Doorway to the Stars

Set on Sioux territory in North Dakota more than a decade into the future, this underbaked novella from Nebula Award winner McDevitt (Village in the Sky) sends a ho-hum cast of 40-somethings on a flimsy adventure to “other worlds” in search of extraterrestrial life. Matt and Eleanor, a married pair of NASA researchers; Jack, a retired naval officer; and sci-fi writer Goldie all converge at the Roundhouse, a domed building that mysteriously appeared atop an escarpment on tribal lands. Guarded by federal agents, the bare-bones star portal contains a light-up grid: by pressing buttons with icons (“each image about the size of your hand. There was a curling line that might have been smoke, something that looked like a tree, and another that was an arrow”), the cheerful quartet travel, in Narnia fashion, to the edge of the Milky Way, visiting alien places and encountering friendly “gorillas” and an “almost friendly” devil. Between trips, Jack snuggles with his wife, Eleanor works out a theory about who made the Roundhouse and why, and Matt naps in his BMW and complains about these alien worlds being “boring.” The surprise ending falls flat, and though McDevitt tries admirably to introduce some complex themes—xenophobia, extraterrestrial ethics, tribal vs. state loyalty—the payoffs are slim. There’s a lot of wasted potential here. (Feb.)