A plastic cup...that's how it all started, with a simple plastic cup. Ok, perhaps not all that simple, but a plastic cup nevertheless. Not impressed? Sure, easy to see...but throw in the fact that the cup is marked with the insignia of a ship lost several thousand years ago, a ship thought to be nothing more than a mysterious piece of the legend that is Margolia, and the adventure begins to take shape.

Enter Alex Benedict, antiquarian dealer extraordinaire, and his talented colleague Chase Kolpath – together they begin to delve deeper into the history surrounding the SEEKER, the ship where the ancient cup originated from, and what may have happened to the people who were on it all those many centuries ago. Ok, a little history here to broaden your understanding of the bigger picture: the SEEKER was one of two ships that took several thousand people off of Earth and into the stars nearly nine millennia ago in an effort to build a new utopia – one not governed as strictly as were the governments of Earth, one where people could be free to think and create and speak as they wished without fear of swift retribution.

Unfortunately, the ships disappeared, never to be seen again...at least, not until Benedict and Kolpath were introduced to the cup. So, never one to let a mystery go unsolved (or a reasonably large amount of money to go unearned), Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath begin to peel back the layers of history and uncover the truth behind what happened to the Margolian Colony. For thousands of years, the SEEKER and the BREMERTON had been forgotten – both ships had simply disappeared and had faded from the historical record. The people who had set out into the deeper parts of space to start life anew had not wanted anyone to know where they were going or how to find them – their plan, as it turned out, was a complete success.

Now, nearly 10,000 years later, Benedict and Kolpath begin to uncover the mysteries one by one and follow each new discovery closer toward Margolia. What they ultimately find is a complete surprise to everyone involved and a nice little twist for the reader. Of course, there are those out there who would rather that Margolia remain hidden forever and those individuals will stop at nothing to keep it that way. It is the efforts of these people that thwart Benedict and Kolpath throughout the book – making the read all that much more fun.

Once again, McDevitt (one of my favorite authors in this genre) has delivered a top-notch tale of mystery, intrigue, surprise and satisfaction. SEEKER simply grabs the reader from page-one and never lets go. I flipped through these nearly 400 pages with ease, not aware of the passing time or the passing chapters. Stories like these have earned Jack McDevitt a high place within the rich history of science fiction. A spot he'll continue to hold on to as long he churns out more books like SEEKER.

Synopsis
Thousands of years after an entire colony mysteriously disappears, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict comes into possession of a cup that seems to be from the Seeker, one of the colony's ships. Investigating the provenance of the cup, Alex and his assistant Chase follow a deadly trail to the Seeker-strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.