Deepsix

Fun space sci-fi adventure story. The second in the Academy books by McDevitt, which I am reading because I love the conceit of sci-fi archaeology. Unfortunately this second book is more adventure story than archaeology, it’s about 80% action and peril and 20% alien cultures. Too bad about the balance because the big reveal towards the end of the book about just what was happening on Deepsix to explain the mysterious artifacts and buildings was a really sweet story that invited lots more explanation. Instead we get a well-written series of action climaxes where our heroes are somehow just moments away from disaster despite events taking weeks to converge.

The author does a good job in this book writing characters with personalities, very soap operalike. I liked the interactions. The weird and uncomfortable thing is his writing is rooted in some serious sexism, down to describing the women character’s beauty and in one instance, literally describes her as “top heavy”. There’s no excuse for this sexism and it mars the books. OTOH the women characters are also written well and are central parts of the story. Particularly the main character through this whole series of novels, Hutch. I don’t know that I mind that aspects of the writing reflect a straight male gaze even, I just wish it were better done.

I don’t know if or when I’ll read the rest of the books. There’s a lot of them. Sometimes it’s fun to read a good adventure story.