The Engines of Dawn

The Engines of Dawn, Paul Cook, ROC Books, 1999

For hundreds of years, man has traveled the stars with the help of Engines from an alien race called the Enamorati. As part of the arrangement, the Enamorati jealously gaurd the secret of their Engines.

One day, Eos University, built inside a hollowed out asteroid, comes out of hyperspace, stranding it with a failed Engine. One of the effects of Engine travel on humans is called the Ennui. It isn't so much a sickness as a general lack of initiative. Students from the Physics Department start their own unofficial investigation, even going into the Enamorati section of the ship, off limits to humans. There they find signs of what looks like an Enamorati civil war.

While the Engine is being replaced with another from the Enamorati home world, a nearly religious process also off limits to humans, a group of students from the Archaeology Department travel to a nearby earth-like planet. Amid the ruins of ancient cities, they find some Very Interesting Things about the Enamorati and their Engines.

I really liked this novel. It works as space opera and as a conspiracy story. The climax was also noticeably above average.