Published by Roc, 1999,
paperback, $5.99 ISBN 0-451-45736-6
537 pages

The university of the 25th century replaces the mortar and brick structures with vast starships that ply the solar systems. These centers for learning are powered with the so-called Onesci Engines brought to Earth by aliens called Enamorati. Humanity could use these engines any way they wish, but only the aliens could service and tend them. The ships filled with humans, but the aliens worked below decks.

This particular space-going university, Eos University, is run by the Ainge, a splinter Mormon group. The students and professors were not necessarily fringe, but the administrators were, and if the fringe had one prime directive, it was to keep the Enamorati happy at all costs.

So when an alien techie shows up with a dead baby bear at physics lecturer Ben Bennett's door, the hunt begins into who killed the bear and why.

Paul Cook leads an engaging chase through the halls of theocratic academia. Along the way, a conspiracy rears its ugly head -- especially when no less than three human-designed FTL drives are in research and close to completion.

If the prose is not exactly scintillating, it at least doesn't get in the way. And if the technology and setting staggers in the first half of the book, Cook makes a come-back in the 2nd half with the Thompson-Kwaitkowski rail gun with Cochran queue suspension system for the "data bullets" (FTL messaging), and the explanation of the planet Kiilmist 5.

As the conspiracy unfolds and Bennet and friends investigate the mysterious FTL engines, a three-sided game of political chicken evolves between the Ainge, rebellious students, and the Enamarati. Events play out pleasantly, except for the jarring introduction of the Advocates -- a sort of super-ACLU that twists the laws in favor of the students without any apparent counterweight on the side of the University.

The Engines of Dawn, while not the most creative or riveting of novels, at least proceeds apace for a pleasant read.