Helpful Score: 6
I really enjoyed this book. The story of Chaka and a group of friends who go on a quest for Haven, the Roadbuilders last holdout from the plague where they stored treasures beyond belief, mostly in the form of books. On the way they meet river pirates, AI's, and find communities they didn't know existed. Very good read.
Helpful Score: 4
Enjoyable story about future civilizations after a plague has killed off the population. The technology and history is lost to the future civilization and they are trying are making a quest to find the history. Jack McDevitt tells a great story! One of my favorite authors.
Helpful Score: 4
Really good story, well crafted characters. Good read, too bad there is no sequel (that I know of..) Excelent read for a road trip!
Helpful Score: 2
I loved this book! Very interesting idea of post-plague America where our civilization is completely gone! wow!
Helpful Score: 2
Eternity Road does an excellent job of expressing the feelings of living a life that is surrounded by the remains of what you know were "greater" times. This is a post-post-apocalyptic world. People are enjoying good lives, yet the ruins of your ancestor's almost magical existence, the "Roadbuilders", are everywhere to remind you that so much has been lost. After centuries of a reluctance to explore the detailed existence of the ancestors, certain curious individuals have begun exploring what once was. There are many great ideas introduced, and mysteries to be solved, the characters have depth and just when the story can turn dark McDevitt injects humor. One of his very best works.
Helpful Score: 2
Jack McDevitt has a wonderful imagination and an exceptionally gripping writing style. His post apoplectic novels are fun reads and I consider them to be brain candy as they require little effort to read and keep me interested. Here's the BUT: In his story development for this book he creates a vivid picture of the future - after a devastating plague wipes out the majority of man kind - you know - fun reading! His character development is pretty unique and his adventures are pretty cleaver. Then he adds a chapter where Winston Churchill is projected by a computer from the past and chats with one of the characters. A meaningless and silly interruption to the story. Another story line deals with another computer that still manages to keep some of the trains from the past operating - another just silly bit of fantasy. Don't know why he insists on dropping these bits into his books, but it kind of spoils it for me. Glad I read it, however. Nice story all in all.
Helpful Score: 2
Very entertaining read. I fully enjoyed this romp through a post-apocalyptic US. There were a few rough edges to this story, namely the 'miraculous' timing of a few things -- you will see it when you get there. Still recommended, though.
Helpful Score: 1
"I was here when the trains came in empty." ... Illyria is one of the most advanced cities in the League. The Imperium is located in the center of the city and is the pinnacle of education in the entire valley of the Mississippi. Many have learned everything there is to know about the rise of their society to its current impressive level. But there is much more to learn ... Who were the Roadmakers; those who disappeared from this world and left behind such magnificent structures and cities? What was this "plague" that took away the science behind those materials that seem to defy the wear and tear of time? Some scholars want to know. And so does Chaka Milana, who suddenly finds herself in possession of a copy of 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court', following the death of a man she hardly knew. ... In order to get an answer to her questions, though, Chaka will have to undertake a long and treacherous journey, beyond the valley, in search of a mythical place called "Haven." This is a novel of epic proportions, and is a very good read, with several unexpected twists.
Helpful Score: 1
A good adventure story. Post apocalyptic quest tale.
Excellant read very good post world novel.
future earth after a plague wipes out most of the population, i like futures that are uncertain like this.
Interesting setting: so long after a holocaust that the knowledge of our time has been lost.
Not his best book, but an early one. That might explain why I didn't care for it. Too drawn out with nothing happening. Could not finish it.
A good read and an interesting take on what those who come after us will find. Not my favorite book from McDevitt, but still worth a read.
An exceptionally fine journey novel, set in a somewhen post-apocalyptic time. A group from an only-recently more prosperous farming-based community in the area of Memphis travels by horse and by foot through the MidWest toward the Ohio River and on to Niagara Falls to somewhere in upper New York and New England in search of reconnection with a group in that area, rumored to be the only existing scientific and technological society in the world. Well written, full of adventure and likeable characters, it has a ring to its style and story that stays with the reader for years. This one and "Ancient Shores" were his best; the Benedict series are okay but somewhat snide like the main character, but the Hutchins stories have become too many and dull (although the idea of wiping out consciousness every eight thousand years is fascinating -- we're due).
