History Creator / JackMcDevitt

* The ''Literature/PriscillaHutchins'' series (aka ''The Academy Novels''): ''The Engines of God'', ''Deepsix'', ''Chindi'', ''Omega'', ''Odyssey'', ''Cauldron'', ''StarHawk''

* The ''Literature/AlexBenedict'' series: ''A Talent for War'', ''Polaris'', ''Seeker'', ''The Devil's Eye'', ''Echo'', ''Firebird''

* The ''Literature/PriscillaHutchins'' series (aka ''The Academy Novels''): ''The Engines of God'', ''Deepsix'', ''Chindi'', ''Omega'', ''Odyssey'', ''Cauldron''

* ''The Cassandra Project'' (with Creator/MikeResnick)

* ''The Cassandra Project''

* ColdEquation

* The ''Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins'' series: ''The Engines of God'', ''Deepsix'', ''Chindi'', ''Omega'', ''Odyssey'', ''Cauldron''

* ArtificialGravity: mentioned as a fairly recent invention in the ''Priscilla Hutchins'' novels.
* BigDumbObject: In the Priscilla Hutchins series:
** The Omega Clouds, known as the "Engines of God" in the alien legends that first put humanity on to them, are planet-sized organized clouds of unknown nature which sweep through the galaxy in waves approximately every 8,000 years, destroying obvious signs of civilization. They seem to be primarily attracted to right angles. One now-extinct race went around building fake cities with lots of right angles on various uninhabited moons to try and distract them. The next wave is expected to reach Earth in about a thousand years.
** The giant alien ship known as the ''chindi'' in the novel, ''Chindi'', which is discovered refueling itself in orbit around a gas giant in a remote system.
* ColdEquation: The Priscilla Hutchins series has a couple of examples:
** In ''The Engines of God'', Hutch is piloting a spaceship which crashes into an alien artifact, shutting down their fusion engine. The spaceship starts to lose heat (so much that it starts snowing inside) and the oxygen pumps fail, leaving them with only a week's worth of air in the shuttle and the nearest rescue ship ten days away. A LotteryOfDoom is half-heartedly suggested, but Hutch tells everyone to sleep on it, then sneaks out with the intention of committing suicide (as pilot it's her responsibility to ensure the safety of the others). [[spoiler:At the last moment Hutch realises all they have to do is melt the 'snow' (actually frozen atmosphere) to get the needed oxygen.]] Later on another pilot is looking at his shuttle -- named after a pilot who famously performed a similar sacrifice -- and bemoans the fact that such exciting heroics don't happen now that spaceflight has become routine and safe.
** In ''Chindi'', Hutch is piloting a ship being sent for standby duty at a research station near an unstable star. When she's nearly there, she realizes that the list of Academy personnel on the station includes a teacher, which suggests that the researchers may have their families there--but due to a bureaucratic snafu, her ship is only large enough to carry the listed personnel! At which point, an EM pulse from the star fries everyone's communications systems, and the explosion that caused the pulse looks like it will destroy the station. A number of researchers volunteer to go down with the station, so that others might live, but fortunately, someone back home noticed the snafu, and when communications go out, hurriedly redirects another ship, which arrives just in the nick of time.
* DeathFromAbove: In the ''Academy Novels'' (aka the Priscilla Hutchins series), the Omega Clouds (see BigDumbObject) rain down electrical death from the skies on any civilization foolish enough to use right angles in their architecture.
* DeflectorShields: In the ''Priscilla Hutchins'' series, personal deflector shields have basically replaced space suits. They use more energy than a passive suit, but are much less bulky and obtrusive.
* DescriptivelyNamedSpecies: ''The Engines of God'' has "The Monument-Makers", a now-extinct race that traveled throughout the local part of the galaxy, setting up giant statues and mysterious fake cities on isolated, uninhabitable moons, including Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons.

