big fan of Jack's. The first book I read of his was The Engines of God. I'd give that 4.5 stars. It's still my favorite. I've read every book since and similar to Niven and Pournelle the quality of work declines the more Jack writes. This last book was down right boring. Where's the "ACTION"? The plot just rolled on and on with no action or intrigue. Even the ending left much to be desired. Based on how bad this latest effort was, I may pass on reading his next book. Jack needs to realize that it's quality not quantity. Pumping out a book every year doesn't make you a great author.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast Paced, Fun, and Clever
Review: Part whodunit and part sci-fi, Infinity Beach is a fun and engrossing read. Sometimes the logic seems a bit slippery and the characters a little flat; but the main character is sufficiently sympathetic to guide you through the book. If you are looking for a "hard" sci-fi account of first contact, try _A Deepness in the Sky_. If you want more of a noir detective novel on the same topic; this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Nice read!
Review: Sci-Fi and mystery all rolled up into a well-paced easy read.
McDevitt moves you along at a comfortable pace in this first-encounter sci-fi mystery.
I feel it contained just the right amount of sci-fi, mystery and a couple of twists to keep you from wanting to put the book down.
Grab it if you can.
Rating: 
Summary: Is Anybody Out There and Why Do We Care So Much?
Review: Science fiction writers, wherever they go, can expect to hear think about UFO's? The second query is the interesting one, the one that people really seem to care about. I was swept up in the general enthusiasm for flying disks on June 24, 1947, when a pilot claimed to have seen nine saucer-like objects over the state of Washington. Every kid on the block took to watching the skies. I'd heard stories during the war about foo fighters, unearthly squadrons, tracking flights of planes. And now they were actually showing themselves. I thought it would be just a matter of time before they landed to say hello. And we all hoped the event would take place on the then-vacant lot at the corner of Myrtlewood and Dickinson streets in south Philadelphia. I was twelve years old. A substantial portion of the general population suspect, although they do not say so aloud, that science fiction writers are at least mildly deranged. Consequently we tend to be cautious responding to questions about paranormal matters. No, I always say when UFO's come up in the conversation, there is insufficient evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and so forth. Park the UFO on my lawn, let me kick the tires, tool around town with it, and then maybe I'll agree there's something to the idea. What has surprised me over the years is the readiness of almost everyone to argue that there HAS to be life out among the stars, and the ferocity with which they defend the position. It says a great deal about us, although I haven't yet puzzled out precisely what that might be. Isn't it arrogant, we maintain, even to consider that we might be alone? After all, aren't there trillions of terrestrial worlds, with liquid water and plenty of sunlight, cruising through this galaxy and through countless others? Galaxies like grains of sand. That's probably so. Did life not start on Earth almost as soon as it was possible for it to do so, suggesting the event was no big deal? Yes it did. Could I honestly subscribe to the notion that in all the cosmos we might actually be alone? No, I could not. But maybe some part of me is still 12 years old. Or more likely I'm not wired to accept that kind of isolation. In the end the arguments prove nothing. Maybe we are the only occupant on the block. The fact is that, until we know for certain how life started, and until we can conclude that intelligence is not an anomalous outcome of the evolutionary process, everything's guesswork. Even the celebrated Drake equation is based on a statistical sample of one. I've always been fascinated, less by the notion of aliens, than by this absolute insistence by so many that there absolutely must be Someone Out There. If there is, why have we not seen their footprints? Why no radio signal? Why no evidence of interstellar engineering? Why, with billions of years in which to do it, have they not filled the Milky Way with exotic blue-glass domes glittering under rivers of stars? As Fermi asked, Where is everybody? Despite all those aliens in our movies and books, invading Martians and friendly extraterrestrials, sensient oceans and intelligent trees, I can still wander out at night under a starlit sky, look up, and feel the sheer emptiness of it all. Is it my imagination? Undoubtedly. What else could it be? But it is a disturbing view. I've wondered why that should be so, why we have always peopled the sky, first with deities and heroes, sometimes with ancestors (whose souls kindle the starfire), and later with whole legions of Others. What would be the effect if we concluded, eventually, that no one's home out there? Would we continue to push into the unknown, settling for exploring gas giants and rocky worlds, poking at black holes and inspecting nebulae? How would it feel to stand on the beach of a sunlit ocean devoid of gulls and shells? What would it be like to look through a plexiglass dome at Moonbase into another kind of ocean, infinite in all directions, and conclude that it harbored no living thing, no creature with whom we might compare notes, no entity we would recognize, however different