The Engines of God
| Author | Jack McDevitt |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins |
| Genre | Science fiction, mystery |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
|
Publication date
|
1994 (Hardcover edition) |
| Media type | Print (Paperback & Hardback) |
| Pages | 419 pages (paperback) |
| ISBN | (Paperback) |
| Followed by | Deepsix |
The Engines of God is a science fiction novel by American author Jack McDevitt.
Xeno-archaeologists, and interstellar pilot Priscilla Hutchins, attempt to unravel the mysteries surrounding tremendous monuments left near several habitable worlds in the solar neighborhood.
Humanity was introduced to the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life with the discovery of an alien statue on Iapetus, a moon of Saturn, which depicted an alien life form. Then, after the advent of faster-than-light travel, when humanity began to explore neighboring star systems, a number of other mysterious Monuments were quickly discovered.
Despite these discoveries, details about the "Monument-Makers" themselves remained elusive. In fact, even after decades of exploring, humanity had found disappointingly few habitable worlds, and even fewer signs of intelligent alien life. At the time, only three examples had been identified:
(a) The planet Pinnacle, which had evidently been home to an intelligent society that became extinct nearly a million years earlier, and had left very little trace of themselves on their now-inhospitable planet;
(b) The planet Quraqua, which had many similarities to Earth, had been home to an intelligent species (the Quraquans) until they became extinct just a few centuries prior; and
(c) Inakademeri - aka "Nok" - a moon of a ringed gas giant, and home to the only known living intelligent species, the Noks, although their technology was roughly equivalent to Earth's early 20th century, and at the time were locked in a long global conflict roughly analogous to World War I.
This lack of easily habitable worlds posed a significant problem because Earth itself was becoming increasingly inhospitable. By the year 2202, significant rise in sea-level due to centuries of pollution had altered the environment of the planet considerably, and famine was rampant in many parts of the world. Many hoped to somehow establish an off-world colony.
The story primarily follows Priscilla Hutchins - aka "Hutch" - a prestigious starship pilot for the Academy, (the archaeological organization responsible for many on- and off-world scientific endeavors.) Hutch receives orders to take the Academy ship "Winckelmann" and evacuate the final archaeological team on the planet Quraqua.
This evacuation is the result of a complicated series of political maneuvers, and is not favored by the Academy, which until this point had conducted extensive surveys of the planet in an attempt to learn about the former alien inhabitants of the world.
The now-extinct Quraquans had a complex history spanning tens of thousands of years, and scientists had expected to have an unlimited timeframe for scientific discovery.
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