Customer Reviews

The Ethos Effect

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I hate to give this book such a poor review. "The Parafaith War" is one of my favorite sf novels. This is the sequel. I really wanted to like it, but I didn't. The one star comes from some interesting minor characters, and the first quarter of the book.

Unfortunately, the elements that came together to make tPW a compelling story don't gel here. The book is preachy and the plot is arbitrary with a literal deus ex machina at the end. The few likeable characters and relationships are not drawn in sufficient detail to make you like the book as a whole. The occasional, slightly cryptic quotations that were fascinating in tPW are too obviously pointed preaching in tEE.

Mind you, I don't really disagree with the contents of the sermon, I just object to there being a sermon here at all. Rabid Republican wingnuts should avoid this book like the plague, since you'll also strongly object to the _contents_ of the sermon.

If you haven't read "The Parafaith War", read that instead. I can't honestly recommend this sequel.

Imagine that you have fallen through a portal time and have been transported back in time to October, 1939. Germany has invaded Poland, and World War II has just begun. You find yourself in Berlin, and you think about what you should do with your knowledge of the future. You think about assassinating Hitler, but realize that it would be too late; even if you could succeed, his successor would continue to carry out his policies and little would have been accomplished.

You then see an object appear out of nowhere in front of you. It is a button that, exactly seven days after it is pushed, will detonate several hydrogen bombs, killing every person in Germany. By activating it, you would kill of millions of people, many of which have committed no crime themselves, but you would bring World War II to a quick end and save millions of others.

Do you press the button? If you did, could you live with yourself afterwards?

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. has written many stories of cultures at war, usually told through the eyes of one single individual in a position to alter the course of history. Is there a limit to how far you can go to protect yourself, your country, and your way of life when faced with an enemy that will continue plotting your destruction until one side or the other has been completely defeated? The Ethos Effect is one of his best novels, but you should be warned. This book is meant to be controversial and upsetting. It raises serious questions and provides answers, but deliberately leaves the reader wondering if the hero's solution to the problem of the evil he slowly uncovers throughout the novel was the right ones. You may not like this book, but you ought to read it and consider it carefully.

First things first: the dust jacket says "Set in the same universe as The Parafaith War (but two centuries later, and intended to be read independently)". While this book *will* make sense even if you haven't read The Parafaith War, I would strongly recommend reading that book first, for two reasons: on the one hand, The Ethos Effect gives away much of the plot of the first book; on the other, reading The Parafaith War will make the actions of characters in this book much sharper.

I won't say too much about the plot of the book--since I don't want to spoil either of these books--but I can say that I was swept along, and I certainly didn't see many of the plot twists coming. [This is surprising, as some of these twists were, in fact, presaged by comments made by characters in The Parafaith War.] The book is also rather more politically-oriented than The Parafaith War; fans of Modesitt's "The Ecolitan Enigma" should enjoy this book.

There is little in the way of graphic material in this book; Modesitt more than makes up for this, though, with thorny ethical dilemmas--ones which are not clearly resolved, and both condemned and applauded. A number of parallels are drawn between the events in the book and events in the world today, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell who's who. Modesitt suggests a solution to the problem--but is it the *best* solution? And is it a just one?

As in The Parafaith War, Modesitt presents a story, and invites you to decide what *you* would do in the same situation. It ties up some of the loose ends from the previous book, while leaving some questions unanswered. The door is left open for yet another book in this universe; if Modesitt chooses to write it, I will certainly read it.

Modesitt's "ethics" sci-fi novels include the Parafaith (religion) and Ecolitan (ecology) series. I read "Ethos Effect" a second time for enjoyment and to check again, was Modesitt advocating a particular morality?

I like the novel for several reasons. It clearly proposes an ethical dilemma: Is there an absolute morality that everyone must follow, or is there an individual morality each person must follow on their own, at the risk that they are just personally justifying what to others are clearly immoral actions?

In this novel, the hero accomplishes what he sets out to do by acting several times according to the operational premise, "it's better that some die now in order that more live in the future". But the plot line requires the hero to continually reflect on, be responsible for, and clean up after the consequences of his actions.

Modesitt's main message is being responsible and accountable for one's choices in life, whatever they are. But it's told in the context of a rousing interstellar conflict, with excerpts from a sort of "encyclopedia galactica" discussing ethics, giving the book a stature reminiscent of Frank Herbert's Dune series,

This story has all the elements of an incredibly good sci-fi story, capable of being gripping both technically and philosophically.

