I am only somewhat familiar with author Jack McDevitt through his Alex Benedict series, which I have really been enjoying. When I saw the opportunity to read a collection of McDevitt's short stories, I was eager to take advantage of it.

Most of the stories here have been published previously in a variety of magazines, the earliest being in 1986 and the most recent in 2017. Thirty years of solid science fiction is quite impressive!

I was mostly impressed with McDevitt's writing. While I typically don't go in for 'hard' science fiction, and I've always imagined Jack McDevitt as a hard scifi author, I really just found a lot of good stories, scifi in nature. The stories were interesting, with themes that caught my attention. I did notice that a number of the stories relied on a 'surprise' ending, but that's probably not too unusual with short stories. My favorite story was probably "The Play's the Thing" - which is probably not a surprise to those who know me - in which a highly authentic AI version of William Shakespeare is created and writes some new plays, including a comedy (in the Renaissance sense) of women living on the moon.

Overall this was a really solid collection, and unlike a lot of anthologies, there wasn't anything here that I <em>dis</em>liked. If you want to break up your novel reading, consider these stories.

The title story is an Alex Benedict story, but, as a fan of the book series, it didn't really excite me. It was fine a a short story, but I didn't see anything special about it being part of the Alex Benedict series.

This book contains the following:

Jack McDevitt, History Builder by Martin L. Shoemaker
"Searching For Oz "
"The Law of Gravity Isn’t Working on Rainbow Bridge"
"The Adventure of the Southsea Trunk"
"Combinations"
"It’s a Long Way to Alpha Centauri"
"Lucy"
"Listen Up, Nitwits"
"Midnight Clear"
"The Lost Equation"
"Blood Will Tell" (Co-written with Tom Easton)
"Blinker"
"Friends in High Places"
"Maiden Voyage"
"Waiting at the Altar"
"The Play’s the Thing"
"Oculus"
"Good Intentions" (with Stanley Schmidt)
"Molly’s Kids"
"Ships in the Night"
"The Pegasus Project"
"Cathedral"
"The Last Dance"
"Excalibur"
"A Voice in the Night"

Looking for a good book? <em>A Voice in the Night</em> is a collection of short stories by Jack McDevitt. It is a good, solid set of short stories that really ought to be enjoyed by anyone who likes good science fiction.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Published by Subterranean Press on August 31, 2018

Jack McDevitt is at his best with space opera. His novels about explorers or traders roaming the galaxy always convey a sense of realism that is missing from military science fiction and Star Wars clones. As this short story collection shows, McDevitt has a wider science fiction range, but I still like his space opera more than his other efforts. My favorite McDevitt novels star Alex Benedict. I was therefore happy to read “A Voice in the Night,” which introduces Benedict as a teenager who persuades his archeologist uncle to track down the radio waves of the final broadcast of a comedian who died in space.

McDevitt’s other major series of novels (the Academy series) features Priscilla Hutchins. “Maiden Voyage” is a prequel to his Hutchins novels. The story balances the wonders and perils of discovery as Priscilla takes a qualification flight to get her pilot’s license. Another story about Priscilla’s training (“Waiting at the Altar”) involves a distress signal and a first contact that has been lost to history.

In “Oculus,” another character from the Academy series, Kellie Collier, finds herself and her passenger in a pickle when their ship loses power while trying to remove an ancient civilization’s books from the moon where they were stored. The story (one of my favorites in the collection) asks in a rather thrilling way whether a dedication to knowledge can at some point become foolish.

One of the more substantial stories in the volume, “Lucy,” imagines that a space ship has gone missing. Characters debate whether to send a rescue ship operated by the same latest-generation AI, or one operated by the previous generation AI that has a proven track record. The AIs, of course, have their own opinions. The story incorporates old themes (whether there is a political will for space travel, whether AIs are capable of developing emotions), but the story has a new take on the concept of technological obsolescence and how sentient technology might respond to it.

“Blinker” is another good story. Two people who are trapped in a moon base use their ingenuity to survive. As they debate whether robots should take the risk of space travel rather than humans, they realize that humans have a survival instinct and cleverness that robots lack. In one of the most interesting and well-written stories (“Friends in High Places”), God changes history to save Jesus from being crucified.

In a twist on the science fiction cautionary tale, “Good Intentions” imagines a game played by a “solve the mystery club” in which the mystery is crafted by a science fiction writer who wants the participants to resolve, not just a mystery, but a pair of ethical dilemmas. As a good mystery should, the story takes a surprising twist at the end. “Molly’s Kids” is another surprising story about people at NASA who try to trick an AI into doing something it doesn’t want to do.

