JACK MC DEVITT

Eternity Road

(HarperPrism, 1997)

In a town near a place that used to be Memphis, people wonder who built the big concrete strips that cross the land, and what purpose they served. The answers, according to legend, could be found in a distant place called Haven, where the treasures of a civilization ravaged by plague had been hidden.

Of course nobody believed any of it. Except Karik Endine and a few intrepid souls who trusted him when he said he knew where Haven was. So they plunged into the wilderness, following the rock-hard strips. Nine months later Endine returned alone, exhausted and defeated. The others were all dead, he explained, victims of accidents and attacks by barbarians. And if Haven existed, it wasn't where he'd expected to find it.

The town does not easily forget or forgive its losses. Endine becomes a recluse and eventually walks into the Mississippi. At a memorial service, his son is shocked to find a copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Mark Twain had been known only through a few fragments. The conclusion: Endine had indeed found Haven. It was a magnificent success on his part. But why had he denied it?

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Moonfall

(HarperPrism, 1998)

Finalist, Nebula Award ^®

It is 2024, and a united world is opening Moonbase. Among the guests at the ceremonies is Charlie Haskell, a nondescript U.S. vice president. The event is timed to coincide with a total eclipse, which will move across the hometown of a former president who was the major force in launching the project. But the eclipse unexpectedly provides a glimpse of an object preveiously hidden in the sun's glare: a giant extrasolar comet is inbound at an extraordinarily high velocity. It will impact with the moon in five days.

At home, no one knows what to expect. And world leaders have to make fearful decisions. Meantime, Haskell, informed that there's time to evacuate everyone, tells the world he will be the last person to leave Moonbase, turning off the lights behind him. Then a few things go wrong and Charlie discovers he can bail and watch his political career evaporate, or stay with the heroes to await the comet.

Ultimately, if the groundside civilization is to have a chance to survive, Charlie Haskell will also have to survive, and become the most adept president the U.S. has ever seen.

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Infinity Beach

(EOS, 2000)

We are alone. That's the conclusion after centuries of listening to the stars, and visiting terrestrial worlds across the cosmos. But something strange happened to the Hunter a quarter-century ago. The ship was out looking for signs of a civilization, long the holy grail of the age. When it suffered engine trouble and returned early, strange things began to happen. Two women researchers never reached their hotel. A few days later, the third passenger on the flight died when an explosion took out a mountain and wrecked a town in the Severin Valley. Rumor had it that the blast was caused by the crash of an alien ship.

The only survivor of the mission was the pilot, who insisted he had no idea what the explosion had been about, or what had happened to the nmissing researchers. He laughed at the story of an alien crash. He is now dead, having been killed rescuing kids years later during a forest fire.

The ship's log showed no unusual activity during the Hunter mission. But a ghostly presence is loose in the Severin woods. An academic contacts Kim Brandywine, whose clone-sister was one of the missing women. Something happened, he says. And it's connected with the thing in the woods. "If you want to find out what happened to your sister," he tells her, "find out what haunts the nights in the Severin Valley."

Copyright © 2003 by Cryptic, Inc.

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