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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780441016501
ISBN number: 0441016502
Label: Ace
Manufacturer: Ace
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: October 28, 2008
Publishing house: Ace
Sale Popularity Level: 34556
Studio: Ace
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Product Description:
Chosen as One of the Five Best SF Novels of the Year by Library Journal.
When a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, veteran star pilot Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins finds herself back in the deepest reaches of space, and on the verge of discovering the origins of the deadly omega clouds that continue to haunt her.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
Before proceeding with this review, note this: A majority of Americans do not want to fund NASA, do not want to explore space; don't think there is any good reason to.
And this is what McDevitt is about with the past few Hutchins novels. Perhaps he is texting in his stories at this point. Perhaps good series should stop at the third installment because this seems to be the point where authors grow weary of their subject matter...but, this is not Star Trek. His characters and his plot, although not as fully formed as enthusiasts such as myself would prefer, do not exhibit all of the actions and answers of a myopic television series or utopian series of films. People stumble around and do inexplicable things. Think of any reality show or horror pic in which you are thinking, "If I were there I would do this or that," yet these kinds of shows remain popular for some reason, and those involved were certainly thinking the same thing before they became immersed in the story and action.
Setting all of this aside, and regardless the three stars I rated this book, I still enjoyed it. Sure I would have preferred much more development of the loose ends in the Hutchins series. I would have looked forward to, and would have eagerly read, a separate novel dealing with each of these loose ends. However, we are not the writers, McDevitt is, and he chose to wrap this up, or so it seems. I suspect Charlie Hutchins will make an appearance in his own story at some point. Hurried and perhaps anticlimactic, sure, but I did not find this book boring at all. I thought the very first two-thirds of the book, dealing with the new super-light drive system, to be pretty much the way things would go if the government pulled funding from space exploration. McDevitt believes in space exploration. His later stories show that people will proceed with the knowledge we have gained even if governments lose interest. And I think this is a worthy theme.
Rated by buyers 
-
If you buy this book, you are rewarding contemptuous mediocrity. Sorry Amazon, but this one's a dog! I've read most of the other books in this series: None of them are great sci-fi, all of them aspire to a grandeur and depth that they fail to achieve. The characters are cartoony, simplified, boring people. After reading this book, which I slogged through only because I've been waiting at least 10 years to learn the secret of the Omega clouds, I wish I had just read a spoiler. There are science fiction authors who work hard to come up with fresh, original, stimulating ideas and to embody them in vivid coherent worlds, to visualize plausible futures or alternate pasts, help us suspend disbelief and share adventure or tragedy with interesting people (human and otherwise). Iain Banks. Ken Macleod. Robert Reed, Peter Hamilton. CJ Cherryh. Elizabeth Moon. Richard Morgan. Support one of *those* authors, not Jack "my publisher made me do it and I couldn't find any engineers or scientists to give me feedback" McDevitt.
Rated by buyers -
Through five books in the saga of Priscilla Hutchins and the Academy of Science, Jack McDevitt has created an interesting view of man's exploration of the near galaxy and its discovery that it is nearly alone and all civilizations seem ultimately doomed.
The very first book, The Engines of God, was a near flawless piece of archaeological space opera that took a lowly superluminal captain and thrust her into the discovery of a lifetime in regards to why civilization throughout the galactic region fail. Couple this book with the subsequent two in the series, Deepsix and Omega, and McDevitt had delivered a well crafted trilogy that ultimately presented a fresh idea to the creation galaxy wide constructs that destroyed civilization: galactic-sized art.
Then the series went on. Though Chindi was received with mixed reactions, I personally liked it and found it an interesting story that expanded the mystery this universe. Even Odyssey wasn't half bad of an idea about a enigmatic and advanced species saving us from our selves if poorly executed and mostly boring.
But, if Cauldron is the conclusion to this series, then it might be evidence that science fiction is doomed. Cauldron is basically a rip off of Star Trek V: The Should-Have Been Forgotten Frontier! The promise of a new, faster superluminal propulsion system promises to open up the galaxy to humans and possible answer a few unanswered questions in the series along the way: two of which are prominent in the series - the origin of the Omega Clouds and where did the Chindi come from.
Where to start on why this book fails at everything? (some spoilers ahead, but since you shouldn't read this book, I am actually helping) First, and foremost, is that it is BORING. The testing of the new engines provides no real hard science payoff; and the makers of the Chindi? Let's just call them Mr. Potato Heads with NO purpose whatsoever in this story as they are a stagnant, boring, "lifeless" civilization that can't travel in space and barely remembers launching the thing. Then so what?