“Searching for Oz” is a first contact story about aliens who enjoy Jack Benny’s radio show. “Listen Up, Nitwits” is a first contact story in which contact is made by a lonely AI. Another story in which first contact is made by an AI, “The Pegasus Project,” suggesting an interesting way in which aliens and humans might prove to be similar. “Ships in the Night” is a story of contact between a dull human and an alien who (from the human’s perspective) might be even more dull, making them kindred spirits whose lives intersect in brief but important moments.

“The Law of Gravity Isn’t Working on Rainbow Bridge” is told from the perspective of a television news reporters who witnesses the effects of a time bubble. “Midnight Clear” is about displaying a Christmas tree on a planet that aliens no longer inhabit.

Sherlock Holmes investigates a dead physicist’s discovery of relativity two years before Einstein in “The Lost Equation.” In “The Adventure of the Southsea Trunk,” a literary critic is murdered after receiving an autographed copy of the latest Sherlock Holmes novel — autographed by a modern writer, not by Conan Doyle, who is celebrated for his other works.

“Combinations” asks whether dead people can be recreated digitally, and explores the question with a couple of petulant chess players and William Jennings Bryan. Two guys consider changing their lives by taking a long voyage in “It’s a Long Way to Alpha Centauri.” In “The Play’s the Thing,” an AI version of Shakespeare writes modern plays that might bring false fame of the sort that Shakespeare would have abhorred.

In “The Last Dance,” software brings back a nonphysical replica of a widower’s wife, something like a hologram that purports to have her memories and emotions. Easing the pain of moving on turns out to be a bad idea for people who can’t let go.

There are only three stories in the collection that didn’t work for me. “Blood Will Tell” is kind of a nothing time travel story about the origin of a business plan. “Cathedral” reads like a Ben Bova lament about how NASA never gets all the funding it deserves. The plot involves a NASA employee who decides to do something about the perceived problem. “Excalibur” is a nothing story about NASA doing nothing when it finds evidence of an alien artifact.

The collection mixes stories from the last three decades. It isn’t a “best of” book. Given the number of stories in this collection, it isn’t surprising that some are stronger than others. There are a couple of “best of” McDevitt collections but I think the last one was published in 2009. A Voice in the Night gives his fans a chance to catch up on his more recent short fiction. And if a retrospective “best of” collection is published, several of the stories in this volume are likely to be included.

RECOMMENDED

I can read the heck out of short stories, especially if they're SF. This is a large collection of short stories by an author better known for his novels. These are all over the place, fairly run-of-the-mill, square in the middle of the genre. One idea apiece, brief exposition, clean language, usually ending with an attempt at humor. Thinking back over what I read, I think the "time bubble" idea stands out best for me, but there were lots of others, too. If you read SF for the ideas, here you go.

Jack McDevitt. Pretty sure I’ve heard of the guy, don’t think I’ve ever read any of his work, but then this huge comprehensive collection showed up on Netgalley and I was like why not. Plus he’s a local and let’s face it City of Brotherly something doesn’t produce that much literary talent. The size of the book was intimidating and in retrospect this one probably should have been dipped in and out of for a while instead of binging through it, but it was diverse enough to not feel monotonous. The main themes in this collection deal with alien cultures, archeology and first contact. And, while this is undeniably science fiction at its most prototypical, oddly enough McDevitt’s at his best when he writes outside of the genre. The two stories featuring a different take on the world’s most famous detective for example were great. The Atlantis story also. And my favorite one in the entire collection, Ships in the Night, was just an absolutely charming story about loneliness and finding someone to share it with. Ok, in all fairness, the latter two did feature aliens, but it wasn’t the main dish on the menu as it were. McDevitt came to writing pretty late in life, which may or may not be the reason a lot of his stories have that golden era scifi atmosphere to them, despite being perfectly modern (this collection covers fiction from the last 25 years), which is kind of nice. The endings took me a while to get into, especially the first stories, there was either abruptness or lack of complete resolve, but that changes as the stories progress to either proper seeming endings or twists, which are like proper endings plus. The quality was consistently there, McDevitt can tell absolutely tell a story, but…and here’s that but (a word made so much less exciting just by omitting the final t) while the stories were uniformly good they seldom went above that and almost never approached great. Some sort or reserve, excitement muted, a very level sort of narrative, meant to divert, sometimes engage, but almost never wow. Which is still more than most can do, but isn’t, you know, optimal. McDevitt really should branch out to other genres more, his character and situational writing is very good, but the man loves aliens…gotta respect that. Decently entertaining read for science fiction fans. The ARC edition has some typos, but more enter tingly it had a page number in the middle of the text (sometimes either very distracting or very amusing) on nearly every page and the chapter were separated by eee. Why eee. Why not any other letter. It was like the narrative would screech to a pause…eee. But generally perfectly readable as far as ARCs go. Thanks Netgalley.