Eternity Road (1997)

Full disclosure: I only read this book because my boyfriend asked me to because it's one of his favorites. That being said, i really enjoyed it. No one can be more surprised than me. Science fiction is not a genre I generally like. I usually can't follow the jargon, the names, or any of the science-type stuff. This book is more about the people and the stuff of their past (our current time or our current time about 20 years ago) so I think that appealed to me more.

So the basics are these...the United States is in ruins. There are pockets of civilizations all over the place but they don't have the technology we had and they marvel at the relics they find of stuff such as the road signs, combs, and such. There are stories of a place called "Haven" where many artifacts such as books are supposed to have been preserved. No one has been able to find Haven and when the last group went out to look, only the leader of the group returned. He wouldn't talk about what happened to the others or what he found.

Fast forward to when the leader dies and leaves an actual Mark Twain book to a woman whose brother was part of the group that died looking for Haven. Chaka takes this as a sign that the group made it to Haven and she decides to form her own group to go search. The story follows them as they make there way across the earth not only in search for Haven but to also find out what happened to the other group.

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I found this to be a book with so much potential but very little of that potential delivered in the book. The characters were never really developed and the journey seemed little more than they, went here, they went there...lots of dialog but not really captivating. Only one scene was really enjoyable, the bank scene where they are dealing with a guard robot...but that was it. Even their one real encounter with bad guys lasted a couple of pages at best....very simplistic.

I was looking for so much more in this book and was left wanting. ( )

Our world, the 21st century, is long past. Civilization has been destroyed due to some type of plague. What would happen if several brave souls set off to find out more about the lost "Roadmakers" and only one survivor of the trip came back? Would others follow in their footsteps? Of course, they would! I enjoyed this novel very much. Jack McDevitt, the author, has been a great find for me. ( )

There's a lot to like in this quest story set in North America several centuries after a plague brought the "Roadmaker" civilization to an end in 2079. There are the scholarly speculations, sometimes comical, sometimes poignant, on the meaning of Roadmaker ruins and literature. It is the discovery of a lost Mark Twain work that sets a group of scholars in search of the legendary Haven, reputed treasure trove of Roadmaker learning.

The journey to Haven definitely holds the reader's interest with the scholars encountering artifical intelligences that still haunt the landscape, river pirates, and other hazards of the road. However, the story quickly falters when Haven is reached. McDevitt hurries the conclusion to his tale and, though he provides a definite conclusion , it is so rushed it makes the book seem unfinished. ( )

Post Apocalyptic fiction. Many years after the road builders have disappeared a group of people go on a quest to find "Haven" -- the place where many books and treasures are stored to tell the story of the past. ( )