Skip to main content

story identification - What SciFi series has a female protagonist/pilot member of a small Earthly explorer corps?


This is a series of novels probably written in the last 15-20 years. I read them about 8 years ago.


The future Earth has many problems but it is not a dystopia. A means of FTL is discovered. It is easy to run (most ships require only a single crew member) but expensive to operate - Earth only builds and finances a very small number of the ships. The explorer corps (not capitalized because I do not think this is its proper name) is a very small group. Over time, it has grown smaller as Earth becomes more self-interested and less interested in paying the steep cost of learning about "what's out there."


The protagonist is a woman (who I think was petite and pretty but not beautiful). She had feelings for her mentor pilot who died before the events of the novels in the series. The novels are about how she personally survives the many pitfalls of exploring the Universe essentially by herself during her missions.



Some of the novels included these events (a line item per novel):



  1. Rescue stranded science team, who was running out of air.

  2. Witnessing the collision of a terrestrial and Jovian planet as well as attempting to rescue a portion of the inhabitants they discover there while observing.

  3. Investigating a giant alien artifact discovered by the explorer corps.

  4. Investigate why stars are exploding for an unexplained reason and why that reason seems to be approaching the Earth (maybe in conjunction with #3).


I can almost visualize the name of the author and/or the book names but it is buried just a bit too far back in my mind.



Answer



Per comment, this is the Academy Series by Jack McDevitt.




  1. The Engines of God (1994)

  2. Deepsix (2001)

  3. Chindi (2002)

  4. Omega (2003)

  5. Odyssey (2006)

  6. Cauldron (2007)

  7. StarHawk (2013)

  8. The Long Sunset (2018)



The (extensive) summary on Wikipedia of the first book, The Engines of God is summarized as:



Xeno-archaeologists, and interstellar pilot Priscilla Hutchins [Hutch], attempt to unravel the mysteries surrounding tremendous monuments left near several habitable worlds in the solar neighborhood.



It also includes this line:



At one point it appeared as if they would run out of air before rescue arrived, but Hutch managed to remedy the problem at the last minute.



And ends with:




The implications were that the Omega clouds menace the entire galaxy, and the only way to escape them is to leave the galaxy entirely. In fact, the cycle of the clouds meant that they would be upon Earth in just 1,000 years.



The only one I've read is Deepsix where Hutch visits a planetary collision, then gets stuck on the terrestrial planet.


The summary for Odyssey includes this quote:



It is set in the 23rd century and "explores the immorality of big business and the short-sightedness of the American government in minimizing support for space travel."



Likewise, Cauldron starts with



Humanity now generally disregards spaceflight, and space exploration is in massive decline.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more