In Jerusalem he made devices invented for use on the towers and on the corner defenses so that soldiers could shoot arrows and hurl large stones from the walls. His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful.

Reread for the first time since God knows when. Very impressive book, better than I recalled. This was the first of the Academy series, and introduced Priscilla Hutchins, starship pilot, who loses two beaux in this book, one to a gruesome (but valorous) battle with alien fauna. It's not that I can't enjoy writers that hold McDevitt's position. I don't imagine that his politics are all that different than Charles Stross, Kim Stanley Robinson, China Meiville, or my current favorite Sci-Fi author Iain M. Banks. It's just when I don't particularly enjoy the work AND don't agree with the ideas, the in your face shallow strawman didactic rants leap out and get annoying. The team was more determined than ever to recover at least some of the printing press artifacts. They wanted at least the chases that held sequences of symbols ready to print. The evacuation proceeded with only four people left on the planet, working to remove the chases. They not quite able to load the machines and themselves by the time the deadline passed, and the nuclear devices were detonated at the planet's poles. In a highly difficult maneuver, Hutch was able to pull the remaining individuals and key parts of the presses from the excavation. However, Richard Wald, the Monument-Maker expert and the last person pulled from the excavation, was killed.Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father did provide… Purtroppo per renderla potabile al grande pubblico si è macinato il concetto di fantascienza rendendolo un minestrone di puttanate, esplosioni, dischi volanti, dimensioni parallele. La fantascienza data in pasto al pubblico oggi è sostanzialmente fantasy. A group of xeno-archaeologists, together with interstellar pilot Priscilla Hutchins, attempt to unravel the mysteries surrounding huge, mysterious monuments left near several habitable worlds, including one on a moon orbiting Saturn. Another odd piece was a sequence involving crab-like creatures on a planet. It didn't seem to fit the rest of the narrative, and felt like something included solely to increase the "excitement." It did, I suppose, but it just didn't work for me. This book is a bit closer to the second book, Deepsix, which was a standalone story in the same universe. The difference is that Deepsix had a lot of action, adventure and there was still the mystery of what had happened on the planet. But nothing interesting ever happens on the Goompah planet. There's a little bit of action, but I couldn't bring myself to care about the outcome. The humans were bland and the aliens were an annoying fit to the "noble savage" template.

The short stories "Melville on Iapetus" (1983), "Promises to Keep" (1984), "Oculus" (2002), "The Big Downtown" (2005), [7] "Kaminsky at War" (2006), "Maiden Voyage" (2012), "Waiting at the Altar" (2012), and "The Cat's Pajamas" (2012) are also set in the Academy universe. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-10-13 20:08:40 Boxid IA40258108 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier In Jerusalem he set up machines, invented by skilled workers, on the towers and the corners for shooting arrows and large stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped until he became strong. And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, till he was strong. Basically, in the first few chapters we learn what the problem is and how it's going to be solved. The rest of the book is just the boring execution of that setup.

A different way to make games

He made skillfully designed devices in Jerusalem to shoot arrows and catapult large stones for use on the towers and on the corners. So his fame spread even to distant places, for he was wondrously helped until he became strong. Like most hard science fiction novels, “The Engines of God” suffers from prose that’s on the dry side. The ideas are ambitious and wonderful, but you never get a true sense of atmosphere. I mean, the very idea of an abandoned alien temple complex should inspire so many feelings: awe, terror, fascination, ominousness… But the descriptions of the settings are so minimal that you never really build up those feelings, which is a shame. It must also be noted that people with zero prior knowledge of how weird and complicated archaeology is probably will scratch their heads a bit from time to time: if you have no idea what the Rosetta Stone is and why it was so crucial to Egyptologists, you will probably wonder why everyone is getting their panties in a twist about finding the alien version of that. I do love that McDevitt makes his xenoarchaeology very believable (to me, for what that’s worth): his way of adapting an existing science to this speculative future setting rings perfectly true, with the described methods, terminology and specialties modified just so. In archaeology, the process of artifact preservation is actually really rare, and McDevitt turns that into the very existence of civilization being a rare occurrence, dependent on so many variables that need to have perfect timing to allow cultures to develop – making the discoveries of the Monuments all that more remarkable and significant. In Jerusalem he also made devices of war devised by skillful designers to be on the towers and on the corners for the purpose of shooting arrows and great stones. Hence his fame spread afar, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong.