The Devil's Eye: An Alex Benedict Novel
Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt is “the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke” (Stephen King).Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict receives a cryptic message asking for help from celebrated writer Vicki Greene—who has been mind-wiped. She has no memory of her past life, or of her plea for assistance. But she has transferred an enormous sum of money to Alex, also without explanation. The answers to this mystery lie on the most remote of human worlds, where Alex will uncover a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval—a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden, though the price of that silence is unimaginable…
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
McDevitt fills the fourth far-future Alex Benedict adventure (after 2005's Nebula-winning Seeker) with historical details and thrilling stunts as well as sharp political allegory. When famous horror writer Vicki Greene leaves antiquities dealer Alex a desperate message and then voluntarily has her memory erased, he and his pilot companion, Chase Kolpath, follow clues literally to the end of the galaxy, where Vicky had been researching her next novel. Official threats and a kidnapping reveal a planet-threatening catastrophe, covered up for years by hapless bureaucrats. As panic ensues and evacuation looks hopeless, the space opera turns into commentary on government reaction to emergencies and the values of openness. McDevitt balances the two sides of his story well, never losing sight of either the fast-paced action or the message behind it. (Nov.)
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Review
“No one writing today is better than McDevitt at combining galaxy-spanning adventure with the genuine novel of ideas.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Jack McDevitt is a master at describing otherworldly grandeur.”
—Denver Post
“Why read Jack McDevitt? The question should be: Who among us is such a slow pony that s/he isn’t reading McDevitt?”
—Harlan Ellison
“You should definitely read Jack McDevitt.”
—Gregory Benford
About the Author
Jack McDevitt is a former naval officer, taxi driver, English teacher, customs officer, and motivational trainer, and is now a full-time writer.
Customer Reviews
Okay....
"God help me, they're all dead."
And so begins the next interstellar adventure of Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath. They receive the cryptic message from horror novelist, Vicki Greene. Unfortunately, Vicki can no longer tell them what her message refers to and so Alex and Chase are recreating her most recent journey, one that leads them to the mysterious world of Salud Afar. What they find is a government conspiracy and a battle between two races that reaches apocalyptic proportions. Is there any hope at all?
Admittedly, I have read only one other book by Jack McDevitt, ANCIENT SHORES, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. THE DEVIL'S EYE didn't quite live up to my expectations.
The characters of Alex and Chase are engaging. Both are well developed and it is quite easy to jump into the fourth book of the series and still feel like you "know" the characters. Jack McDevitt does a wonderful job with character development, even on his secondary characters and the side stories set in the world of Salud Afar are entertaining.
However, the story loses momentum as the depths of the government conspiracy begin to unveil. Jack McDevitt has a powerful point to make but the story is too close to reality in that the main characters are stuck in limbo all too frequently, waiting to speak with bureaucrats and hear what official decisions will be handed down. Chase shows a clever side (the taxi scene is priceless) in dealing with the various situations but a little more forward momentum in the storyline would have made THE DEVIL'S EYE soar to a much higher rating.
COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES
A departure from previous Benedict novels...
I was very excited to get the new Alex Benedict novel by Jack McDevitt, having read "Seeker" and "Polaris" and being a big fan of both. In those, the author wove together hard sci-fi with intriguing archaeological mysteries for the characters to unravel. "The Devil's Eye" begins much the same way as previous books, with a tantalizing cryptic message, a seemingly impenetrable puzzle, and what appears, at first, to be an unrelated historical occurrence. But the mystery, which grabbed me and kept me reading, is fully resolved halfway through the novel, and that's when, in my opinion, the story takes a nose dive. Instead of mystery and suspense, McDevitt turns "The Devil's Eye" into... well, into "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" - in short, it becomes a novel about political posturing. The author is experienced enough to never let the story get bogged down too much, but the novel feels like two different books, and to my taste, they don't mesh well, and frankly, it's not what I've come to expect from this fictional duo.
My other disappointment was how the author appears to be running out of original ideas; the SF here isn't mind-blowing, I won't give it away, but I was let down by the reveal. And there are moments where the author steals ideas from his previous novels, and he even repeats events *within* "The Devil's Eye" - there are at least two crises which are duplicated, with small changes, later in the story. Finally, the ending seems rushed and all too convenient - tacked on to provide the requisite happy ending for all involved. He doesn't even give Alex an archeological puzzle to solve, which has been the cornerstone of the two previous books - here, the token "treasure" pretty much falls into his lap. I've viewed the Alex Benedict books as a kind of "Indiana Jones" of the future, but this one changed the pattern, to lesser effect. All in all, a disappointing entry.
Great but not the best
This is a solid work and thoroughly enjoyable for fans of the Alex Benedict stories. It is a page-turner and very consistent with the best themes of the series.
I was a little disappointed that it introduces no new technical elements (I'm a hard SF guy). The universe shifts politically during the story but not scientifically. Also, the ending seems just a little dragged out.
It makes me wonder how far this series can go without running out of steam. The underlying story is great and kept me guessing. But each individual crisis is resolved in basically the same way time after time.
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