He has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo. McDevitt has been a taxi driver, a naval officer, an English teacher, a customs officer, and a motivational trainer.
Scientists take both optimistic and pessimistic views.
Arguments that life must be common are countered with arguments that our situation is improbable and may very well be unique. In Jack McDevitt's Infinity Beach , human beings have interstellar spaceflight, they have colonized several worlds, and they have found no evidence of other intelligent life in our galaxy. Many people have come to believe that they never will. Dr. Kimberly Brandywine is in charge of public relations for the Seabright Institute, which is engaged in a spectacular feat of stellar engineering in an attempt to signal hypothetical aliens. Her life begins to change when a phone call from an old teacher causes her to re-examine the circumstances of her sister's death.