Jack McDevitt Books In Order

Alex Benedict Books In Publication Order

  1. A Talent for War (1989)
  2. Polaris (2004)
  3. Seeker (2005)
  4. The Devil’s Eye (2008)
  5. Echo (2010)
  6. Firebird (2011)
  7. Coming Home (2014)
  8. Octavia Gone (2019)

The Academy Books In Publication Order

  1. The Engines of God (1994)
  2. Deepsix (2000)
  3. Chindi (2002)
  4. Omega (2003)
  5. Odyssey (2006)
  6. Cauldron (2007)
  7. Starhawk (2013)
  8. The Long Sunset (2018)

Ancient Shores Books In Publication Order

  1. Ancient Shores (1996)
  2. Thunderbird (2015)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. The Hercules Text (1986)
  2. Eternity Road (1997)
  3. Moonfall (1998)
  4. Infinity Beach / Slow Lightning (2000)
  5. Hello Out There (2000)
  6. Time Travelers Never Die (2009)
  7. The Cassandra Project (With: Mike Resnick) (2012)
  8. A Voice in the Night (2018)

Collections In Publication Order

  1. Standard Candles (1996)
  2. Outbound (2006)
  3. Cryptic (2009)

Defending the Future Books In Publication Order

  1. Dogs of War: Reissued (By:Brenda Cooper,,Mike McPhail) (2013)
  2. The Best of Defending the Future (2016)

The Universe of Xuya Books In Publication Order

  1. The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24 (By:Gardner R. Dozois) (2011)
  2. Carbide Tipped Pens (With: Ben Bova,Aliette Bodard,,Gregory Benford,Daniel H. Wilson,Liu Cixin) (2014)

Full Spectrum Books In Publication Order

  1. Full Spectrum 1 (With: ,,Lewis Shiner,Kevin J. Anderson,James K. Morrow,Gregory Benford,Jeff Mariotte,,,,,Nancy Kress,,,,Michael Blumlein,Jeffrey J. Mariotte,,Doug Beason) (1988)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985)
  2. Full Spectrum 1 (1988)
  3. Time Machines (1997)
  4. Going Interstellar (2012)
  5. Carbide Tipped Pens (2014)
  6. Future Visions (2015)
  7. The Best of Defending the Future (2016)
  8. Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries, and Lore (2017)

Alex Benedict Book Covers

The Academy Book Covers

Ancient Shores Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Defending the Future Book Covers

The Universe of Xuya Book Covers

Full Spectrum Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Jack McDevitt Books Overview

A Talent for War

Christopher Sim changed mankind’s history forever when he forged a rag tag group of misfits into the weapon that broke the alien Ashiyyur. But now, one man believes Sim was a fraud, and Alex must follow the legend into the heart of the alien galaxy to confront a truth far stranger than any fiction. Reissue.

Polaris

The luxury space yacht Polaris carried an elite group of the wealthy and curious thousands of light years from Earth to witness a spectacular stellar phenomenon. It never returned. The search party sent to investigate found the Polaris empty and adrift in space, the fate of its pilot and passengers a mystery. Sixty years later, prominent antiquities dealer Alex Benedict is determined to find the truth about Polaris no matter how far he must travel across the stars, no matter the risk.

Seeker

Thousands of years after an entire colony mysteriously disappears, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict comes into possession of a cup that seems to be from the Seeker, one of the colony’s ships. Investigating the provenance of the cup, Alex and his assistant Chase follow a deadly trail to the Seeker strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.

The Devil’s Eye

Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt is the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke Stephen King. Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict receives a cryptic message asking for help from celebrated writer Vicki Greene who has been mind wiped. She has no memory of her past life, or of her plea for assistance. But she has transferred an enormous sum of money to Alex, also without explanation. The answers to this mystery lie on the most remote of human worlds, where Alex will uncover a secret connected to a decades old political upheaval a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden, though the price of that silence is unimaginable

Echo

A new novel of the fantastic unknown by the national bestselling author of Time Travelers Never Die. Eccentric Sunset Tuttle spent his life searching in vain for forms of alien life. Thirty years after his death, a stone tablet inscribed with cryptic, indecipherable symbols is found in the possession of Tuttle’s onetime lover, and antiquities dealer Alex Benedict is anxious to discover what secret the tablet holds. It could be proof that Tuttle had found what he was looking for. To find out, Benedict and his assistant embark on their own voyage of discovery one that will lead them directly into the path of a very determined assassin who doesn’t want those secrets revealed.

