Odyssey

Odyssey, Jack McDevitt, Ace Books, 2006

This far-future novel is about mankind's attempt to learn the truth behind mysterious lights in space called moonriders.

Space travel and industrialization just has not paid off the way humanity had hoped. The search for intelligent life has been disappointing. On Earth, there is a growing call to cut the space exploration budget, and focus on domestic issues, like global warming. In a last-ditch effort, the Academy puts together a mission to investigate moonriders, once and for all. The modern equivalent of UFOs, they have been seen by many, but no one has gotten a close look at them.

The mission takes on added urgency when an asteroid misses Earth by a whisker (in astronomical terms), and no one knew it was coming. A luxury hotel under construction orbiting a nearby planet is destroyed by another asteroid. Both incidents are blamed on moonriders. The mission, including the journalist leading the campaign to cut the space fleet, discovers that the incidents blamed on moonriders have a much more Earthly origin. They also see, up close and personal, that the moonriders are not to be trifled with, when they attack a supercollider, thousands of kilometers long, under construction many light years away.

Here is another gem of a story from McDevitt. It's an intelligent piece of space opera, it does a good job of combining ideas and action, and it is recommended.