The Engines of God (Academy - Book 1)

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Syfy - Watch Full Episodes | Imagine Greater". Scifi.com. Archived from the original on 2008-06-16 . Retrieved 2016-02-16. b) Many of the structures were damaged and had mysterious scorch-marks, which also dated to roughly 9000 B.C.

A first part of the book introduces the characters, and the setting and sets up a race against time – an archeologist team from Earth (the Academy) has to save as many artifacts as possible before the Government starts terraforming, which includes nuking polar caps and dropping ice asteroids on a planet – actions which will bury/destroy all remnants. Each group sees its task as more urgent. So the battle of egos starts. He made skillfully designed devices in Jerusalem to shoot arrows and catapult large stones for use on the towers and on the corners. So his fame spread even to distant places, for he was marvelously helped until he became strong. But the cloud draws closer to its target, and the unsuspecting humanoids have only days to live. Scientists must find a way to rescue the humanoids without violating the protocol not to interfere with the civilization. This book is a bit closer to the second book, Deepsix, which was a standalone story in the same universe. The difference is that Deepsix had a lot of action, adventure and there was still the mystery of what had happened on the planet. But nothing interesting ever happens on the Goompah planet. There's a little bit of action, but I couldn't bring myself to care about the outcome. The humans were bland and the aliens were an annoying fit to the "noble savage" template.This is very solid Indiana-Jones-style adventure in space with a group of women and men exploring ancient alien ruins. And we see the action from the perspective of Hutch, but I found she had little to no character growth throughout the book. I was kind of hoping for more, but I can’t fault McDevitt for this since it was not written as a character novel, and there is so much to like about jumping into a star system to find an floating space station abandoned for thousands of years - isn’t there? This is a "hard science fiction" novel, with a well-defined plot and set of characters. The best thing this book has going for it, is its focus on archaeology, and the deciphering of clues from ancient alien artifacts. The entire story is a mystery, and even by the end of the book the puzzle is only partially solved. This, of course, allows the author to extend the story into sequels. So, this is the first book of The Academy series.

I could have done without the Algore climate change drivel about constant hurricanes and other man-made disasters on Earth as the reason for the terraforming mission to Quaraqua. If you could terraform another planet, why not turn that expertise on the closer problem?And he maketh in Jerusalem inventions -- a device of an inventor -- to be on the towers, and on the corners, to shoot with arrows and with great stones, and his name goeth out unto a distance, for he hath been wonderfully helped till that he hath been strong. They arrived at the conclusion that the Monument-Makers had constructed their creations in an attempt to be lures for the deadly clouds – which came to be called Omega clouds. They attempted to save the populations of the planets in question by luring the clouds away from the right-angles and regular structures of their buildings and roads by putting geometric shapes in other locations.