From Nebula Award-winning author Jack McDevitt comes the eighth installment of the Alex Benedict series featuring Gabe triumphantly reuniting with Alex and Chase to retrieve a possible alien artifact–which may lead them to solve the greatest archaeological mystery of their careers. After being lost in space for eleven years, Gabe has returned, and is trying to find a new life for himself after … for himself after being presumed dead–just as Alex and Chase are relearning how to live and work with him. But when a seemingly alien artifact goes missing from Gabe’s old collection, a mystery is uncovered concerning its origins and it grants everyone an opportunity to dive into solving it as a team, once again.
When a lead on the artifact is tied to a dead pilot’s sole unrecorded trip, another clue leads to one of the greatest mysteries of the age: the infamous disappearance of a team of scientists aboard a space station orbiting a black hole–the Amelia Earhart of their time. With any luck, Alex, Chase, and Gabe may be on the trail of the greatest archaeological discovery of their careers.
Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt, who Stephen King has called “the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke,” has created another terrific science fiction mystery in his beloved Alex Benedict series.
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Octavia Gone is another successful McDevitt novel. Like most of his Alex Benedict stories, this is “mystery”. In this case, a research station and crew disappeared years ago without a trace. There is a second mystery but to avoid “spoilers” I am not going to say anything else about it. This novel reminded me of a police procedural novel – except there is no forensic lab. Instead, the investigators doggedly ask every question they can and follow up every lead they can in the hope that something new will turn up. My only complaint is how recognizable, how normal the far future seems to be. There are AIs, faster than light space travel, and telepathic aliens. But people and society seem relatively unchanged from today. There are restaurants, officious bureaucrats, arguments about ownership of historic artifacts, news programs, celebrities, etc. Family relationships, romance, even office politics seems unchanged. Perhaps the author feels that someone from 2000 years ago would feel people and the modern world were unchanged – except for some new tech (cars, TV, Internet, etc.). But I expect the far future to be significantly different and I sometimes stumble over McDevitt’s vision of the future. Nevertheless, I recommend all of his novels.
I both read and listened to this book because it can double the enjoyment when you can move seamlessly from one to the other. This book was written just as well as all the others before it, with the characters as well defined as they have always been. The new character is still a little less defined than some but good enough for how long he has been around. The visuals make this very good because you can see what he wants you to as far as the surroundings both on the planet and in space. The story is relayed by Chase as she writes the account of what happened during that time in her life and the lives of her bosses as they work to solve historical mysteries.
Alex and Chase are still getting used to the return of Alex’s Uncle Gabe after an 11-year absence after he and other passengers were saved from the Capella before it went back under. Gabe is trying to integrate himself back into their lives with an adult Alex as well as Chase who now works for him. Gabe had procured an alien artifact before he left on the Capella which belonged to someone who had been on the Octavia, a station that went missing just before he did. The artifact has gone missing and he wants to uncover the mystery of its origins.
While enjoyable I found the first few chapters a bit dull and lackluster. There was no real appeal and even Alex came off as being pretty boring. This was an Alex Benedict novel but it was mainly about Gabe and Chase for the majority with Alex thrown in here and there. I like Alex and he is the main reason I read the novels so I am going to have to get used to the addition of another Benedict male who is going to draw attention.
I also need to voice another thing I did not like about this which is an issue with the narrator of the audiobook. It annoys me when I am running the audio with my book and the narrator decides that they want to rewrite what is written. This particular narrator changed the order in which quotes were written when voicing them. The narrator also changed the dialogue in places by omitting or adding words and sentences. It’s no big deal when you are just listening because you have no idea if it is done or not.
But on the whole, I enjoyed the book and give a big thumbs up.
Clarification: 3.5 stars
This was the first Alex Benedict novel I’ve read, so I’m not up to date on everything that has happened in the past with these characters. Fortunately, this novel is not the kind where you need to have read the previous ones in the series to understand what is going on. Other than a few mysteries, I was able to pick up right from the start and dive in.
When I first began reading I found I needed to make a mental adjustment as the characters, despite being roughly 12,000 years in the future, somehow still have contemporary names, seem to use keyboards, watch television (HV) and more or less act and sound like people do today. Eventually I just had to accept this as a given in this world and go with it. However, when the main characters visit another alien world no one has discovered before, strangely, those aliens ALSO drive cars, live in apartments, watch television and eat dinner on plates. I guess what I’m saying is it didn’t feel alien at all, despite the world never having been touched by humanity before. If you’re reading these novels, I suppose that’s just something you have to accept.
I enjoyed the main characters, though they did feel emotionless at times. Especially Gabe and Alex in how they related to each other. Because we were in Chase’s POV, it was better with her, but at the same time she always maintained a very professional and detached demeanor.
I’m not sure if I’d read any of the other books in this series. While the story was interesting and the world-building (in the context of everything being very today-like) was good, I never really connected with anyone enough to continue to follow them on their adventures. But it was an interesting distraction for a while.