* DressHitsFloor: In ''Omega'' (part of the Academy/Priscilla Hutchins series), Digby "Digger" Dunn has fallen in love with Kellie Collier, the captain of the research vessel he's traveling on, and she seems to reciprocate his feelings, but Academy regulations forbid a captain from sleeping with passengers, so she insists they have to wait. But the ship gets diverted for a rescue mission that may add up to a year to their voyage, and Digger is scheduled for a risky landing on an unexplored planet with aliens of unknown temperament. He visits her quarters the night before the landing, and...robe hits deck.
* EarthShatteringKaboom: ''Deepsix'' (part of his "Hutch" Hutchins series) is about a last-minute xeno-archeological expedition to a doomed planet that is about to be hit by a large rogue moon. The team only has three weeks before the planet-shattering kaboom, so it's important that nothing go wrong. Of course....
* FantasticRacism: In ''Chindi'', it's mentioned that stealth studies of the winged aliens of the planet called Paradise reveal that the initial landing party was probably attacked because the natives consider a lack of wings to be a mark of evil.
* FirstContact:
** In ''Omega'' (part of the "Hutch" Hutchins series), an intelligent species is discovered directly in the path of an interstellar catastrophe. The species has begun to develop technology, but is still at a pre-spaceflight stage of development. Researchers determine that the technology they have may be enough to save most of their population if they can be persuaded to apply it properly, but the AlienNonInterferenceClause makes the first-contact team's job difficult. Disaster is approaching rapidly, and the team needs to learn as much as they can about the language and culture of the Goompahs, starting from zero. But how do you persuade some alien creatures to cooperate in saving their species if you can't even reveal your own existence?
** ''The Hercules Text'', published almost simultaneously with Carl Sagan's ''Literature/{{Contact}}'', has a very similar premise to that novel: signals are received by Earth via a radio telescope which contain mathematical information that turn out to be the key to a later transmission containing a great deal of scientific information. The effect of all this on the peoples of Earth is dramatic.

* GaiasLament: The ''Priscilla Hutchins'' series features a mild version of this. Coastal areas are shrinking, deserts are growing, famines and foot riots are common. But it's not uniformly bleak: Canada and Siberia are becoming temperate, and are stepping up their food production. Nevertheless, much of the world is in a horrible state, and things look to get worse, and so far, only one potential new colony world has been found.
* GreyGoo: In ''Chindi'', an ancient alien satellite that has already mysteriously destroyed one ship is being much more carefully investigated by a second when the ship begins to come apart. It turns out that the satellite uses grey goo to repair/replicate itself, and the ship is being eaten. Several people die, and one, the artist with a big crush on Hutch, is rescued just in the nick of time.
* HigherTechSpecies: In the Priscilla Hutchins series, the Monument-Makers are a race that at their peak were noticeably more advanced than mankind, and ''far'' more advanced than any other species around. They left the monuments for which they're named on worlds all around the local part of the galaxy, including the one on Saturn's moon Iapetus, which was the first evidence we found that other starfaring races existed, but their civilization eventually collapsed, and they went extinct thousands of years ago.
* InvisibleAliens: In the ''Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins'' series, the galaxy seems to naturally produce things called "omega clouds" every 8000 years or so, strange clouds that are sent out in a wave from the galactic center and can look for and track excessive, clearly artificial regularity on planets -- in other words, square and rectangular buildings and constructions of other shapes that are too regular and precise to appear in nature -- and crash into them, sometimes catastrophically, to eliminate societies that have advanced much beyond the Stone Age. Some characters theorize that an omega cloud may have inspired the legends of Sodom and Gomorrah when it destroyed an early Earth civilization, since the relative timing fits with when the clouds should have last been through.
* MarriedToTheJob: Priscilla Hutchins finds being an Academy pilot a serious obstacle to long-term relationships. It's not that she doesn't want a relationship. Things just don't ever seem to work out. She's even contemplated quitting, or moving to a desk job, but somehow, that never seems to happen.
* MedievalStasis: In the Priscilla Hutchins series, the Noks--the first living alien race discovered by humanity--appears to be permanently stuck at a medieval level of development. They've been that way for an estimated 14,000 years, and show no signs of developing further. They're also extremely hostile and xenophobic, so it's probably just as well.

