Customer Reviews

The Elysium Commission

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I like Modesitt, despite this unfavorable review. A prolific writer, he has invented a variety of universes, each a bit different, and he writes good economic- and politically-based science fiction. The quality of his writing can be pretty variable, and he cannot write a love scene to save his soul. But I still enjoy most of his books.

But I had to work to even finish this one. The premise is promising: a male private detective in a society run by and whose royalty are women. But that premise is never fully developed. The private detective/protagonist also has a Dark Knight role, but that's never developed, either. He doesn't take assignments; he takes commissions. Hence, the title. And he does, indeed take the Elysium commission, even if he only figures it out afterwards. The rest of the novel is similarly fragments and undeveloped. The protagonist, as another reviewer has noted, is yet another iron-grey-haired guy who wears black a lot.

And when the plot drops into military action at the end, you won't be the only reader who wonders wear that came from.

Modesitt has written far better books. For example, the recent "Eternity Artifact" is superior in every way. This is a clunker.

The Elysium Commission is not one of L. E. Modesitt's better novels. I take a star off each for POV storytelling that is confusing, a plot getting wildly sidetracked for 80% of the book before making any sense, and a protagonist that seems to be a composite of any of his other science fiction standalones. I'm going to be generous and add back one star for some fairly interesting concepts in worldbuilding, so three stars.

The world he creates is certainly different. Protagonist Blaine Donne lives in what seems to be a terraformed future world based roughly off of Italy and France that is dominated by the rich, ruled by women, and where nanite technology and societal acceptance allows routine enhancements ranging up to sex changes to those who aren't comfortable being themselves.

Unfortunately, that's the only good part. The narrative is both confusing and badly developed. Donne is yet another one of Modesitt's repetitive retired Special Ops types (of course, also a pilot) who has become a private investigator in his medical retirement. Modesitt makes an unusual mistake for a writer of his experience in spending most of the book away from the main plot of what exactly the Elysium project is by investigating Donne's other cases, and then compounds it by throwing in occasional POVs from the nominal villain that make utterly no sense until he finally reveals at the conclusion what the villain had intended all along. Character development is stunted, with Donne's occasional Batman appearance as the "Knight of Shadows" never explained, his familial and client relations barely explored, and Donne's motivations just don't make a lot of sense - if he's doing this for money, why is he willing to effectively spend almost 3 million for 20 grand, let alone where did he get the 3 million to spend in the first place?

Modesitt's typical one-man-conquers-all-and-gains-love-interest formula doesn't get used until almost the end, and while it may be a repetitive one it also normally works more or less as it does here. Unfortunately for Modesitt, the rest of the book doesn't. Modesitt is an unusually good fantasy and science fiction writer, but not in this book.

This is one of the very few Modesitt books that I've been disappointed in. And I own, and have read, everything he's published with the exception of the Ghost books - which seem to be out of print or otherwise unavailable. Enjoyment of this book was further reduced by my having just finished reading Flash; and the Elysium Commission is pretty much a retread of Flash; but murkier and not as well-told a story.

The setting is only marginally different than Flash - it's a different world and nanite technology is less prevalent, but other than that there are no meaningful differences. The main character, Blaine Donne, is a 100% retread of the Flash's Jonat DeVrai - but more bland and less interesting. Another villian, another plot to foil... Modesitt has a tendency to cloak his villian's plots and the motivations behind them for a big reveal towards the end of the story - but in The Elysium Commission, I found that I really didn't care. The 'danger that must be thwarted' was so weakly explained that it was impossible to really get behind the hero's desire to stop it.

And there were some huge glaring plot holes in text. The worst among them is Donne's "Knight of Shadows" subplot - where it is apparently an open secret that he goes out and does the vigilante bit. It was such an open secret that one minor character goes so far as to say, "I wanted to see what a shadow knight looked like" - or something to that effect. And cryptic references to another type of Robin Hood-like character didn't help. In Flash, the main character manages to retire from the military with certain sensory enhancements intact; in EC Donne's manages to buy, equip, and maintain a near military aircraft with everyone giving it a wink and a nod - think a Stealth Fighter without the missiles.

Lastly, Modesitt has an extremely annoying habit in his SF writing - and that is creating and employing new words and acronyms and not supplying a glossary at the end of the book. This is an unforgiveable sin, and can make reading his work difficult and extremely annoying. I'm not sure why he does this; because this trait is not apparent in his Fantasy writing, where he goes out of his way to explain how things work. It's not uncommon to go 1/3 of the way through a book before he finally drops enough hints to let you figure out what a word actually means. In Flash, he finally resorted to one of his chapter opening "study reprints" he seems to be so fond of to explain one term; and in EC it's even worse.

Do I recommend this book to you? Only if you are a hardcore Modesitt fan - and only read it if you haven't read Beauty and/or Flash recently; there are far too similar and EC doesn't compare favorably with either.

Don't expect regular fare from this one! From the hero's name comes the first clue- think John Donne. Lots of literary references with an emphasis on Donne's work. This book is a sort of "time out" piece- having fun with English lit history. I think he's just having some fun, but it does create a lot of strain on the story. To really enjoy this work you had better have a pretty good grounding in Classical English Literature. Think of it more as James Bond meets John Donne. I got a kick out of it. How about doing Shakespeare next?