Unfortunately, an unusual sort of writing structure that is neither boring no exciting dominates this book, which doesn't really bring out the most interesting details of either the societies represented in this book, or the technology they employ. The lack of much in the way of social or character development will likely disappoint any readers interested in that angle.

Luckily, I'm not the type of person to demand an exciting, action packed, Michael Crichton type book (though I do enjoy that style as well). As such, I can appreciate the solid foundation of the book, even as I bemoan the fact that this book fails the realize it's potential to turn a solid foundation into an explosive and gripping story.

Still, the slower, somber way in which it is written has a strange sort of value, and makes it memorable in it's own way, and I can only assume that, since this writing style is continued from a previous book (The Parafaith War), Modesitt prefers this kind of not-quite-exciting writing style for a reason as well.

Just remember, this kind of book is not for impatient and spontaneous readers, nor those too interested in dynamic character development, but those who can take their time enjoying the political and philosophical elements of the book which, perhaps unfortunately, are all there is to like about this series.

The Ethos Effect (2003) is a sequel of The Parafaith War. In the previous volume, Major Trystin Desoll was a Major in the Eco-Tech Coalition forces. The Coalition was hard pressed by the superior numbers of the Revenant forces that were attacking Eco-Tech worlds. Desoll undertook a dangerous mission to assassinate a Revenant admiral and archbishop, but added a spin of his own that led the Revenants to believe that the death was an expression of divine wrath. This apparent act of God resulted in a cessation of the war and a rewriting of the Revenant holy writ.

In this novel, some two centuries later, the Revenants have again become expansionist and are crowding the Republic of Tara and other small polities in nearby systems. Commander Van C. Albert is a veteran ship commander in the Taran Republic Space Force who had been responsible for the destruction of the Vetachi, a renegade terraforming vessel that had been rampaging among the commercial ships within that sector. Unfortunately, the renegade had been stalking the Regneri, a colony ship, and the resulting explosion caused an errant torp to launch from the renegade and destroy the other ship. Since then, Albert has been relegated to older ships and smaller commands.

Albert's current command, the RSFS Fergus, is preparing to jump to its next station when it receives an urgent message to change destinations to Gotland in the Scandya system to replace the RSFS Collyns. Further orders will be sent by courier to Gotland. Revising their jump coordinates, the Fergus transits to Scandya and is immediately attacked by an unidentified warship. Albert's crew quickly responds to the attack and destroys the other ship.

Albert sends a battle report by message torp back to headquarters. When questioned by the local self defense forces, Albert admits detecting unusual emissions from further outside the system, but denies any other knowledge. When the Fergus achieves orbit around Gotland, a courier brings a replacement commander for the Fergus and orders for Albert himself to be reassigned as the the Naval Attaché in the local Taran embassy. He is to replace a fellow officer who was killed in a sailing accident.

Since Albert has not been receiving the plum career assignments, he has little training or knowledge of his embassy duties. However, he starts gathering information from the records, other embassy staffers and his counterparts in the other embassies and the Scandyan SDF. He is well and thoroughly ignored by the Revenant Naval Attaché, but cooperatively received by his other peers and forms a good working relationship with the Second Secretary in his embassy. From the information received from various sources, he begins to wonder about his predecessor's death and the situation in Scandya.

Then Albert foils an assassination of high Scandyan government officials and is severely wounded. Although eventually restored to full health, he is recalled to Tara, where he is presented with a high award, promoted to Commodore, and retired from the service. He soon finds that he is too highly qualified to work as a pilot, but still doesn't want to become a desk jockey.

During this time, he is offered a job by Trystin Desoll, now managing director of Integrated Information Systems, a developer of proprietary business intelligence for multisystem corporations and governments. The job has the title of senior director and will involve piloting one of the IIS courier ships as well as acting as a consultant to planetary managers and clientele.

When Albert finally accepts the job with IIS, he is provided with training on the corporation's proprietary systems and then sent on specific assignments. From the business intelligence gathered by IIS and his own observations during these assignments, Albert begins to see a very dark and dangerous pattern emerging. Apparently IIS is attempting to counter this pattern, but things are looking bad.

Albert also discovers that Desoll has close connections with the Farhkan aliens. They seem to be interested in human affairs, but refrain from too close relationships with most humans. Desoll seems to be an exception.

This story continues to examine the ethical questions raised in the previous volume regarding interference in other societies. The Farhkans believe that such interference will corrupt their own society. Desoll has interfered once before in Revenant society with mixed results. So how can one society justify massive interference with another?