* SpySatellites: In ''Chindi'' (part of the ''Priscilla Hutchins'' series), Hutch and friends find alien spy satellites around an alien world. The aliens went extinct in a global war several thousand years ago, but the satellites are much more advanced than anything this race ever built. Apparently someone wanted a front-row seat for the war. Even more disturbing is the fact that most of the satellites date back to the time of the war, but one of them is less than 100 years old.

* BigDumbObject: In the Priscilla Hutchins series, the Omega Clouds, known as the "Engines of God" in the alien legends that first put humanity on to them, are planet-sized organized clouds of unknown nature which sweep through the galaxy in waves approximately every 8,000 years, destroying obvious signs of civilization. They seem to be primarily attracted to right angles. One now-extinct race went around building fake cities with lots of right angles on various uninhabited moons to try and distract them. The next wave is expected to reach Earth in about a thousand years.

* SanDimasTime: Averted almost to the point of subversion in ''Time Travelers Never Die''. The protagonists realize early on that the clock is ''not'' always running in San Dimas, and use that fact to prepare for time trips or to bail themselves out of dicey situations.

* ColdEquation: In ''The Engines of God'' (part of the "Hutch" Hutchins series), Hutch is piloting a spaceship which crashes into an alien artifact, shutting down their fusion engine. The spaceship starts to lose heat (so much that it starts snowing inside) and the oxygen pumps fail, leaving them with only a week's worth of air in the shuttle and the nearest rescue ship ten days away. A LotteryOfDoom is half-heartedly suggested, but Hutch tells everyone to sleep on it, then sneaks out with the intention of committing suicide (as pilot it's her responsibility to ensure the safety of the others). [[spoiler:At the last moment Hutch realises all they have to do is melt the 'snow' (actually frozen atmosphere) to get the needed oxygen.]] Later on another pilot is looking at his shuttle -- named after a pilot who famously performed a similar sacrifice -- and bemoans the fact that such exciting heroics don't happen now that spaceflight has become routine and safe.

* BigDumbObject: In the Priscilla Hutchins series, the Omega Clouds, known as the "Engines of God" in the alien legends that first put humanity on to them, are planet-sized organized clouds of unknown nature which sweep through the galaxy in waves approximately every 8,000 years, destroying obvious signs of civilization. They seem to be primarily attracted to right angles. One now-extinct race went around building fake cities with lots of right angles on various uninhabited moons to try and distract them. The next wave is expected to reach Earth in about a thousand years.

** ''The Hercules Text'', published almost simultaneously with Carl Sagan's ''Contact'', has a very similar premise: signals are received by Earth via a radio telescope which contain mathematical information that turn out to be the key to a later transmission containing a great deal of scientific information. The effect of all this on the peoples of Earth is dramatic.

* FirstContact: In ''Omega'' (part of the "Hutch" Hutchins series), an intelligent species is discovered directly in the path of an interstellar catastrophe. The species has begun to develop technology, but is still at a pre-spaceflight stage of development. Researchers determine that the technology they have may be enough to save most of their population if they can be persuaded to apply it properly, but the AlienNonInterferenceClause makes the first-contact team's job difficult. Disaster is approaching rapidly, and the team needs to learn as much as they can about the language and culture of the Goompahs, starting from zero. But how do you persuade some alien creatures to cooperate in saving their species if you can't even reveal your own existence?

* InvisibleAliens: In the''Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins'' series, the galaxy seems to naturally produce things called "omega clouds" every 8000 years or so, strange clouds that are sent out in a wave from the galactic center and can look for and track excessive, clearly artificial regularity on planets -- in other words, square and rectangular buildings and constructions of other shapes that are too regular and precise to appear in nature -- and crash into them, sometimes catastrophically, to eliminate societies that have advanced much beyond the Stone Age. Some characters theorize that an omega cloud may have inspired the legends of Sodom and Gomorrah when it destroyed an early Earth civilization, since the relative timing fits with when the clouds should have last been through.

* Literature/AlexBenedict series: ''A Talent for War'', ''Polaris'', ''Seeker'', ''The Devil's Eye'', ''Echo'', ''Firebird''

* ''InfinityBeach''

* Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins series: ''The Engines of God'', ''Deepsix'', ''Chindi'', ''Omega'', ''Odyssey'', ''Cauldron''