And then there is a stop at a planet that was the very first radio source found by Hutchins' father at the SETI program. Has this ever been mentioned before? I can't remember it and it feels like something hastily made up to give them one more (short and pointless) stop on the way to the center the galaxy and the source of the Omega Clouds.
The most interesting stop is at a grey hole theorized to exist, but without observable evidence from Earth. But even this interlude is not enough to even carry a portion of the book.
And finally, in the last 60 pages of the book (series!), we finally confront the creator of the Omega Clouds. Let's just repeat: This book is ultimately a knock off of Star Trek V. The final explanation? I won't spoil this, but if you choose not to read the book, then remember: STAR TREK V!!!
Cauldron has turned a once great series deserving of the shelf space in my library into whatever I can get for in trade at the local used bookshop.
>>>>>>><<<<<<<
A Guide to my Book Rating System:
1 star = The fibre pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper.
2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead.
3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted.
4 stars = Good book, but not life altering.
5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.
Rated by buyers 
-
i got this book from the library because on the cover, there was a plaudit that this author has taken the mantle of sir arthur clarke. nonsense. this book is boring. the charachters ridiculous. the story is well there is no story.
Rated by buyers -
As the finale of the "Engines of God" series, this book is the anti-climax to end all anti-climaxes. "The Engines of God" was just about perfect: excitingly paced, with a wonderful, complex mystery at its heart. Huge, brilliant ideas were presented in an extremely readable way. It was so good, I read the entire thing out loud to my spouse.
Warning: spoilers ahead... not that it really matters.
As the series continued in later books, we got a few side trips and blue herrings, but the galaxy-spanning mystery was still magnificent and seemed to only grow deeper and richer the more we learned. When at last, Hutch offers her theory for the mystery's origin -- objects d'art from a hyper-advanced race -- I was blown away. I loved this idea and it had my imagination buzzing for weeks. THE SERIES SHOULD HAVE ENDED HERE.
But... then we got an utterly pointless rip-off of Rendezvous With Rama ("Chindi") and an equally pointless detour to visit the Moonriders, which went nowhere.
And now... Cauldron. What a turkey, and what a massively bungled way to end the series.
Where to even begin?
* The very first two-thirds of the book are excruciatingly boring. Hutch is old, and space travel is on the ropes. Got it. Why wasn't this dealt with in a single chapter, instead of hundreds of pages?
* Despite all this time for character drawing, by the end of the book, I realized all of the non-Hutch characters shared roughly the same face in my mind's eye. The only thing that distinguishes one character from another is their name. Also, it's 500 years in the future and everybody is still named Jon and Rudy and so on?
* The serial mysteries that are described in the final third of the book are just silly. There's a race of cartoon creatures who act like Keystone Cops and live forever. There's an abandoned planet that has the remains of a civilization -- normally fertile ground for Mr. McDevitt's tales -- that turns out to be pointless and one of the characters dies there. Whatever. The "lighthouse" near a grey hole is interesting, but takes up only a few pages. What's up with throwing a great idea away like that?
* The mystery of the omega clouds is revealed to be... drumroll please... THE MONSTER FROM STAR TREK V???? What???? Let me get this straight: this thing can breathe vacuum, it can generate hyper-advanced nanotech at will, it can instantly communicate with an alien species, it has lived for millions of years, but it can't pull itself out of a ditch? Why not? If it's simply the gravity of the galactic center holding it in place, why can the human ships navigate it so easily?
* Why does the animal have eyes? If it can build the clouds and a replica of a human ship in an instant, what use would it have with the visual spectrum?
* Why is it so stupid?
* It already had its hands on their ship -- what more did it need to copy their design?
* At first, they can only communicate with it through sign language, which sets up all sorts of interesting challenges, but then it speaks to them in English. Cop-out! And what's up with these alien races being able to speak perfect English, like the Moonriders? This is lazy!
* How is it possible the monster is unaware of other life forms in the galaxy? From this series alone, we've learned of about a dozen or so in a relatively small volume of space.
* Most important of all: what happened to the sense of awe and wonder? I got the sense that Mr. McDevitt just couldn't care less about this book, and that is devastating to me. Why put love into a pointless knock-off like "Chindi" and leave just a handful of pages here for resolving one of the great mysteries in the last few decades of speculative fiction?
Why? Why?
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