The Engines of God

An unknown race called the Monument Makers creates a stunning array of gorgeous statues, scattering them throughout the galaxy and encoding them with strange inscriptions that hold the key to the survival of humankind. AB. K.

Deepsix

A spellbinding epic adventure of discovery, catastrophe, and survival from one of the most masterful storytellers in speculative fiction. In the year 2204, tragedy and terror forced a scientific team to prematurely evacuate Maleiva III. Twenty one years later, the opportunity for scientists to study this galactic rarity a life supporting planet is about to vanish forever, as a rogue gas giant has invaded the planetary system on a deadly collision course with the world they are now calling Deepsix.A superluminal pilot for the Academy of Science and Technology, Priscilla ‘Hutch’ Hutchins is the only even remotely qualified professional within lightyears of Deepsix. With less than three weeks left before the disaster, she and a small scientific team including Randall Nightingale, a survivor of the original expedition who was made the scapegoat for its failure must descend to the surface, and glean whatever they can about the doomed planet’s lifeforms and lost civilizations. There is more to this strange and complex world, however, than anyone could have imagined: hidden predators; stone cities under the ice; remnants of a warlike, primitive society, yet with inexplicable hints of an impossible technology buried in the rubble…
and in orbit around the soon to be demolished planet. The deeper Hutch and her team delve, the more puzzles are revealed within puzzles, and startling discoveries lead only to greater and more perplexing questions. But then the unthinkable occurs. An earthquake destroys the explorers’ only means of escape. As scientists and sightseers who have come to witness the spectacular end of Deepsix watch helplessly from miles above, Hutch and her people must survive somehow on a hostile planet going rapidly mad. And with the clock ticking relentlessly toward an unavoidable apocalypse, they must find some way, any way, to get off before Deepsix plunges like a pebble into the limitless depths of the rampaging gas giant. From the acclaimed author of Infinity Beach comes the ultimate survival adventure a riveting, relentlessly suspenseful, awesomely possible tale with a firm foundation in hard science which showcases the best and the worst aspects of complex human nature. It is yet another stunning achievement by Jack McDevitt, proving without a doubt that he is indeed the true heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.

Chindi

The universe has been explored and humanity has all but given up on finding other intelligent life. Then an alien satellite orbiting a distant star sends out an unreadable signal. Is it the final programmed gasp of an ancient, long dead race? Or the first greeting of an undiscovered life form?

Omega

A civilization destroying Omega cloud has switched direction, heading straight for a previously unexplored planetary system and its alien society. And suddenly, a handful of brave humans must try to save an entire world without revealing their existence.

Odyssey

Multiple Nebula Award finalist Jack McDevitt returns to the world of Chindi and Omega and humanity’s struggle with its own existence.

To boost waning interest in interstellar travel, a mission is sent into deep space to learn the truth about ‘moonriders,’ the strange lights supposedly being seen in nearby systems. But the team soon discovers that their Odyssey is no mere public relations ploy, for the moonriders are not a harmless phenomenon. They are very, very dangerous in a way that no one could possibly have imagined.

Cauldron

The year is 2255. The academy that trained the starfarers is long gone and veteran star pilot Priscilla ‘Hutch’ Hutchins spends her retirement supporting fund raising efforts for The Prometheus Foundation, a privately funded organization devoted to deep space exploration. But when a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, Hutch finds herself back in the deepest reaches of space, and on the verge of discovering the origins of the deadly Omega clouds that continue to haunt her.

Ancient Shores

It turned up in a North Dakota wheat field: a triangle, like a shark’s fin, sticking up from the black loam. Tom Lasker did what any farmer would have done. He dug it up. And discovered a boat, made of a fiberglass like material with an utterly impossible atomic number. What it was doing buried under a dozen feet of prairie soil two thousand miles from any ocean, no one knew. True, Tom Lasker’s wheat field had once been on the shoreline of a great inland sea, but that was a long time ago ten thousand years ago.

