Anyone who has ever studied archaeology has to wonder what the modern world would look like if a cataclysm (say, a plague) was to wipe out virtually the entire population of the world and the small group of survivors had to attempt to repopulate it. After centuries, what would these survivors make of freeways, skyscrapers, railroad tracks, automobile hulks, amusement parks, churches, data centers, rail stations, radar dishes, cellular towers, and the like? In Eternity Road, Jack McDevitt does just that, positing a primitive group of survivors after not one but two societies have collapsed.

The story is built around a second mission to some legendary repository of knowledge. The first mission failed miserably and ruined a man’s reputation and life. The second is forced to discover that there may be a fine line between legend and reality, as well as the fact that some pilgrimages are more important than their original goals. Eternity Road is science-fiction in that some of the artifacts discovered by the explorers are beyond technology available today. Yet, McDevitt is light on futuristic speculation and long on looking back to a world just beyond ours through the eyes of these amateur archaeologist survivors. The expedition is costly and discouraging, but every mile along the journey is worthwhile as the reader discovers or rediscovers technology and human potential in the eyes of the protagonists.

Not having read any other works by McDevitt, I don’t know if Eternity Road is typical of his style. If so, I have mixed feelings. In one sense, the craftsmanship is impeccable. McDevitt is an artisan who builds the texture of the story by placing one brick carefully upon another. Yet, there can be times when it feels like there is too much “stage description” and not enough action. To be sure, there is action. It is a story where death comes in logical, but surprising ways. Further, McDevitt is to be commended for a near-flawless point-of-view in which survivors with a primitive perspective judge their technological predecessors. I was jolted by an out-of-perspective observation when someone referred to aluminum. I wasn’t sure how a primitive society would understand this metal or refer to it by name. Yet, that is an extremely minor quibble and shouldn’t really detract from the masterful job of maintaining POV that McDevitt presents. But the biggest downside of the novel is that while I felt smaller arcs of tension throughout the novel, there was no overarching urgency to keep me reading. I didn’t feel like there was a clock ticking on the exploring party and I felt like the book could have used such a conceit. Of course, the Romans used to say “de gustibus non est disputandum” (if my rusty, rusty Latin is correct) and, indeed, there is no argument concerning taste.