Omega

It's hard to tell if Omega is better than Chindi. They're nearly equal, though Omega edges ahead a tiny little bit. They both are very strong in term of stories and characters. The only thing that might make Omega rank over Chindi, perhaps, is that we're visiting truly new narrative spaces, here. 

We're outside of the crazy-last-second-rescue-of-a-main-character template McDevitt followed for the previous 3 books. It feels good and fresh. Sure, there is rescuing taking place, but it's in various forms and ways that are different than the previous books. 

First, Hutch isn't the main character this time. She still has an important role, but we follow new heroes out in the field. Still, it's nice to see how things have been going for her. 

Our new heroes are interesting and well fleshed out. I was afraid at first, they wouldn't be as compelling as Hutch. No worries, there. They don't feel like a downgrade at all. McDevitt is very good at making his characters relatable and… human. And they will find themselves in very relatable and human situations. Situations that will overwhelm them with guilt and have them questioning whether what they did or didn't was right. Ethical dilemmas in regards to contacting a species that is not as advanced as our own, and all the implications that would follow such a contact. 

Now, the main topic: the Omega clouds. Discovered during Engines of God, we barely heard about them in Deepsix and Chindi. All we know is their immense destructive power and that one is going to reach the Earth in a thousand years… so, why study them now? There's no hurry, we still got a thousand year to do it! 

Classic procrastination… on a civilizational level! Good stuff. 

See, in real-life, we'd think a world-destroying menace would provoke and instantaneous worldwide response. But when you give it a little more thought, you notice that the lack of immediate urgency more often than not turns into procrastination. I think that's genius on the author's part and I love it. 

It would be easy to simply say the characters depicted in the novel are dumb for not doing much about the clouds. But when you think about it, as counter-intuitive as it might sound, it's most likely what would happen in real life, if an Omega cloud was to reach us in 10 centuries. We'd leave it to future generations, because we can. 

Again, a great read!