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Starhawk A Priscilla Hutchins Novel Jack McDevitt 9780425260852 Books

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Starhawk A Priscilla Hutchins Novel Jack McDevitt 9780425260852 Books

I'm not a fan of prequels. They are usually committed after a series or character becomes popular and carries the weight of an established past recorded in the previous tales. The prequel must then tiptoe through what-we-all-know-will-come without contradicting any of it, or not, depending on the author's whim (and respect for their readers). Not all authors are up to the task, but when I heard McDevitt was writing a "Hutch" prequel I had no reservations about it at all.

Starhawk avoids the prequel problem by accepting its place within canon. This is the beginning of Hutch's career. There are no earth-shattering events or revelations that for some reason no one ever mentions again. Instead, Hutch graduates into the world of starship pilot where adventure comes in bursts of a couple of hours followed by days of just killing time.

This is not to say that nothing exciting happens. There are cosmic mysteries served up a la McDevitt: the universe is big and strange and the answers aren't always conveniently waiting in the next chapter. There are life and death situations that end the way they end, not the way you want them to. And there are characters, neither good nor bad, struggling for balance between their conscience and the expectations of job and duty.

The novel covers the period shortly before and after Hutch's certification as a pilot with about half of the book following Jake Loomis, the veteran pilot who supervised Hutch's certification flight. Loomis retires in large part due to the tragic circumstances surrounding the end of that trip, while Hutch runs face-first into a wall of bureaucracy and politics, with some eco-terrorism on the side. Hutch's and Jake's stories intersect throughout the novel ultimately leading to a climax that is much more subdued than in later novels. Nevertheless, fans of the character should have no trouble recognizing this as a critical period for Hutch.

Readers should resist the temptation to hold Starhawk up against the novels that chronologically follow. This is how it begins and McDevitt respects us enough to believe we will understand that. Hutch's big adventures are yet to come, but the not-so-big ones also matter and are often the ones that have the greatest influence on who we become. Rather than a prequel, Starhawk is best viewed as the first in series of novels, never mind that the others were written before it.

If you are a fan of McDevitt's work, you will find the same casual style that characterizes most of his writing, like a conversation with good friends. If you are a fan of the Academy novels, you get a look at its early days and the environment in which the Academy came to be the institution seen in later books. If you are a fan of Hutch, you will get to see the dawn of her career and a few key events that guide her future decisions and shape her character into the resourceful pilot we already know.

And if you've never read any of the Academy novels, this is the perfect place to start.


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Starhawk A Priscilla Hutchins Novel Jack McDevitt 9780425260852 Books Reviews

McDevitt almost literally jumped up in my face when I first read The Engines of God. I've read science fiction for almost my entire life and McDevitt ranks right up there with the superluminaries in this field. His Hutchins series of novels are generally relatively fast but interesting reads with plenty of visuals that stay with me - and this one's no different. One prior reviewer of his novels once said "Who among us is such a slow pony that they aren't reading Jack McDevitt?" and that's the truth. Unless you're heavily into the "fantasy" side of science fiction, McDevitt's novels are always a great read.
If you have read other McDeviit novels, and particularly those featuring starship pilot Priscilla 'Hutch' Hutchins, then you'll know what to expect from "Starhawk"

- Assumed high technology toys that are not quite foolproof, but generally good enough for the job
- Lots of boredom as the interstellar spaceships slowly traverse the fog of hyperspace
- A smattering of alien species, mostly extinct
- A thoughtful and often confused or confounded leading lady character
- A cast of other thoughtful but equally confused or confounded characters
- A mystery here and there with meager facts to be chased down and solved

McDevitt tends to keep his novels 'real' in the sense that the issues are up close and personal so the tension is not normally galaxy spanning (having said that, of course "Omega" covers off just about the biggest problem of them all!)

Instead, we get intimate interactions and reactions, news-of-the-day snippets that could be cut from todays papers, and problems that one or two people can solve...or not! Because McDevitt does not always tie things up with a ribbon and give the solution to us as a present at the end of the story. Indeed, McDevitt constantly brings the petty politics of State into the frame and the outcomes from this are often as conflicted and compromised as they are in real life.

As examples, there is an alien encounter in this novel that is pretty much ignored once it has happened, and while I wondered about that, I can see that it might occur that way for the reasons given. Likewise, the (lack of) funding of the World Space Authority that drives the novel and the consequences this has for the first third of the story mirror cash-strapped governmental departments everywhere struggling to deliver reasonable outcomes on an overstretched budget. And the terraforming is destruction of the kind happening on Earth right now, just scaled up, and rationalized/justified with much the same reasoning!

Still, this is not as strong a novel as many of McDevitt's others, and particularly those in the "The Engines of God" universe. Hutch seems both callow and wise by turns, so I felt her character was inconsistently drawn. And the policy U-turn exhibited by one of the politicians seemed contrived so this time-line would not clash with what has happened in Hutch's future (which we know from the other novels in this series) rather than as a logical outcome of the his personal journey.

It is also expensive!

So, if you are a die-hard McDevitt reader this adds to the lore but is not in itself so compelling that you will miss anything buying it on sale or even loaning it from your local library. And if you've not read McDevitt before, there are better novels to commence with such as "The Engines of God" or "A Talent For War" (but not "Time Travelers Never Die", that was a mess).
I'm not a fan of prequels. They are usually committed after a series or character becomes popular and carries the weight of an established past recorded in the previous tales. The prequel must then tiptoe through what-we-all-know-will-come without contradicting any of it, or not, depending on the author's whim (and respect for their readers). Not all authors are up to the task, but when I heard McDevitt was writing a "Hutch" prequel I had no reservations about it at all.

Starhawk avoids the prequel problem by accepting its place within canon. This is the beginning of Hutch's career. There are no earth-shattering events or revelations that for some reason no one ever mentions again. Instead, Hutch graduates into the world of starship pilot where adventure comes in bursts of a couple of hours followed by days of just killing time.

This is not to say that nothing exciting happens. There are cosmic mysteries served up a la McDevitt the universe is big and strange and the answers aren't always conveniently waiting in the next chapter. There are life and death situations that end the way they end, not the way you want them to. And there are characters, neither good nor bad, struggling for balance between their conscience and the expectations of job and duty.

The novel covers the period shortly before and after Hutch's certification as a pilot with about half of the book following Jake Loomis, the veteran pilot who supervised Hutch's certification flight. Loomis retires in large part due to the tragic circumstances surrounding the end of that trip, while Hutch runs face-first into a wall of bureaucracy and politics, with some eco-terrorism on the side. Hutch's and Jake's stories intersect throughout the novel ultimately leading to a climax that is much more subdued than in later novels. Nevertheless, fans of the character should have no trouble recognizing this as a critical period for Hutch.

Readers should resist the temptation to hold Starhawk up against the novels that chronologically follow. This is how it begins and McDevitt respects us enough to believe we will understand that. Hutch's big adventures are yet to come, but the not-so-big ones also matter and are often the ones that have the greatest influence on who we become. Rather than a prequel, Starhawk is best viewed as the first in series of novels, never mind that the others were written before it.

If you are a fan of McDevitt's work, you will find the same casual style that characterizes most of his writing, like a conversation with good friends. If you are a fan of the Academy novels, you get a look at its early days and the environment in which the Academy came to be the institution seen in later books. If you are a fan of Hutch, you will get to see the dawn of her career and a few key events that guide her future decisions and shape her character into the resourceful pilot we already know.

And if you've never read any of the Academy novels, this is the perfect place to start.