In contrast with the Farhkan viewpoint, the Revenants know that they are only obeying the will of God, so have no qualms about completely disrupting another society. The Taran Republic seems to be developing an ethic of survival at all cost, which justifies any degree of intervention in another society and even their own. Are these the only alternatives?

Highly recommended for Modesitt fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of social conflict and personal ethics.

-Arthur W. Jordin

With so many of today's government and business leaders more concerned with being re-elected; the bottom line; popularity; and enriching their bank accounts rather than their souls, The Ethos Effect provides an opportunity to reflect on where this type of behavior can lead and the disasterous consequenses that may result.

I had a couple of problems with this book. It is much longer than it needs to be, mainly because it is very repetitious. There are 5-6 space battles, and except for the number of ships involved, each one is pretty much like the last one. Commodore Albert has one tactic and he uses it over and over. Much of the story is like this, with similar things happening at different places. I could have screamed the 4th or 5th time I had to read virtually the same dialog every time Albert took his ship into or out of a space port. There is an attempt to humanize Albert by having a long-range interstellar relationship with a woman he meets early in the book. Boring. But the biggest problem is the central ethical conundrum. Can an action, no matter how outrageous, be justified on the basis of an absolute system of ethics? Mondesitt raises this question and has his characters argue about it endlessly. Albert's mentor, the mysterious Trystin Desoll apparently believes there is an absolute system of ethics and he has it. He therefore can justify an absolutely outrageous action. Albert never seems to be sure what he believes, but eventually faces the same choice as Desoll and chooses the same action. I looked back at some of the previous books by Mondesitt that I've read and have decided that I don't like his writing very much.

Modesitt's work panders to all the secular, American-liberal stereotypes and viewpoints. In this book, ALL religious persons are murderous fanatics looking for a simplistic way to cope with reality. ALL dark-skinned persons are tolerant, open-minded, honest and industrious. ALL homosexuals are upper-class, loving, involved in storybook longterm relationships, utterly lacking any of the common hang-ups that afflict common folks. The Eco-tech Coalition (a Green society) is the closest thing to a utopian culture that the book can boast. ALL polities that stem from non-European cultures are portrayed sympathetically, generally as potential victims of blond, light skinned oppressors.

You might assume that I am exaggerating because I am conservative and religious (which are true), and therefore hate the book.

I am being strictly truthful regarding the author's almost cartoonish stereotypes; despite this and despite possessing a notably subdued tempo (for a science fiction novel, especially), I nonetheless truly enjoyed this book. It deeply engages the reader on serious ethical issues. One reader might conclude that the main character's actions were ethical; personally, my opinion is that the character merely adopted his enemies' views and methods. The author's writing could potentially support either view, which I am convinced was deliberate.

Personally, I recommend this work highly. You'll hate it or love it, but if you read it with honest attention (and if you can disengage kneejerk political responses), you will get something worthwhile out of it. There are not many books which earn this statement from me.

This sequel to "The Parafaith War" is not Modesitt's best book. As other reviewers have suggested, it presents large and small ethical dilemmas for its protagonist to puzzle over. But in the end, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the protagonist's actions were as much motivated by revenge as by some kind of pure ethical principles, however much he might protest.

Van Cassius Albert is from the Taran Republic and serves competently, if controversially, in its space navy. After he succeeds where he was supposed to fail, repeatedly disrupting his government's plans, he is retired from the service. When he is unable to find other work, he is rescued from mysterious assassins and winds up employed by Trystin Desoll, the near-immortal protagonist from "The Parafaith War." It's obvious to everyone but our ethically striving but dense protagonist that he is being groomed by Desoll to take over, and that the Tarans as well as the religious, zealot Revenants are Bad Guys, if in different ways.

You will have to decide for yourself if Desoll and Albert are ethical, or rationalizing fascists. Desoll, in "The Parafaith War," at least attempted persuasion from within before taking the more . . . drastic . . . measures here. Albert doesn't. The Taran Empire brutally killed most of the people Albert had known. How much of Albert's actions are driven by a personal need for revenge? Was Hiroshima justified? These are not new questions.

In some ways, this novel left the same sour taste in my mouth that Peter Hamilton's "Fallen Dragon" did: the conclusion is that selfishness and selfish choices can solve humanity's fundamental flaws. I think the Farkhans may share my opinion. You'll have to decide for yourself.

Good but not great. As much annoying as throught-provoking. Bonus points for Albert's amazing family.