Rating: 
Summary: Kept My Interest!
Review: This is the first novel by Jack McDevitt that I have read and I was impressed by his talent. ETERNITY ROAD is set approximately 1000 years in the future, a plague has decimated Earth's population, and in the United States, where this novel concerns itself with, small cities have banded together and formed the 'Mississippi League'. Ruins from the 'Roadmaker' era are everywhere and the 'Roadmaker' civilization is an enigma, with many questions unanswered. It is from the League that a second expedition sets forth in search of the perhaps mythical 'Haven' where knowledge was supposedly safeguarded after the plague, as civilization unraveled. The first expedition ended in disaster, with only one person returning from the sometimes dangerous wilderness, with an atmosphere of secrecy and intrigue. One person, Chakra, had a brother who was killed on the first expedition, and she wants to find out what happened to him, as the only survivor of the first expedition is the scholar Karik, who did'nt say much about what happened, adding to the mystery. There are several other interesting characters in addition to these. As per another reader here I also found similarities between this novel and A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ, a much older novel, and a fine read also. I found ETERNITY ROAD to be engrossing, I found myself reading more and more pages everyday to see what would happen, McDevitt is a master storyteller and very adept at character development and plot layout. In my view the only criticism I see here is that various machines from the Roadmakers were still operating after perhaps one thousand years, that stretches credulity indeed, I take one star off for that. As for comparing this novel to the standard of 'the end of the world as we know it' novels, which is EARTH ABIDES, the later is better, although ETERNITY ROAD is excellent nevertheless.
Rating: 
Summary: They Found What They Were Looking For, But I Didn't
Review: This was my first Jack McDevitt book.
It will not be my last.
I truly enjoyed reading this novel. McDevitt's style is smooth and his imagery is vivid. The environment in which he has placed his characters is very well realized. Loved the character of Avila.
But ultimately, this book was a grave disappointment. I don't think that I'm spoiling anything to say that the heroes find what they were looking for, but the end of their quest just failed to satisfy me. I don't know if it was my fault for expecting too much, being a sloppy reader, or what, but my building expectations were not met. I suppose I was expecting a major epiphany, a revelation of some import or even an O'Henry twist, but instead was greeted by the same feeling as receiving socks for Christmas...
Definitely an author I will try again, but with lowered expectations.
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