A return to science fiction on a grand scale, reminiscent of the best of Heinlein, Simak, and Clarke, Ancient Shores is the most ambitious and exciting SF triumph of the decade, a bold speculative adventure that does not shrink from the big questions and the big answers.

Eternity Road

The Roadmakers left only ruins behind but what magnificent ruins! Their concrete highways still cross the continent. Their cups, combs and jewelry are found in every Illyrian home. They left behind a legend,too a hidden sanctuary called Haven, where even now the secrets of their civilization might still be found. Chaka’s brother was one of those who sought to find Haven and never returned. But now Chaka has inherited a rare Roadmaker artifact a book called A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court which has inspired her to follow in his footsteps. Gathering an unlikely band of companions around her, Chaka embarks upon a journey where she will encounter bloodthirsty rirver pirates, electronic ghosts who mourn their lost civilization and machines that skim over the ground and air. Ultimately, the group will learn the truth about their own mysterious past.

Moonfall

It’s the 21st century, and all is right with the world. Or so it seems.

Vice President Charlie Haskell, who will travel anywhere for a photo op, is about to cut the ribbon for the just completed American Moonbase. The first Mars voyage is about to leave high orbit, with a woman at the helm. Below, the world is marveling at a rare solar eclipse.

But all that is right is about to go disastrously wrong when an amateur astronomer discovers a new comet. Named for its discover, Tomikois a ‘sun grazer,’an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. And it is headed straight for our moon.

In less than five days, if scientists’ predictions are right, Tomiko will crash into the moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on the earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities…
or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide ‘extinction event.’

In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn’t room, or time enough, for everyone. And the vice president, who rashly promised to be last off ‘I will lock the door and turn off the lights’, is trying to figure out how to get away without eating his words.

In Moonfall,McDevitt has created a disaster thriller of truly epic proportions, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters: the reluctant Russian rocket jockey entrusted with the lives of squabbling refugees; the woman chosen to be first on the moon; the scientist who must deflect the ‘possum’ POSSible IMpactors knocked from orbit or witness the end science itself. And at the center of it all is Charlie Haskell, the career politician who discovers his own unexpected reserves of only himself and his country, but for all humankind.

Moonfall,is a spellbinding tale of heroism and hope, cowardice and passion played against the awesome spectacle of human history’s darkest night.

/Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content Over the last few years, Jack McDevitt has quietly been producing an outstanding collection of science fiction novels. Earlier works such as The Engines of God and Ancient Shores had a thoughtful, archeological exploration bent, but with Moonfall he takes off the gloves to create a splashy, near future science fiction thriller with a big cast of characters and a do or die attitude. At the center of the story is Charlie Haskell, the U.S. vice president, who in 2024 an election year has arrived at the American Moonbase to cut the ribbon and declare it operational. But there’s a problem, and it’s a doozy: a ‘sun grazer’ comet, with immense mass and speed, is on a collision course with the moon. Haskell, with an eye to his public image, puts himself at the bottom of the evacuation list. But time grows critically short, and soon more than his political future is in jeopardy broken chunks of moon will begin exploding outwards. If they reach Earth, some of the chunks are big enough to cause an extinction event. McDevitt pays attention to his science while revving the action, and the stakes couldn’t be higher: Haskell’s choices will decide who lives and who dies if anyone survives at all. Blaise Selby

Infinity Beach / Slow Lightning

We are alone. That is the verdict, after centuries of SETI searches and space exploration. The only living things in the Universe are found on the Nine Worlds settled by Earthlings, and the starships that knit them together. No life has been found. No intelligent aliens, no strange ecologies, no awesome civilizations. Not even an amoeba, a lichen, a germ. The Universe is as sterile as a laboratory that was used only once. Or so it seems, until Dr. Kimberly Brandywine undertakes to find out what happened to her sister and clone Emily, who, after the final, unsuccessful manned SETI expedition, disappeared along with four others one of them a famous war hero. But they were not the only ones to vanish: so did an entire village, destroyed by a still unexplained explosion. Following a few ominous clues including a model of a starship that never existed Kim discovers that the log of the ill fated Hunter was faked. Something happened, out there in the darkness between the stars. Someone was murdered and something was brought back. Something that still leaves ghostly traces in the night. Kim is prepared to go to any length to find out the truth, even if it means giving up her career with Beacon, the most colossal and controversial of all the SETI projects. Even if it means stealing a starship. Even if it means giving up her only love. Kim is about to discover the answer to life’s oldest question. And she’s going to like the answer even less than she imagines. With his trademark ingenuity, scientific audacity, and narrative energy, Jack McDevitt has penned a mystery in which humankind is the detective and the universe itself is the corpse. Infinity Beach takes us into the strange, yet strangely familiar, civilization of our own far future and into the heart of a bold woman whose search for her family’s secret leads her to the greatest discovery of all time.

