It turned up in a North Dakota wheat field: a triangle, like a shark’s fin, sticking up from the black loam. Tom Lasker did what any farmer would have done. He dug it up. And discovered a boat, made of a fiberglass-like material with an utterly impossible atomic number. What it was doing buried under a dozen feet of prairie soil two thousand miles from any ocean, no one knew. True, Tom Lasker’s wheat field had once been on the shoreline of a great inland sea, but that was a long time ago — ten thousand years ago.

Review 4 of 5 Stars

I feel I have to give this book at least 4 stars even though it was a little slow for my taste at times.  I say this because it prompted me to head back to the book store the following week to see what else Mr. McDevitt had written as I liked the overall flavor of the storytelling.  Any book that leads you to buy another just to see what the author’s work is about has done it’s job and at least deserves 4 stars.

In this story what initially begins as a strange discovery turns into an all out archaeological project that results in an interesting form of access to other places.  The story moved a bit slow for me at times and I wanted him to get on with it, but I really enjoyed the flavor of the characters and the tale being told.  Perhaps part of my problem was the lack of patience as I waited for the story to unfold.  I think perhaps I wouldn’t have been good at the dig site in this story and would have been the one beating my head against the structure in frustration while the others scientifically and methodically continued.

As stated above this book led me to pick up some more of Mr. McDevitt’s books and I have very much enjoyed several of them.  McDevitt is a writer that makes you think about things along the way and I appreciate that in a story.  This story was pretty well thought out for the most part.  It had a few flaws, but nothing big enough to really mention.  Additionally, I liked the characters though sometimes they seemed a bit reckless as they barreled ahead at unexpected times.  So in the end it wasn’t a great book, but it was a good enough story that I enjoyed the adventure and hope to travel on others with this author.