The Engines of God
I really enjoyed reading this book. As always I remind folks that 4 stars is a high rating for me, "really liked it".
The part that works great is the archaeological mysteries. Indiana Jones in Space, as another reviewer summarized it. The author does a good job exploring the excitement and mystery of what archaeology on alien civilizations might be like, the combination of total mystery and yet also familiarity of what the author posts are cultural universal themes. I could read hundreds of pages of that.
(I will pick a nit with some of the science. The emphasis on the 8000 year cycle. Really? Exactly 8000 Earth years for a galactic phenomenon?. Also the directional clue at Oz, the way the two towers point to a distant star. On a rotating planetary object, in orbit. The tradition for this kind of thing is to say the alignment only happens at solstice. The slightly sloppy science conceits do not break the story in any way, but they do rob it a bit of the hard science perfection that some authors achieve.)
However it also has to be a fun book. And that is great in parts and a bit hackneyed in others. I enjoyed the Adventure parts, the breathless page turning Scenes of Peril. There's about six incidents scattered through the story and when I think back on each one I'm like "boy, that's kind of dumb". But Indy running from the giant stone ball was kind of dumb too, and yet also hugely entertaining and a key scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. McDevitt's book doesn't quite reach that lofty a level of iconicness but the adventure scenes do work in exactly the same way and I'm glad they were there.
As other reviewers have said, the romance and relationship parts are pretty flat. They're present, and important. Some of them ring true, particularly the various people who are balancing being effective in their careers and not getting in trouble for breaking the rules vs. going off-book and doing the right / exciting thing. It's a complicated but very real set of emotions and the book conveys them well. But basic interpersonal interactions, the bits of romance.. They're functional in the book but not great. Eh, it's fine.
All in all good fun. I'm not sure I'm compelled to keep reading; the second book's synopsis makes it sound like all the same tropes as this first book.