in appearance, as a sibling? The reason we did not go back to the moon after Apollo had nothing to do with budget cutbacks or an unimaginative president. It resulted from the daunting fact that we had looked at Mars and seen only sterility. We needed those canals more than anyone at the time understood. INFINITY BEACH engages these issues. Kimberly Brandywine lives in a world of comfort and discrimination in all their forms have been eradicated. The human family stands, finally, united. There are no birth defects. Everybody looks good. Humans are all, in the manner of Lake Woebegone, well above average. Kim's civilization enjoys faster-than-light travel. It has terraformed and settled eight worlds beyond Earth. Life is leisurely. But star travel has become routine. People go out to look at Aldebaran, pop by the Pleiades, turn left at Rigel, swing by Polaris. Scientific surveys provide details about the myriad worlds. We know their declination and surface gravity, their orbital period and mass and diameter. We know the elemental mix, the order of the moons, and the tidal schedule. And while researchers collate the information on whatever passes for computer disks, everyone else has retired to a kind of galactic front porch. Something is missing. Just as happened in the 1960's, the human race has left its beachhead and taken a long look around. But once again it hasn't liked what it's seen. So it's returning home. It's lost heart. Some recognize the nature of the problem. "We are coming back at last to Earth," writes one observer. "To the forests of our innocence.... Farewell, Centaurus. Farewell to all we might have been." Will we one day need to find those canals that did not turn up on Mars? I suspect we will. So I sent Kim Brandywine looking for them. END
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, competent, engaging: McDevitt!
Review: Some clever ideas and interesting subplots make this a very pleasant read. He challenges some fundamental notions (of mine, at least) that we have. Sadly the aliens (if there are any in the book; I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone :-) are relatively weak, but the characterizations are first-rate.
Rating:
Summary: First class First Contact novel!
Review: Sometime in the future... Earth's population spread out to nine planets, thanks to faster-than-light starships. It is the year 600 on Earth's colony planet Greenway, and scientist Kim Brandywine gets a phonecall from her former history teacher, bringing back the past to her. Three decades ago, Kim's clone sister vanished after a failed mission to find extraterrestrial life. But did the mission really fail?
These prerequisites are at the start of McDevitt's excellent novel which is a hybrid of different styles: hard SF, first contact but mostly a classic detective story. It's been ages since I read a SF novel where the author builds up so much suspense that you have a hard time putting the book down. The hard SF elements give the book a nicely futuristic atmosphere, but even people who are more into generic mystery literature will be able to get a kick out of this book.
McDevitt has the rare ability of combining a concise vision of the future with a remarkably accessible writing style. The positive message the book leaves at the end makes 'Infinity Beach' a one-of-a-kind book that deserves to be read by a multitude of people.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad... but not his greatest, either
Review: The beginning of the book was a bit slow. However, once Kim really begins her investigation into Emily's death and unique facts begin to be uncovered, the pace really picks up. The book also explores some really unique questions about life in the universe. I enjoyed the book a great deal, although a few parts were a bit tedious. It admittedly took me a long time to get through this book. I began it back in May and I read it on it piece-meal through May and June. There were several weeks where this book sat ignored. It wasn't until July that I really got into the book and read it voraciously.
Some of the characters were quite memorable, although it seemed at times there were a lot of characters to keep up with. Unfortunately, a lot ran together. Even at the end of the book, some of the characters were still "just a name" to me. This flaw was overshadowed by how powerful some of the main characters were, however.
Rating:
Summary: A modern classic
Review: This is a riveting book . McDevitt's writing style is engrossing. He slowly gives us hints as to the true direction of the plot. His character development is quite strong, especially Kim, who is multidimensional; confident, but bumbling; intelligent, but slow to realize the danger that she is truly in. Humanity is portrayed as being at the crossroads. We have been exploring, but are now stagnating. McDevitt's view that we bungle the first contact is well thought out and plausible. Of course, we believe that there would be a cover-up of this major blunder. McDevitt's ending is self contained, but it leaves us wondering if there will be a sequel. I would certainly hope so.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best...
Review: This is easily one of the best books I've read so far this year... Although the beginning was a bit confusing (maybe just because I was tired), it quickly turned out to be one of those books you just can't stop reading... The character development was excellent, and the plot just wouldn't stop twisting... Overall, a perfect blend of sci-fi and mystery...
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