The Long Sunset (The Academy) Hardcover – April 17, 2018

The human worlds that once fostered exploration and adventure have veered into deep xenophobia, fearful of what evil germs and aliens might be lurking out in the vastness of the universe. The expense of the interstellar exploration trips has also made politicians reluctant to greenlight further outings. The aliens found so far haven't been very remarkable, nor high tech.The Angel statue on Iapetus, a doleful alien gazing at Saturn, and some associated monuments are the only representation of what seems to be a high tech civilization. But what did they do, except leave art works and mysterious stelae here and there?Two new telescopes are brought online, and in the process of fine-tuning their adjustments, a brief broadcast is captured by one of them that has sound and video capability. It's a waterfall, unlike any Earthly fall, surrounded by unknown vegetation, and there's background music reminiscent of Earth's classical music.The exploration interstellars are about to be shut down forever, but an inspired man manages to assemble a quick expedition to the constellation where the waterfall might be, a try at finding intelligent life one last time. Priscilla Hutchins, "Hutch," pilots the last remaining interstellar from the dock as they run away from commands to shut everything down and cancel the trip.The Locarno drive carries them at high speeds toward the point of interest, and once there, they use the astronomical records to identify the right star and planet...but there isn't one there. The landmarks recorded by the telescope aren't in the right place. Finally it's recognized that something killed that world, the one that transmitted a scene of a beautiful waterfall to a planetary cluster light-years away. A black hole swept at least two planets into oblivion...and it's only some sixty years away from destroying another world, a world of sea and islands, with endearing inhabitants that look like porpoises or dolphins.Hutch and three other members of the trip take the lander down to the planet for a tour, and to get a closer look at these people. A breakdown causes them to crash in the sea, and they all get much better acquainted with the dolphin people who come to their aid. It takes time to get the lander out of the ocean, and meanwhile the group stays with a friendly male who seems to be a pastor. The residents help Hutch's team make contact with the interstellar above and alert the remaining member onboard that there's going to be a delay in their return.These are nice folks. Too nice to just ignore while they die. There's about three million of them. Can they be moved elsewhere in their neighborhood (roughly speaking) to start over? Hutch has already found a planet where one of the other civilizations fled from the black hole. Can these people help the dolphin people? Or can humanity help?

I wanted to like this book. I've read some of McDevitt's other work, including in this series, with enjoyment. And this one is readable, but only just. For me, anyway, one of the problems with it is that it relies on a framework of quasi-plausibility. OK, you accept the usual science fiction memes of FTL travel and AI personalities, etc. But McDevitt glosses over the philosophical and physical science issues. It's almost better to just ignore them, like, for example Jack Vance, who just has spaceships as a given. If you're going to talk about it how they work and how they were developed in a seemingly literal minded future history background, you need to somehow come to grips with the paradoxes. McDevitt sets up situations where time dilation is higly problematical, but then just ignores the problems. Even more irritiating, to me anyway, is is total refusal to grapple with Fermi Conundrum issues, and his sloppy astronomy. He describes a globular culture as having many F, K, and G stars, and treats the narrative's encounter with a globular in the disk of the galaxy as routine. He has the characters speculate that there must be "many civilizations" in the densely packed cluster. This completely ignores the actual facts about globulars, which is that they populate the spherical halo of galaxies, so most of them are located far from the disk (only ones happening to be passing through are in the disk, and that's a tiny minority... maybe worth mentioning?). And even more problematic is that globulars' stars are so called Population II, ancient very metal-poor stars. They would not be expected to host rocky planets or give rise to terrestrial-like worlds or life. This is pretty common knowledge among people with even passing interest in astronomy. Here, and in general, he also ignores the fact that most stars are red dwarfs. When the crew (one of whom somehow qualified as an astronaut even though she didn't know what parallax is, which any ten year old with an interest in astronomy knows)....was searching for worlds that might harbor life near the scene of the black hole, they find a high percentage of F, G, and K dwarfs even though something like 70% of all stars are red dwarfs; and among these stars are a high percentage of planets very similar to Earth, even though we now know, from over 2,000 exoplanets, that planets vary greatly, and planets similar enough to Earth for humans to breathe the atmosphere, with oceans, similar gravity, etc., are EXTREMELY rare. Out of 100 stars you would expect, on average, to find NONE... you'd need a much bigger sample to have any reasonable expectation of finding any. These quibbles may seem like nitpicking, but this is supposed to be 'hard' science fiction, and it's just pure laziness to not conform to commonly understood facts.

I've read J. McD. for years and never gotten a real clunker.Like any author some are better than others but all have a 'voice' that resonates with me.THIS one shows a late stage mature society in flux and provides a wonderful opportunity for growth!Enjoy, I envy you!

