Name: The Engines of God
ISBN: 9780441002849

Jack McDevitt

An unknown race called the Monument-Makers creates a stunning array of gorgeous statues, scattering them throughout the galaxy and encoding them with strange inscriptions that hold the key to the survival of humankind. Reprint. AB. K.

The Engines of God

Many years ago humans made a discovery in the far reaches of the solar system - a huge statue of an alien creature, with a description that defied all efforts of translation. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon, there is no trace of the race that has left it behind.

This is very solid Indiana-Jones-style adventure in space with a group of women and men exploring ancient alien ruins. 

What worked for me: 
* the alien artifacts and underwater ruins
* the tech was well-researched and believable
* no sexist stereotypes
* the underlying mystery makes sense and is revealed very well

What didn't work so well for me:
* The group constantly has to deal with obstacles, accidents, and attacks, but those never come from any real adversary who wants to prevent them from discovering the truth, they feel more like random encounters in an RPG, mere distractions and hassles there to pad out the plot even though they have nothing to do with the plot. The book really would have benefited from an adversary with a plan working against our MCs (or from simply removing the random encounters and slimming the plot down to the actually interesting things). 
* I never really connected emotionally to the characters and there was also a romance sub-plot I didn't care about at all. I'm not sure why, but since the people I buddy-read this with felt the same way, I thought I'd mention it. If you are a very character-focused reader who doesn't geek out about alien ruins and intergalactic mysteries, I think this book probably wouldn't work for you.
* There is a lot of the "professionals behaving very unprofessionally" trope that I always dislike in sci fi. So many accidents and even deaths could have easily been prevented if they'd just acted like careful professionals. On the other hand, when I look at the real world the same thing applies, so perhaps I have unrealistic expectations.

Overall, this was very solid entertainment with some cool ideas. I enjoyed A Talent For War (by the same author) more than this, but I'm open to reading more books in either series.

The Engines of God

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