Deepsix

Excellent! Great read, and introduces a sprawling implication for our universe...! This is the one book I think of whenever someone talks about books that would make great movies. Steven Spielberg, are you looking for your next project? This would make an awesome film! More thoughts; I love most things SF, and reading it is always the best experience. Being a rationalist, I enjoy ‘hard’ SF far more than those touching on ‘fantasy’. There’s nothing better than reading a good hard SF adventure for the first time. But movies are awesome in an entirely different way. SF movies, though, are in a rut. Far too many unoriginal ideas, sequels, etc. Far too many comic books. Now I thoroughly enjoy the Marvel movies, but I don’t think of them as really great stories. They are ‘just’ great fun. I enjoy it all, but I want more and better. One of my favorite sf stories on screen today is the TV series “The Expanse”. I read the books after I started watching it, and have rewatched it several times since. But - we need something better, more original, rational, and ‘hard’ sf. We need Deepsix. A few years ago, someone randomly asked me what sf book I’d like to see made into a movie. I had read Deepsix years before, and without consciously thinking about it, had placed its firmly in that category - at the top of the list. By far. I'd love to see a movie version. If I had Jeff Bezos' fortune, I'd simply make it happen - just so I could watch it. Why? There are so many reasons why it would be a great movie, and if you’ve read it you already know what they are. (If you haven’t, go read it!) I won't enumerate them here, and I'm sure others have their own ideas, but surely SF fans agree with me that Deepsix would be a spectacularly great story to see on the big screen - even if we have to watch it at home. Again, being a rationalist, I understand it is quite hard to get a book made into a movie, so my main reason is a practical one; Assuming success, there is a great body of work for which to make more movies about Hutch and the world in which she lives. That should be a pretty easy sell to a studio.

Deepsix by Jack McDevitt is the second novel in McDevitt’s academy series (or Priscilla Hutchens series, whichever you choose to name it). Maleiva III is a planet that is headed for a catastrophic collision with a huge gas giant named Morgan's World. Within weeks before the collision will occur, Priscilla Hutchens (Hutch) is recruited by the Academy of Science and Technology to lead a team to explore, record, photograph, and even collect artifacts of former civilizations (especially from advanced technological civilizations). An attempt to explore the planet about twenty years earlier had ended in disaster when several team members were killed by vicious indigenous creatures. Hutch and her hastily- assembled team are well aware of the danger, but there isn’t time to bring in a well prepared team of experts, a well-armed protective force, or the equipment that would ordinarily be used, before the planet and everything on it will be swallowed by the gas giant. Hutch and her motley team, including a wealthy writer, a reporter, and others discover some ruins that suggest a nontechnical and unscientific society once inhabited the planet. However, they also encounter a very malicious environment, which is exacerbated by the effects of the approaching gas giant, and distinctly unfriendly wildlife. Both the members of the group and their equipment suffer casualties and survival quickly becomes a constant desperate struggle to get off the planet before it is exploded by the approaching giant. As is usual, McDevitt includes a large number of very diverse and interesting characters in this novel. His characters on the planet endure a punishing struggle, hopeless fear, and the numbing loss of their team members. In addition, a large group of mostly untrained volunteers guided by a few knowledgeable and skilled leaders takes desperate actions in an attempt to rescue Hutch and her group. However, it is difficult and dangerous to attempt to control chaos. McDevitt also provides very interesting doses of future scientific accomplishments to satisfy the reader’s desire for science in their fiction. This is a very rich and enjoyable science fiction novel and I recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and/or adventure/suspense novels.

I'm increasingly becoming a Jack McDevitt fan, and Deepsix was not a disappointment in any way. In this installment, Hutch is called by the institute to do an impromptu last minute archaeological mission on a planet soon to be destroyed by a rogue jovian planet, diverting from a flight to deliver some xenological researchers home to Earth, to grumbling from the passengers. Due to tectonic instability induced by the approaching gas giant, her lander is wrecked on the surface and she and her team are stranded while tourists and scientists on other ships look on. A know-it-all media star akin to Bill OReilly decides to drop down to the planet to visit and his lander is caught in the same seismic event. Under attack from hostile alien species, they must make their way several hundred kilometers through the alien wilderness to try to revive a lander that had been abandoned decades before in the only other previous failed mission to explore the planet, and along the way discover more about what happened to an intelligent alien civilization that once existed on the planet, while the ships in orbit mobilize to help improve the odds of rescue. Lots of very real and intelligent character development, political intrigue, and action, with exciting planetary physics thrown in at inconvenient (to the characters) moments to raise the level of suspense. McDevitt is in fine form in this novel. Highly recommended.

A terrific story well written. High adventure full of thrills and spills. Hard to put down. Buying book 3 now.

I like Jack McDevitt very much. Very good story-teller and Priscilla Hutchinson is a nice and very lovely character lady.

another great book in the series; hard to put down once you start it.

As we learn more about her, a picture emerges, battle scars and all. I found Deepsix to be a gripping yarn - maybe a bit slow to take off, but a step up from Alex Benedict - IMHO.

A good read.