- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Voyager; paperback / softback edition (4 Jun 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007108796
- ISBN-13: 978-0007108794
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 496,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Deepsix is concerned with the motivating force that drives all scientists--the quest for truth, for expanding the limits of human knowledge. How much are we willing to risk for that moment of discovery, of knowing what no other soul yet knows? Our time? Our reputations? Our careers? Our lives?
The premise is this-just weeks before the planet Deepsix will be destroyed by a collision with a gas giant, ruins are detected on its surface, suggesting the presence of civilisation. The Academy diverts scientists from the nearest spaceship to go down and explore, and they are joined by their century's Ellsworth Toohey: a misogynistic, sanctimonious gadfly who has never before been off of Earth's surface. The party's landers are destroyed in an earthquake induced by the approaching gas giant, so now they must find a way to get off Deepsix before it is destroyed by the collision. Needless to say, their excavations are placed on the back burner.
The science and technology, both the physics describing the space travel and the archaeology used to reconstruct the lost culture of Deepsix, are interesting and explained well. There is plenty of action and suspense-will the party survive? And the evolving characters and group dynamics are more complex than those usually found in science fiction books, making Deepsix a worthwhile read. --Diana Gitig, Amazon.com
Review
Praise for McDevitt:
‘Jack McDevitt is that splendid rarity… a storyteller first and a science fiction writer second. In his ability to absolutely rivet the reader, he is the logical heir to Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke… . Snatch this baby up, all right? You’re going to love it even if you think you don’t like science fiction. You might even want to drop me a thank-you note for the tip before racing out to your local bookstore to pick up the Jack McDevitt backlist’ STEPHEN KING
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
How Sci Fi should be...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Deepsix (Paperback)
Deepsix is the perfect Sci Fi read, it's got action, adventure, romance, spaceships and aliens (?). The plot of the team being stranded on the planet about to be devoured by a gas giant, and they've got to escape is a simple one, but works like a dream. Coming toward the end of the book was a real shame as the planet held many mysteries and more. More planetary exploration would have been appreciated perhaps, but thats just me. I also felt genuine loss for the planet and all that it held.. But it did stir emotions of loss, a whole planet still really undiscovered.. Jacks writing is easy and flows well, and has already got me searching for his next book to order. Thoroughly recommended!!!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deepsix? In Deep s**t more like!,
By Steve "---steve---" (Littlehampton) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Deepsix (Paperback)
.I loved this book. I was disappointed with the Engines of God, that had more of the archaeology content that I liked, but jumped around too much and was very shallow. This book is different. Hutch is dropped right in it again. Piloting the only “lander” the academy has in the area, Hutch has to pop into a planet that has visible signs of a past civilisation. The only problem – a rogue gas giant is within 3 weeks of colliding with the planet. You know from the offset that they will get stuck on the planet, so the storyline is set for an adventure to survive an alien environment, gather archaeological data and escape the doomed planet before it disintegrates. The characters might have been developed a little further, but on the whole we had the right mix of good, bad, antagonists, heroes, cowards, boffins and fools. The pace is good, the alien environment well thought out and the balance between adventure and science about right. McDevitt has no compunction about killing off main characters, so you can never be sure that anyone will survive the book, which adds to the suspense. The desperate attempts to extract data and it’s meanings about an entire global spanning culture in just a couple of weeks, gets you wondering about the finality of the event. If nothing could be rescued, who’d know they ever existed? I found I didn’t want to put the book down. It’s a great read and I look forward to Chindi.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Americans in Space,
By Rod Williams (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Deepsix (Paperback)
The sequel to ‘Engines of God’ sees Hutch – the diminutive pilot introduced in the aforesaid novel – once again involved in last-minute xeno-archaeology. The planet Maleiva III (Deepsix) is about to be cannon-balled by a rogue gas-giant which has entered the system from the depths of space. Although explorers visited the planet twenty years previously to investigate its six-billion year old biosphere and the highly evolved predators which inhabit the world it is only now that it is about to be engulfed that evidence of a sapient but apparently extinct civilisation has been found. Hutch, being the only pilot with a lander capable of visiting the planet and near enough to reach the planet in time, is asked to head a team to try and salvage what artefacts and evidence they can before Maleiva III is destroyed. In ‘Engines of God’ of course, Hutch was on another planet helping a team to excavate an alien temple before terraforming destroyed all evidence. Thankfully, that is where the similarities end. ‘Deepsix’ is a much tighter novel in that McDevitt confines the action to one location and the alien mysteries, far from being a backdrop, complement the unfolding human drama and provide a perfect balance between the two. McDevitt, as we cannot fail to be aware, is an American. He has a great eye for character and detail, but one wonders whether he ever really stopped to consider whether any interstellar culture as this could really be populated so heavily by Americans. There is one Frenchman and a Russian, I must point out, but that seems to be McDevitt’s only concession to a multi-cultural society.
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