Easily one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. McDevitt knows how to spin a story. He also knows how to elicit emotion. My wife caught me with a tear in my eye.Thank you Jack

I should admit that I'm a big fan of Jack McDevitt in general (love his "Talent for War" in particular) but generally prefer the Alex Benedict series to the Hutch series (of which this is a part). This one didn't really work for me, for a number of reasons - I felt a sense of deja vu reading this, so many of the plot elements having been used before; the aliens also felt decidely "non-alien" like Star Trek aliens that are just humans with different ears!; and the plot felt a bit unstructured and like a child's story - "this happened and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened" rather than a structure narrative it just felt like a repetitive sequence of the crew bumping into one lot of aliens after another. Disappointing, but perhaps I'm jaded by familiarity with so many of this other books - just not much new here.

A nice round off to the series. As usual, the writing dragged me along, as all McDevitt books do, he writes with skill and the reading is effortless. However, unlike earlier novels in this series the plot although nice had no real bite. I still enjoyed it and wouldn't want to put readers off and indeed I'll read it again. I just found some of the plot turns to be too 'pat', unbelievable. Would aliens act like that? Good read but not his best.

Interesting read - a nice take on the political future approach of the North American Union to strangers . . .

I have enjoyed this series of novels - however this one is, to my mind, disappointing. It is almost as if it needed a final novel - so lets write one, but not worry about plot.

... aber total!Start der story war viel versprechend: unendliche Diskussionen über das Für & Wider einer Mission zu einer 7000 Lichtjahre entfernten Quelle von sinnvollen Signalen.Das zusammengewürfelte Team, halbes Duzend, startet überhastet in ihrem Raumschiff, nur teilweise gewartet und ohne offizielle Genehmigung.Nun ja, diese Quelle sollte in Windeseile erreichbar sein, dank einer Super Duper Technik, über die nie ein Wort verloren wurde. Sie ist halt da! Hab ich ein prequel verpasst?Und von da an ging es nur noch bergab. Soll ich jetzt abbrechen? Noch unsicher.....Die Reise wurde mit Videos und endlosem Gelaber verkürzt, leider nicht für den Leser, der, um weiter zu kommen, überfliegen musste.Zwischendurch kleine Panne, das Raumschiff schwächelt und ruckelt, also ab in den Normalraum.Für die Insassen null problemo, eine Sicherung wurde in Windeseile gefunden & gewechselt.Die Signalquelle wurde nicht gefunden, falsche Positionsbestimmungen, um 30 Lichtjahre daneben. Nun ja, bei 7000 Lichtjahren, ... doch ganz ordentlich!Natürlich blitzschnell korrigiert, sozusagen nach dem Frühstück. Bleibt dabei, .. nicht gefunden. Also machen wir mal einen Rundflug.Was man so entdeckt, ein black hole, uninteressant. Aber weit im All per Teleskop ein Zelt auf einem Planeten entdeckt. Teufel auch, Technik vom Feinsten!Natürlich gibt es eine Landeeinheit, die Zelte hatten menschenähnliche, scheue Bewohner. Interessant, aber weiter. Die "Gegend" um das black hole scheint bevölkert zu sein?Also weiter, mal ein paar Planeten unter die Lupe nehmen. Erstaunlich ist, dass auch in tausenden Lichtjahren die verlassenen Bauten unseren Vorstellungen entsprechen. Mit Büros und Telefon und Kindergarten, undund .....Insgesamt benehmen sich die Wissenschaftler wie gehirnamputiert, tut irgendwie weh.....Soll ich jetzt abbrechen?Ein unbekanntes Opjekt taucht auf, mit aufgemalten Symbolen. Die Nerds stellen fest, dass sie nicht christlich sind. Auweia ......Und schaffen es, nach Enterung sich darin zu verirren, mühsam gerettet. Spannung kam nicht auf, leider.Ein Planet, schon wieder zivilisiert, Wesen laufen in kurzen Hosen und haben Sonnenschirme und Badehandtücher. Mal näher ran.Es kommt wie erwartet, die Landeeinheit zerbröselt und klatscht ins Meer.Schwimmen zum Strand, Einwohner sind menschenähnlich, 5 Finger, natürlich grosse Augen. Ach ja, die Luft ist atembar. Schnelle Freundschaft mit den aliens und Einladung.Verblüffend, fast wie zuhause! Jeans und Pullover, Licht, Telefon, Kühlschrank .....Hier ist mir endgültig der Kragen geplatzt! Meinenwegen soll es in tausenden Lichtjahren Kopien unserer Zivilisation geben, aber dieser Erguss ist als scifi schwer erträglich und irgendwie unbeholfen und fast kindisch. Und vorhersehbar: natürlich Autos, Thermostate, Klimaanlage, Flüssigwaschmittel, Wäscheklammern ....Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass ich durch vorzeitiges löschen was verpasse .....Psobschon leicht angerwidert, weiter: der Depp im Raumschiff scheint auf den nächsten Seiten keine Hilfe. Ach ja, es fehlt eine Taschenlampe zum signalisieren.So, ... finito .... endgültig!