L.E. Modesitt has been on my short list of authors for 20 years and I'm always willing to read anything he writes. Mr. Modesitt's strength is creating political/economic environments with strengths and weaknesses. He then sets his characters within these worlds as they approach a crisis. The Elysium Commission follows this formula.

I enjoyed this book and recommend it. The main character, Blaine Donne, is a retired special operations agent/soldier who's been medically discharged after a botched mission. The book begins on his home world of Devanta where he now acts as an investigator/fixer for the rich and well connected. He accepts a mysterious contract to investigate the connection between a scientist, an entertainment mogul, and something called Elysium. Intrigue, murder, and political brinkmanship follow from there.

The minor issue I have with this story and others by Modesitt are the main characters are almost always quiet, effective, have gray hair and green eyes, and typically dress in dark gray or black. Typically, the main characters will miss or misunderstand some salient point about his foes up to the point that it's almost too late, then they are forced into action to save the day. I've also come to the conclusion that Modesitt either doesn't know how to write a love interest into a story or always does the same variation on a theme here too.

Don't get me wrong, I can easily overlook those points listed above because the political/social/economic parts of the books often provide that 'hmmm, I hadn't thought of that' moment.

The Elysium Commission (2007) is a standalone novel of the far future. Assuming that this novel takes place in the same universe as Flash and Octagonal Raven, it probably occurs about a millennium after the latter work.

Devanta is a planet within the Gallian Subsector of the Assembly of Worlds. The Assembly has two main interstellar enemies: the Argenti and the Frankans. The Assembly has a nasty habit of reformulating worlds that become too repressive (and too independent); the results include restructured minds and disrupted societies.

Devanta is ruled by a matriarchal hierarchy -- the Sorores Civitas -- which is widely viewed by other Assembly worlds as a repressive government. The City Sisters are not very democratic and have internal enemies, but they are fairly efficient and effective. Their Garda have active surveillance of all public places that discourages public crimes and strict regulations that restrain corporate corruption. Still, illegal acts occur off camera and off the books.

In this novel, Blaine Donne is a former special operative for the Assembly. After his heroic exploits on Pournelle II, Donne was medically discharged from Assembly Special Operations and retired to Devanta. He became a consulting investigator -- private detective -- using his data analysis training to find lost persons and other such work. He also unknowingly becomes an urban legend as the Knight of Shadows, using his martial arts training to protect victims of back alley assaults.

A decade or so after starting his new career, Donne receives a commission from Principessa Seldara Tozzi to investigate the future husband of her great-granddaughter. Marie Annette Tozzi is a surgical resident at the Medical College and is engaged to Doctor Guillaume Richard Dyorr, director of consciousness programs at the college. Principessa Tozzi believes that Dyorr is misrepresenting his sexual preferences to her great-granddaughter.

Shortly after the principessa disconnects, Donne receives another client at his villa. Seigniora Reynarda wants him to investigate the connection between Eloi Enterprises, Judeon Maraniss, and Elysium. Donne recognizes Eloi Enterprises as the largest corpentity on Devanta providing explicit entertainment. Maraniss is vaguely familiar, but a data search provides only slightly more information. Elysium, however, generates so many hits as to be useless.

Donne finds a message in his queue from Lemmy Jerome asking for assistance in finding out whether the Classic group is infringing his patents. Later, he gets Jerome on the vid and discovers that the patents cover jumpship navigation. Jerome sends him a device to detect the use of this patented technology.

Then Donne receives a visit from his sister Krij and her partner Siendra. They have completed their regulatory compliance audit of his consultancy and have found a few problems that might cause a formal audit by the government. Krij also suggests that his unmarried state might lead to an audit; elder sisters will have their little jokes.

Later, Donne pays a visit to the Principessa Odilia. She is a good source of information on many aspects of Devanta society, particularly on corpentities and the financial world. Besides a few tidbits of information, Donne receives an invitation to attend the opening of Hyperion at the opera. Upon returning home, someone takes a shot at him with an energy weapon.

In this story, Donne takes on two more cases, one searching for a missing heiress and the other looking for the creator of several dramas. He makes full use of Max -- Time/Events/Systems Maximizer, Mod VIII, version two -- to search the various networks available to him, but finds little relevant information. He starts calling his various contacts.

Donne quickly learns that the Eloi brothers are dangerous enemies. Other attacks follow, including one that he has difficulty in believing really occurred. After the Garda fines him three thousand credits for swimming in a restricted lake, he knows that something happened. The body of a deadly Aswaran wasp is the final evidence that forces him to accept that it wasn't just a dream.

This story is very similar in some respects to two other works by this author: Flash (2004) and Octagonal Raven (2001). The main protagonist in all three stories is ex-military from a privileged family who owns a consulting business that provides analyses of information collected from the data networks. He has irritated powerful enemies who are now trying to kill him. He has a sister who worries about him. Other aspects, however, differ significantly, especially the socio-political settings and the technologies.

