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Another M. Murcek Review: Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict books
Alex is an antiquities dealer, and in the year 11,000 (by our time, not theirs, as our calendar is one more lost antiquity in these stories), there are a lot more antiquities out there to find, recover and sell. Alex loves a mystery and he brings that hunger to his work. Mankind is spread out over portions of the Milky Way, encountering new opportunities, new problems, and finally, intelligent galactic neighbors, a telepathic, not entirely friendly race known to most humans as "the Mutes." In the distant future, much of the distant past has been lost. At one point, Alex muses "Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what Lincoln looked like? What his voice was like?" This is a jolt for the reader, realizing that history we consider well known now can be lost in the future. Alex’s right hand is superluminal pilot Chase Kolpath. It turns out human women have a physiological advantage over men at flying faster than light ships and Chase handles the Artificial Intelligence equipped Belle-Marie like she was born to it. As her mother was also an FTL pilot, maybe Chase was born to it. In one episode, Chase is flying a different ship and the AI tells her, "You are the only human I have ever met that makes me wish that perhaps I was human myself." The issue of whether AIs are being treated by humans as second class citizens is a recurrent theme in these stories, and in one case, Belle takes control of the situation in a HAL like manner that leads to historic changes in how most humans view and interact with AIs. In their adventures, Alex and Chase recover the legendary space warrior Christopher Sim’s flagship (A Talent for War), unravel the disappearance of the FTL space yacht Polaris (Polaris) and help rescue the interstellar Capella, a ship lost for years in hyperspace after an experiment gone wrong (Coming Home). In this amazing future, politics and media shenanigans are all too familiar. The human race has broken the speed of light and learned to interact with non-human intelligence, but still needs to gossip, connive and make costly mistakes. At every step, it’s Alex’s idealism and urge to solve a mystery focused by Chase’s practicality and savvy piloting that moves the stories along. If I have any complaint about these books, it’s that the supporting characters are often drawn a little thinly. The other side of that coin is the interactions between the humans and the Mutes are at times spine tingling. The concept of a species that can read our minds is unsettling and provocative in McDevitt’s presentation. The Mutes are not confused or tormented by the mental hubbub around them. They have it totally under control. Still, they can’t best their human counterparts. The recurrent characters are all well fleshed out and drive the stories effectively. In the end, you want to root for Alex and Chase just as you want to root for the crew of the Enterprise. I think that’s what any healthy sci-fi reader hopes for from our future selves in a hostile galaxy. I know it’s what I want from the sci-fi I’m willing to read. I’d like to visit Skydeck and take a trip on the Belle-Marie myself. Jack McDevitt has written more than 20 science fiction novels and dozens of short stories. His other big series is the Pricilla Hutchence books. He’s a repeat Nebula Award winner. Posted by: M. Murcek 2021-06-19 |
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