Teaser

When renowned antiques dealer Alex Benedict is shown a plastic cup, he he has little idea of its providence. Nevertheless, he and assistant Chase Kolpath soon find themselves on the trail of a famed lost expedition . . .

Review

Well, it took me long enough but I finally got around to continuing with Jack McDevitt. Not through lack of trying, it must be said. I read A Talent for War back in early 2023, and have been on the lookout for more of his books ever since. He doesn’t seem to have made an impact on UK booksellers, however, and it wasn’t until this March that I found another of his books in the wild. It’s worth noting that there is a copy of A Talent for War floating around my local charity shop, which is a bit weird. Anyway, Seeker isn’t the second in the series, but the third. Thankfully the stories are standalone, so I dived right in.

McDevitt took a long break between writing the first and second novels in the Alex Benedict series, but has been pretty regular with instalments since, with the ninth being published last year. Not bad going for a man who recently celebrated his eighty-ninth birthday. I suspect A Talent for War was initially envisioned as a standalone, but I am more than happy to see the universe continue. The major shift between the first book and the others is the change in narration style. The first was a classic multi-PoV epic. The rest are first-person narrated. Not by Alex Benedict, but by his assistant and companion Chase Kolpath. She’s very much the Watson to his Holmes. Subordinate in some ways, but driving the plot in others.

Seeker takes everything I enjoyed about A Talent for War and delivers it in a slightly neater package. Once again we have an epic space opera driven by something other than violence. Yes, there’s plenty of action, but the stakes are considerably less galactic than you might expect from the genre. I suppose you could call this series ‘Indiana Jones in Space’, and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. That description undersells just how thoughtful this book is, however. It’s not a madcap race for treasure. Instead we have a serious approach to archaeology. McDevitt’s universe has a history of thousands of years, with dark ages, renaissances, lost colonies, and mysterious worlds aplenty. It’s a setting that demands investigation, and that is precisely what this series offers us.

This is quite a slow novel. It starts with a cup, and ends up at a lost colony, travelling via ruined spaceships, alien museums, and the odd explosive murder attempt. Throughout all this, however, the pacing is calm, contemplative, and even sedate. The focus is not on the action, but on the intrigue. On the earnest desire to understand history. Sure, Benedict is planning to turn a profit from the search, but he still goes about it in a scientific manner. That means there are red herrings and dead ends, but they’re given as much serious thought as any of the real leads. Any of the leads could be genuine, and at no point could I tell where we were heading next. In hindsight, however, ever twist seems obvious, which is exactly as it should be.

Stylistically, McDevitt feels as though he’s from another era. Everything about the setting screams Golden Age, but the writing itself is downright modern. I’d even go so far as to say this is what cosy science fiction should look like. Not cloying and sentimental, but earnest and full of heart. It’s a story that moves at its own pace, and goes in its own way. Something a little different from the usual crash-bang-wallop of space opera. I’d say I wish there was more of this kind of story, but for now I’m just glad to have this special little corner of the genre available to me.

My first encounter with Jack McDevitt may have been a rough one, but if A Talent for War and Seeker are anything to go by, I may have found a new favourite science fiction series.

Book Stats

• An Alex Benedict Novel (#3)
• Published in 2005 by Ace
• 373 Pages