Highly recommended for Modesitt fans and anyone else who enjoy tales of private investigations, personal combat, and understated romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

I enjoy Modesitt's writing style a great deal. That is why, after finishing "Flash", I did not hesitate to get this in hardcover. The writing style was all that I could ask for, but....

Modesitt seems to be trying to make his future worlds as cryptic as possible. These worlds are very well thought out and complete, but in this case, the world being so far into the future, I had trouble figuring out half of the terminology. Context took care of most of it, but until I could get enough context, the lack of understanding left me distracted, trying to understand what was going on.

The other problem I had was that there was too much going on. With the main character, a private detective agent type, handling three jobs at the same time, I had difficulty telling the players apart. Much to my disappointment, the three plots had little if anything to do with each other, leaving me wondering why at least one of them was introduced.

This book took many of the things I loved about "Flash" and took them to extremes. While I love Modesitt's world (and word)-crafting, the plot had too much going on. For all the complexities, the resolution to the main plot left me feeling disappointed in its suddenness.

I'd say this is worth a read if you like far future fiction, but in paperback.

I want to give this book 3.49999 stars. Since I can't, I gave it a 3. The book is just too jumbled and hurky-jerky about getting to the end. I never did understand why the hero was the Shadow Night? Just a little too much Batman for me.

But, it is a Modesitt book and worthy of reading.

_The Elysium Commission_ by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. is basically a somewhat film noir-ish style private investigator story set in the far future. The setting is the planet Devanta, many centuries in the future from now, a setting in which humanity has spread among the stars and a number of different human civilizations exist out in the galaxy. The main character is Blaine Donne, a former special operative who was medically retired and now works as a private detective, looking into a number of different things for various generally wealthy clients. Donne is hired to look into a number of different cases (the character made a point to comment how fiction that depicts private investigators with only one client and one case at a time as unrealistic), cases which during the course of the book start (mostly) to tie together, pointing to a powerful adversary and a real danger to the security of not only himself but to his entire planet.

I generally liked the book, the main character was likable, had a wry sense of humor, poked a little fun at other depictions of private investigators, and the story unfolded in an interesting space opera-ish style setting. There was a fair amount of action, particularly at the climatic end, and there were some twists and turns as some of the other characters in the book were not as they first appeared. Donne had a close friendship and working relationship with his sister and later her business partner, and I liked how that was handled.

The setting of Devanta was interesting, as it was an obviously terra formed world, a world that was being actively being manipulated and maintained to be comfortable to the French-Italian culture that was planted there, a society that was run by women (though not anti-male and the government employed many men).

One of the odd things about the book I thought though was that Donne liked to go out at night, not quite in costume but might as well have, and find wrongs and right them, stopping street crime generally. While interesting, it wasn't especially well-explored and the chapters in which these events were described seemed mildly jarring, that they didn't quite fit in with the smooth flow of events as Donne set out to solve various mysteries and evade those who were trying to stop him (ie kill him).

Another thing I thought was unusual was in how the bad guys were presented. It was a pair of villains, presented to the reader in occasional chapters showing action and scenes where Donne was not present. A good idea, but they were told from the point of view of Maraniss, one of the two villains, using the first person perspective. It was a little jarring to me, as at first I thought that the "I" was Blaine Donne and I (the reader) was thoroughly confused, at least for a moment. I don't know that I would have written the villains' chapters from that perspective. I also thought that the villains could have been a bit better fleshed out, particularly Maraniss.

A big complaint I had was the back cover blurb. The threat it described was a huge, huge spoiler, one not really evident to the reader until close to 200 pages into the book! Most of the book Donne is trying to find out just what Elysium is, as that was one of his commissions he received early on from a client, while the back cover pretty much tells you what Elysium is! I don't mind if book reviews and back cover summaries tell you something that happens pretty early on in the book, even if that event is not evident from page one, but this was too much!

I also found some the far future slang/terminology a bit hard to follow at times. While I didn't have any trouble following motivations or the action of the storyline, some of the terminology could have been a bit better explained, particularly the sexual orientation terminology, as someone for instance could be a samer, a hidden samer, straight, or straight-straight. Maybe include a dictionary in future editions? I think it realistic for science fiction novels to include terms and jargon that most people couldn't imagine today, that makes a lot of sense, but it should be made a tad clearer what these terms mean.

Having said all that, I did like the book even if it is not one of Modesitt`s best (his best by far are the Ghost books). I would like to read further adventures of Blaine Donne, particularly if he went off world. The book had a fast pace and the author did a good job writing dialogue as well as action scenes.

Of the many Modesitt books I have read, this ranks last. Following characters is difficult, and much of the book is taken up to boiling close to a dozen names down to two people. Much of the book is devoted to our hero's search for these mythical characters, while dodging occasional asassination attempts. These searches are punctuated by visits to the real villans of the piece, with a slow and confusing unfolding of events leading up to the typical Modesitt climax, best described as "Hunting Rabbits With A Howitzer". Another peculiarity is his introduction of a second "first person" individual, and jumping back and forth between the two (it usually took me to the second paragraph of the chapter to find out who I was at the time. I'm a Modesitt fan, but it will take me two or three more readings to settle on who was doing what, to whom.