The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt

The first Priscilla Hutchins novel from Jack McDevitt, hailed by Stephen King as the logical. Even to a question that may hold the key to survival for the entire human race. Buy a cheap copy of The Engines of God book by Jack McDevitt. But Earth itself is on the brink of ecological disaster - there is no time to search for answers. Somehow it all fits with other lost civilizations, and possibly with Earth's own future.

Then a team of scientists working on a dead world discover an ominous new image of the Monument-Makers. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon Iapetus, there is no trace of the enigmatic race that has left them behind. Now, as faster-than-light drive opens the stars to exploration, humans are finding other relics of the race they call the Monument-Makers - each different, and each heartbreakingly beautiful. 'No one writing today is better than McDevitt at combining galaxy-spanning adventure with the genuine novel of ideas' Washington Post Book World Two hundred years ago, humans made a stunning discovery in the far reaches of the solar system: a huge statue of an alien creature, with an inscription that defied all efforts at translation.