A third of the way into the novel they began to annoy me and I was at the point of hoping the Omega cloud would arrive prematurely and save me the trouble of reading any more about them.

They used a cutting laser and a shuttlecraft to begin to transform some natural stone plateaus into giant cubes, just like at the other planets. I'll end this review with another compliment, though: The book does a great job of peppering in dozens of excerpts from letters, encyclopedia entries, news headlines, translated alien poetry, and many other kinds of documents, between every chapter. I love this shit in SF books, and I hope there's more of it in the rest of the series. It feels like you're a member of the Academy, having access to all this correspondence and information, and getting to piece it together to increase your knowledge of these characters and this world. Around this time, Richard makes some inquiries to a colleague who was studying the planet, Nok. He learned that,, similar to Quraqua, Nok had also suffered mysterious discontinuities in its history. A pattern emerged from this information: on both planets, the discontinuities were separated by roughly 8,000 years, suggesting that the planets had recurring global catastrophes that occurred at 8,000-year intervals. In addition, Richard learned that new Monuments had been discovered in orbit around Nok. These monuments were a series of free-floating, enormous cubes, which were scorched and damaged, very reminiscent of Oz.

There are wonderful characters, fascinating scientific anomalies, vast world-destroying clouds and… these Walt Disney aliens.

Despite the fact that this author is popular and has written a slew of other books, I never heard of him. That being said, in fact, there was nothing wrong with the writing itself. This guy can write, but the plot has some very thin areas, the story has too many characters, too much detail (pointless, needless, useless detail), complexity where it isn’t wanted or needed, and simplicity where depth is called for. The story is set in the year 2203. Earth is struggling with overpopulation, its natural resources are pretty well depleted, the effects of global warming have set in, and scientists realize that its days are numbered. And so they start looking for other planets where humanity can settle. At the same time, explorers have discovered one, then many statues on other planets that appear to be monuments to one if not several alien races. The language is for the most part indecipherable, and archeologists continue to try to find out who left the monuments as well as what happened to the race or races that left them behind. There are indications that in several instances something cataclysmic happened, and so they are concerned that the same thing might happen to humanity as well. On one planet, there is a race between a team who is given the task of blowing up the polar ice caps to begin the terraforming process that will last close to a century, and another team who is desperately trying to find what they refer to as their “Rosetta Stone,” something that will help them translate the language of the extinct races they have come across. And in all of this is the mystery of who the Monument Makers were, where they came from, and where they went. If her theory was correct, she could extrapolate the current position of this destructive wave in space: they could plot a course and go see what had caused numerous disasters across multiple inhabited planets. The Omega Clouds – agents of destruction which seem to be able to recognise right angles and other signs of intelligent life – have been studied intensively. Apart from the fact that they are based on nanotechnology, there is very little else discovered about them. One is heading toward Earth and will arrive in around a thousand years.

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. In Jerusalem, he made devices, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and on the battlements, with which to shoot arrows and great stones. His name spread far abroad, because he was marvelously helped until he was strong. And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and on the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones with. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong. Characters and dialogue are so-so. Generally I would say the writing is pretty good. Parts of this really drag though - the first act which involves the archaeologists on Quarquara (sp?) trying to hang on till the last possible minute is a good example. I felt like it was endless description of digging interspersed with equally endless description of loading stuff. Could have been greatly condensed. There are a couple of intense 'action' sequences. The second of which (on Beta Pac III) seems really pulpy, and out of place with the rest of the novel. After that, the last 20% or so where they start to untangle the threads of the mystery seems hurried, almost like an afterthought. I don't know if these "Omega Clouds" will be the subject of a future novel in the series or what. But ultimately this is what everything in the novel is building to, and yet action-wise (and verbage-wise) it seemed like the part the author cared about more was a bunch of semi-intelligent crab creatures. I also note recycling of some hoary old sci-fi tropes, such as the overpopulated, environmentally damaged earth, and a carelessly simplistic narrative about the origin of religions, worthy of 'Ancient Aliens' on the history channel... in fact this part didn't jive with what was overall pretty smart and thoughtful writing. In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.

The now-extinct Quraquans had a complex civilization spanning tens of thousands of years. The science team had expected to have more-or-less unlimited time to complete their scientific discoveries before a massive terraforming project was initiated on the planet. The remnants of Quraquan civilization would be destroyed by terraforming process, which was funded by a wealthy, politically powerful corporation called Kozmik. Kozmik's political efforts had moved up the timeline for terraforming, despite the Academy's resistance. The terraforming process was scheduled to launch several weeks after arrival of the "Wink." I enjoy McDevitt's books. This one was no exception. However, if you are the impatient sort you should perhaps take note that this novel has a bit of a long build-up before, well, you know. Omega is a good book, and the preceding Academy novels are awesome. It doesn't have quite the same spark as, for example, Chindi. It's a more serious book, and perhaps not quite what I was expecting from a Priscilla Hutchins novel. I was tremendously eager to learn more about the origins of the Omega clouds, a theme introduced in the very first Academy novel ( The Engines of God). This particular topic, however, is slightly neglected as the bulk of the novel concerns itself with a society of aliens and the humans studying them in an attempt to save their hides from one of the Omega clouds. An explanation is provided for the clouds themselves, but I'm assuming at this point that more details are forthcoming in either Odyssey or Cauldron. Il matrimonio si rinnova dopo un determinato numero di anni. Se i due contraenti non sono d'accordo mutualmente, tanti saluti.Some of the crisis that arise seem almost too much of the “oh, now we need life-threatening peril to spice up the book - um, okay - cue the dire situation.” I thought that the fun element was slightly missing this time round. It was what made the earlier novels great. Like one reviewer mentions: Indiana Jones in Space. There's a lot less of that this time round. Despite this, it's still a novel that's worth your time if Science Fiction is your thing. I would recommend reading the series though, since this book in itself isn't a true indication of just how cool these novels are. I was somewhat disappointed in this book, especially when compared to its predecessor in the series, Chindi, which was an amazing book. The series features an Academy pilot, Hutch, who everyone loves. She constantly saves the day through smarts and bravery. In this book, however, she's no longer a pilot. She's now an administrator for the Academy and when we do see her, she's taking flak from everybody for not being able to grant inane wishes or she's sending messages off to her star ship pilots. That's all we get from her. Major disappointment. It sounds like a really good episode of Trek, right? Right. Well, no complaints there. I never expected total and complete originality out of these. Just a careful and methodical worldbuilding, care and devotion to characters, and a hopeful outlook despite everything. Including a very regular death toll on every single outing. (Wait... redshirts?) Basically, in the first few chapters we learn what the problem is and how it's going to be solved. The rest of the book is just the boring execution of that setup.