8/09/2006

Reading for Pleasure Wednesday

As the semester looms nearer, my pleasure reading tends more and more towards light things and SF. I'm almost finished with Jack McDevitt's Seeker, which I picked up at the library without realizing it was a sequel. But I'm not having any trouble getting into the characters or their world without knowing the earlier books. Set way, way, in the future, in a time that looks back to the beginning of interplanetary travel as an age of antiques worth collecting, the novel focuses on a couple of artifact hunters searching for a derelict space ship that once belonged to a freedom-seeking sect. There are puzzles to be solved, ethical issues about the collection and distribution of artifacts, and interactions with a telepathic alien species. Engaging, well written for SF, entertaining.