Hello Out There

Here, together in a single volume, are the two novels that launched Jack McDevitt’s reputation as a writer of suspenseful, thoughtful, sense of wonder science fiction. Hello, Out There contains The Hercules Text, winner of the 1986 Philip K. Dick Special Award, and A Talent for War. The Hercules Text has been totally rewritten and updated for this edition. Most of us are attracted to the idea that the human race is not alone. Encountering other beings, we believe, will be romantic, exciting, thought provoking, intriguing. And possibly dangerous. After all, one of our time honored notions since H.G. Wells is that we may well be perceived by Others as little more than snacks, or subjects for religious conversion, or creatures of such insignificance as to be simply swept aside. No matter, we think cheerfully. We will take the risk. McDevitt suggests the hazards may be far more subtle. In Hello, Out There, contact with alien species forces us to rethink who we are and what we are about. The Hercules Text recounts a clash of wills in which the mere knowledge that someone is out there ignites profound changes in religious, political, and social behavior. In its companion novel, A Talent for War, contact forces us to rethink a cherished mythology, and ask ourselves whether truth might not sometimes demand too high a price. Here are two voyages into the unknown, twin expeditions to demonstrate that when we finally encounter whatever other intelligences Darwin has cast onto the cosmic beach, we may discover that the face looking back at us is our own. The Herules Text Revised Edition From the direction of the constellation Hercules, a message has been detected. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular…
artificial. It can only be a deliberate transmission. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the meaning, while the very fact of reception shakes the foundations of empires around the world, from Wall Street to the Vatican to the White House. And the fate of nations ultimately lies in the hands of a lone frightened bureaucrat. A Talent for War Everyone knew the legend of Christopher Sim. Teacher. Fighter. Leader. An interstellar hero with a rare talent for war, Sim changed history forever when he forged a ragtag band of misfits into a brilliant fighting force during mankind’s darkest hour, broke the back of the only aliens the human race had ever encountered, and sacrificed himself in the effort. But now, two centuries later, Alex Benedict has found a startling bit of information, long buried in an ancient computer file. If it is true, then there is another, darker, side to the tale. For his own sake, for the sake of history, Alex Benedict must follow the track of the legend, where he will confront a truth far stranger than he could have imagined.

Time Travelers Never Die

‘The logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke’ Stephen King takes readers on a science fiction adventure tour through time.

When physicist Michael Shelborne mysteriously vanishes, his son Shel discovers that he had constructed a time travel device. Fearing his father may be stranded in time or worse Shel enlists the aid of Dave MacElroy, a linguist, to accompany him on the rescue mission.

Their journey through history takes them from the enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil rights upheavals of the 20th century. Along the way, they encounter a diverse cast of historical greats, sometimes in unexpected situations. Yet the elder Shelborne remains elusive.

And then Shel violates his agreement with Dave not to visit the future. There he makes a devastating discovery that sends him fleeing back through the ages, and changes his life forever.

