Regular marked price: $35.64Discount Price: $18.71
Cost Savings: $16.93 (48%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Type of bind: Audio Download
Label: audible.com
Manufacturer: audible.com
Publishing house: audible.com
Studio: audible.com
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The luxury space yacht Polaris carried an elite group of the wealthy and curious thousands of light-years from Earth to witness a spectacular stellar phenomenon. It never returned. The search party sent to investigate found the Polaris empty and adrift in space, the fate of its pilot and passengers a mystery.
Sixty years later, prominent antiquities dealer Alex Benedict is determined to find the truth about Polaris-no matter how far he must travel across the stars, no matter the risk.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
I do love scifi mysteries. An empty spaceship with missing celebrities. What happened to them? Maybe aliens kidnapped them, or maybe a new and frightening technology that can snatch people and transport them...where?
Rated by buyers 
-
Like other Alex/Chase stories, this one doesn't have great vision or interesting technologies (10000 years in the future and human still die of old age at 100 or so), and you're taken to a lot of places to meet one-time characters whose sole purpose of existence is to offer information to advance the plot. However, the plotline is not bad, it kept me reading even though the author made the answer of the mystery clear way early in the novel.
The underlying issue here is not as interesting as the one in the Talent for War, but by telling the story from Chase's point of view, it gives both leading characters some depth that didn't exist in the 1st novel.
Rated by buyers -
_Polaris_ is another excellent installment in the Alex Benedict series, a series which I believe in November of 2008 will be a four volume series. Though later books in the series reference very briefly earlier adventures, the books can be read out of order or as stand-alones (I read the third volume for instance very first and only later bought and read the very first and second novels).
Just as in the other novels, the two main characters in _Polaris_ are Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath, two dealers in antiquities, a two-person firm (Alex is the owner and boss and Chase is his sole employee) that generally keeps its eyes and ears open for new objects to sell to their wealthy clientele, private individuals who want a piece commemorating some great historical person, culture, ship, or event.
The two get wind of some historical artifacts coming up for sale, artifacts connected to a famous ship known as _Polaris_. Sixty years ago it accompanied a scientific expedition to watch the collision of two stars. Unlike the other ships present it that extremely rare stellar event, it was there for pleasure; the _Polaris_ was a luxury craft sent out by the Department of Planetary Survey and Astronomical Research with a pilot and six passengers. These six passengers were famous people at the time (and still famous in the novel's present), leading scientists, media personalities, and captains of industry. There to view a magnificent and awe-inspiring natural event, the ship failed to accompany the research vessels when they jumped back home.
Not responding to hails, a rescue mission was sent, Survey very first diverting a nearby freighter. The crew of the ship found when they arrived _Polaris_ adrift in space. They boarded the vessel and found no evidence of damage, the ships Artificial Intelligence turned off but still functional (and unaware of any problems). The pressure suits and the ship's lander were still present, and the way personal items were present, books still open to where they were being read, food left on the table, seemed to indicate that the crew had left suddenly. Where had they gone though? No one was found on the ship, no blood, no signs of any struggle. An ever expanding rescue mission which eventually included many dozens of Survey, military, and even private vessels found nothing. No bodies adrift in the vacuum of space, no place where they might have set down, nothing. They were never found and years later, proclaimed dead.
The disappearance of the pilot and six passengers was one of the most romantic mysteries of Alex's and Chase's time, a topic subject to some of the wildest speculations and conjectures about aliens, space diseases, ghosts, or stranger theories. Whatever the cause, Alex and Chase were delighted to find that they had an opportunity to purchase from Survey select items connected with the passengers and crew and them offer them up for sale to their own grateful and wealthy clientele.
Unfortunately, all does not go as planned. A bomb goes off at the site of the auction where the majority of the artifacts were housed. The artifacts there are destroyed, though the few that Chase and Alex saved still exist. Though the authorities and even our two protagonists don't have any reason (at first) to believe the bombing had any connection with the _Polaris_, they begin to wonder as someone is investigating the artifacts that Alex and Chase sold and also someone broke into their house, obviously looking for something. Alex and Chase conclude that someone is trying to find something, something hidden in one of the artifacts. They want to prevent that item from being discovered, whether that means destroying the object, buying it themselves, or stealing it. Also, they are not above killing those who get in their way. What is this object? What is so important after sixty years, when everyone connected with the doomed flight is retired or deceased? Who is after them?
I enjoyed the book greatly, I liked the murder mystery aspect of it, it unfolded very well and in such a way I began to guess what the answer was. The book had some similarities to the very first volume, _A Talent For War_, such as Alex and Chase investigating harmless social clubs that are essentially groups of hobbyists who get together to celebrate their interest in something historical and finding deep, dark secrets connected to famous people and events that would once found totally rewrite history. The book is told from the point of view of Chase, a difference from the very first volume (and a point of view also used in _Seeker_). There is also a good deal of action in the book, particularly at the end.
Rated by buyers -
I found POLARIS a pleasure to read. It is essentially a whodunit, but it takes place thousands of years in the future. McDevitt is one of the better prose writers in sci-fi, and I really enjoyed the quality of his storytelling in this book.
POLARIS is not a wham-bam action story, but an intelligent mystery that mainly involves the two main characters investigating an unsolved disappearance. It reads like a crime novel -- the protagonists travel from one place to another, meeting and interrogating a series of supporting characters. Most of the dialog is quite fascinating and thought-provoking. McDevitt's worldbuilding is also quite first-rate, and I enjoyed spending time in his future universe.
This novel isn't perfect, and I'm especially not a big fan of male writer who insist in writing female characters in the very first person -- most of them do an unconvincing job, and McDevitt is no exception. I also found the action scenes boring and quite repetitive -- they are the story's weakest link.
Still, POLARIS is a highly enjoyable book, and I plan on reading the Nebula-winning sequel to it (SEEKER) very soon. If you like Isaac Asimov's stories, you may want to give McDevitt a try.
Rated by buyers 
-
I understand JMD wants to keep us engrossed and thrilled but why make AB and CK miraculously escape crashing TWICE! Isn't once enough? Besides, all the plot lies on the fact that a person, party concerned, having the key to the mystery didn't get questioned when the Polaris passengers were found missing. Isn't that a bit short and frail? That story tastes like a peppered rehash and some reworking would have been welcome before having it published. Well, let's be positive and say the book reads easily in spite of a repetitious and transparent plot thread.
Find other books like this one:
