Audiobook11 hours
Echo
Written by Jack McDevitt
Narrated by Coleen Marlo
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
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.
Echo is the fifth book to feature intersteller antiquities dealer Alex Benedict. The first four titles in the series are available on audio from Audible.
Echo is the fifth book to feature intersteller antiquities dealer Alex Benedict. The first four titles in the series are available on audio from Audible.
Author
Jack McDevitt
Jack McDevitt is the author of A Talent for War, The Engines of God, Ancient Shores, Eternity Road, Moonfall, and numerous prize-winning short stories. He has served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, taught English and literature, and worked for the U.S. Customs Service in North Dakota and Georgia.
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Reviews for Echo
Rating: 3.6833332893333335 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
150 ratings14 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I generally like McDevitt's writing and this was no exception. This is far more of a sleuthing/mystery story than hardcore sci-fi, which is basically the biggest reason for not giving it 4 stars. Good story if you want to read a mystery set against the back-drop of the future and space.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great mystery and intrigue. Character development was accomplished throughout the story without the slow mediocrity sometimes encountered in other books. Narration was superb. I really enjoyed this audiobook.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack McDevitt has become my favorite science fiction writer. I look forward to each book eagerly. "Echo" is another in the Alex Benedict series. I look forward to each adventure Alex and his assistant, Chase, begin. This time they are determined to find out if Sunset Tuttle actually found alien life. What they find may or may not be exactly what they hoped for.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This made great travel reading--I need good distractions when I fly and this novel was engrossing and enjoyable. I always enjoy McDevitt's books.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Alex Benedict book by Jack McDevitt had the potential to be great, like some of the others in the series, but I thought it fell well short of its potential and I finished it feeling somewhat disappointed.In this book, a space explorer named Sunset Tuttle, who's been dead for some 30 years now, spent his whole life looking for aliens and by all accounts, never found any. But someone in his old house is giving away a tablet with markings on them which don't appear to be human. Antique dealer Alex Benedict and his assistant/pilot Chase Kolpath decide to look into it and so the mystery begins. And let me tell you, this book is darker than the previous books in the series. Some serious stuff happens that might make you dislike the protagonists as they continue their search. I had problems with them myself. Ultimately, they go in search of aliens themselves. Do they find any? You might be surprised at what they find. And you might feel let down by it. I was. It was underwhelming. At least McDevitt came up with new ways to try and get them killed in this book rather than using the old broken skimmer ploy of ALL of the previous books. That was refreshing. There have been wrongs committed in this book, but I didn't get to see the justice I wanted to see and that was disappointing. Frankly, this is a three star book I'm giving four stars to because it's original and it's well told. I'd give it a 3.5 if I could. Recommended if you're reading the series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another solid entry in the Alex Benedict series. It strayed enough from the formula to keep me guessing til the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another excellent "Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath" book from Jack McDevitt. This one seemed a little darker, a little more uncomfortable at times than previous outings with the antiquities brokers/adventurers. But that didn't affect my enjoyment of the story. It made the world, the characters all that more real.
As these characters grow older (which doesn't mean much in a future where most people live at least a couple of centuries), they are definitely experiencing character growth as well. Chase becomes uncomfortable with her seemingly stagnate unadventurous role as a glorified secretary/pilot and in dealing with the fallout of Alex's reputation in some fields. Though he is great at exposing mysteries and discovering answers, he's seen more as a looter or tomb robber - selling artifacts to the highest bidder.
Their investigations this time have some disasterous implications for some people, opening up a can of worms that they've tried to hide for 25 years. Chase and Alex struggle to make it right.
I love setting in these novels. Jack McDevitt tells the story (or Chase does) as if the reader is intimately familiar with the world(s), the technology, etc. And makes the reader feel right at home, come in, have a cup of coffee. It's always good to get back to this world.
If your a fan of the Alex Benedict novels, read it! If you've never read one, go start further back in the series and work your way to this one and get to know the characters before embarking on this adventure with them.
Echo was provided to me by the publisher for the purpose of review. Ace is awesome like that! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Echo by Jack McDevitt is a book in the Alex Benedict Series. True Science Fiction, in a sense, set in a time thousands of year in the future. Written from the point of view of what could be called his secretary, pilot, and good friend, Chase Kolpath. Echo is about a mystery surrounding an ancient tablet found over 30 years ago by a man who zealously searched for alien life but never found it in his lifetime, or so everyone thought. Most humans believed aliens do not exist and thought the man mad. Alex and Chase embark on a journey to find where the tablet came from, if indeed from an alien civiliazation and run into major obstacles along the way. There are many threats made on their lives which adds to the mystery and begs the question, if an alien civiliazation does exist, why would anyone want to keep them from finding out? An enjoyable, fast-moving novel with many unexpected twists and I would recommend it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good plot. As usual Chase is more interesting than Alex.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't understand why this isn't the Chase Kolpath series, rather than the Alex Benedict series, since while Alex is the guy in charge, it's Chase that the books are about. In any case, while just as friendly and readable as McDevitt's other books, Echo isn't the best of the series. Perhaps, as with the Priscilla Hutchins series, McDevitt has simply run out of steam towards the end.
Echo is a good mystery story in the tradition of the Benedict series, but it suffers from a couple of defects. First, it sets up what seems a token effort at Chase-Alex conflict, which brings a welcome uncertainty into the book, but which McDevitt never really commits to. Second, the book has Chase and especially Alex pursuing an investigation at a very high cost - so high that not only is it not really credible, but it succeeds at the difficult task of making our heroes a lot less likeable. The book doesn't really recover from that.It means that while I have the next book in the series, Firebird, on my shelf, I'm less excited to read it.
Finally, the final reveal and denouement don't really fulfill the promise of the early chapters. They could have been successful with a different lead in, but here, it's a bit of a disappointment.
If you're a serious fan of the Benedict series, by all means, buy this - you'll enjoy, even if it's not your favorite in the series. If you're new to the series, go back to A Talent for War or Polaris and start there. If you've sort of enjoyed the series, but not loved it, skip this and go one to one of McDevitt's other excellent books - try Eternity Road or The Engines of God. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A fun book, a page turner with a compelling mystery. While I wouldn't call this McDevitt's best, his worst is still better than most space opera.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. I am new to McDevitt's books, and this series in particular. Even jumping in at the end of the series, it was good. Unlike some of the other hard scifi today, this one is a bit low on the technology and science scale. There is enough technology to give a futuristic feel, but it is more at a Star Trek/Star Wars level - fast space ships and smart AI's, but nothing godlike. This novel was more about people and the search for aliens than about technology.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dec11:Characters: Really still pretty good. The "primitives" are actually quite fun when you get to their part as well. The tuttle chap was rather uninteresting though.Plot: I quite liked it. It goes in directions you don't actually anticipate this time.Style: Well suited to the plot. He still hasn't changed the style since Polaris really though.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Although McDevitt likes big concept novels, he often doesn't take the time to integrate them into the story thematically. This one is better on that score than some of the other Benedict novels. There's lots to think about here. Why do we want to meet aliens? Who is an alien? What criteria do we use to judge?