Standard Candles

Sixteen outstanding stories by Hugo and Nebula award nominee, Jack McDevitt. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Contents: Standard Candles Tidal Effects Translations from the Colosian Black to Move The Fort Moxie Branch Promises to Keep Gus To Hell with the Stars Ellie The Jersey Rifle Cruising Through Deuteronomy Tyger Auld Lang Boom Dutchman Cryptic Time Travelers Never Die BACK COVER: McDevitt’s tales have an emotional resonance that lingers well after the book has been set aside. Standard Candles is a strong, strong collection. Cemetery Dance Always engaging and insightful, McDevitt can be counted on to ask the deep questions. David Brin Jack McDevitt is one of those rare science fiction writers capable of taking the tropes of the field from war and the military to alien contact to scripture vs. science and breathing wonderful life into them. He’s always a pleasure to read. Gregory Frost It’s not McDevitt’s style, though his prose is wonderfully clear and deceptively simple. It’s not his plots, though his stories always ask hard questions, and never settle for easy answers. For me it’s his humanity. McDevitt understands the way people talk and think and behave, and still somehow has boundless compassion for the human animal. Lewis Shiner In both his novels and his short fiction, Jack McDevitt has shown a terrific range of skills and imagination and speculation. Only one thing remains the same from piece to piece to piece they’re all damn fine stories. Kevin J. Anderson Jack McDevitt is a master of the short story form. Kathleen Ann Goonan The ideal writer can stretch your mind with a wonderful concept while also touching your heart with a personal story. Most of us fail at one or the other, but from the very beginning of his career Jack McDevitt has shown that he can do both. Michael Cassutt You hold in your hand some of the best work of one of our best writers. Enjoy! James Patrick Kelly McDevitt is the real thing: a writer with depth, integrating scientific issueswith human concerns on a vast stage, lit by vivid colors. Gregory Benford Jack McDevitt is one of the few authors in contemporary science fiction whose work moves faultlessly from scientic speculation to speculations on the nature of reality and the human condition. McDevitt fashions fully realized worlds, rich in imagination, peopled by fully believable characters. More important, you can count on him for a damn fine read. Bruce Boston It’s high time indeed for a Jack McDevitt story collection! McDevitt writes with wisdom, compassion, and an abiding sense of wonder everything that has drawn me again and again to the worlds of science fiction real people with real concerns, in extraordinary settings. If you haven’t read this man’s work, start now! Jeffrey A. Carver Long after you’ve closed this book,the stories will stay in your mind and in your heart. Karen Joy Fowler It has long been a landmark in a science fiction writer’s career when a publisher decides it is time to publish a collection of his or her best short fiction. Once upon a time, the publishers who did such things were mass market paperback houses. Today they are largely not exclusively small presses that market to the dedicated SF audience. NESFA Press is a good example; it collects work of Boskone guests of honor. So is Tachyon Publications, as it demonstrates with Standard Candles: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt. McDevitt has done a number of very interesting novels, of which the last two were The Engines of God and Ancient Shores. The short fiction has been accumulating for years clever, insightful, often marked by oddly inconclusive endings, and quite neglected in the sense of fame, fortune, and awards. Two of the sixteen stories thus ring of personal revelance: the title story concerns an astronomer who, though he has never flared as brightly as a nova has had a long and glowing career; ‘The Fort Moxie Branch’ offers the notion of a future library that preserves the work of neglected writers and materializes rather like an Isher weapons shop to offer afirmation when a writer needs it most. ‘Auld Lang Boom’ is the butterfly whose wings cause hurricanes everytime two old friends meet, something awful happens in the world; the surviving heir of one, reading the diary left behind, gets quite spooked. ‘Cryptic’ is the tale of closing down a SETI operation and finding the files of an old computer disk with frightening implications. ‘Time Travelers Never Die’ plays fast and loose with continuity when even after death a time traveler is able to maintain contact with his lover. ‘The Jersey Rifle’ concerns the discovery of the world’s greatest chess player, an unassuming druggist who can beat anyone. And more. Analog

Cryptic

A 200,000 word gathering of the best short fiction of Jack McDevitt!

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection

A consistently award winning collection once again provides the best science fiction stories of the year, featuring work by veterans and newcomers including Michael Bishop, Nancy Kress, Ursula Le Guin, Mike Resnick, Geoff Ryman, Brian Stableford, and many others.

Time Machines

The notion of traveling forward or backward across history changing the events of your own life or those which came before you or those that have yet to occur starts here with Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Three Sundays in a Week’ and Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Wireless,’ progresses through the years with past masters Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and John W. Campbell, Jr., and finishes with contemporary science fiction by such writers as Larry Niven, Harry Turtledove, Jack Finney, and Rod Serling. ‘An interesting collection of time travel short fiction from varied perspectives’ Library Journal

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