Customer Reviews

The Forever Hero: Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, In Endless Twilight

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Modesitt has proven to be one of the most prolific science fiction writers of the past two decades, and never disappoints. It is wonderful that Tor has released his late-80's trilogy "Dawn for a Distant Earth", "The Silent Warrior" and "In Endless Twilight" as this newly formed compendium, and re-reading the novels has created an even deeper appreciation of both Modesitt's writing talents and the plot lines of all three novels, which seemed a bit disparate on first reading. It is "space opera" in the best sense of the word, and deals with Earth as an eco-disaster in a far flung Imperial Empire, and the books are definitely a bit testosterone heavy on the "hairy-chested" sf writers scale, but it works so well for Modesitt that you find yourself wrapped up in the adventure.

If you like David Feintuch's "Seafort" chronicles or the tales of Miles Vorkosigan in Lois McMaster Bujold's works, then this set of stories is sure to appeal to you. In fact, there are bits that ring of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" and Joe Haldeman's "Forever War" as well. It is far future military sci-fi, but with a much more character based perspective than many in the genre-and definitely worth the read. Highly recommended.

The Forever Hero was my first introduction to Modesitt. If you have never read Modesitt, but have read H. Beam Piper you will recognize the common traits of the protagonist. The uncommon man who does whatever it takes to reach his goal. He focuses, melds his enviroment to attain his goal and succeeds. Modesitt takes Piper's common man a little bit further, in the sense of accomplishing goals at any cost, irregardless of the collateral body count!

This book is actually a reissue of the original trilogy (Dawn For A Distant Earth/The Silent Warrior/In Endless Twilight), long out of print. I have been waiting to get my hands on it to reread it. Another iteration of this character type is seen in the Ecolitan series of books.

Since I gave the trilogy to someone long ago, I have been left rereading the Ecolitan series, now at last I will have this series to reread! Now all we need is for the Timediver/Timegod books to be reissued :)

The Forever Hero (1988) is an omnibus edition of this trilogy. It includes Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, and In Endless Twilight.

Sometime in the distant future, Earth has achieved the stars and colonized many planets. However, the home world continued to suffer from ecological problems caused by wars and pollution. When the ecollapse finally occurred, Earth became a hellhole of poisoned land and sea, savage weather, and toxic ground fogs. The population dropped from billions to a few thousands.

The Earth colonies formed a Federation and later an Empire and somehow lost contact with Earth. After countless years, an Imperial scout rediscovered the planet and the ISS Torquina was sent to survey the world. They found a wasteland of scattered ruins, mostly uninhabited and almost uninhabitable. The remaining animals were generally inedible due to toxin levels, as were many plants.

In Dawn for a Distant Earth (1987), the Torquina finds two populations on the planet: shambletowners and devilkids. The Torquina crew captures an injured devilkid and tests his abilities. He is extremely strong with a high intelligence and a blinding fast reaction time. The boy takes the name MacGregor Corson Gershwin and is educated as an Imperial, becoming an ISS officer and pilot. He returns to Old Earth as a flitter pilot supporting the scientists studying the ravaged world.

In The Silent Warrior (1987), Gershwin turns down the opportunity to become Commandant of the new Recorps and instead leaves Old Earth to take command of an underpowered and overtasked cruiser, the Fleurdilis, to make initial contact with a previously unknown alien species. Later, he is assigned as the Commander of an underutilized and obsolescent refitting center and salvage yard. He marries Allison and they have a son, Corson. Gershwin also becomes active as the trustee of the OER Foundation founded by Caroljoy, his first lover.

In the third novel, In Endless Twilight (1988), Gershwin contributes to a revolution on Byzania to protect his house trees project. The success of that mission leads him to concentrate on psywar, preparing the populace for a radical change of viewpoint. The Empire finally decides to eliminate Gershwin, but they can't find him. However, they do move against the OER Foundation.

This trilogy may be prequels to the Ecolitan Matter series. Many of the planet names are the same, the governmental institutions are similar, and the technology is comparable. However, the connection, if any, is never made clear.

One of the inconsistancies is the Imperial capital. In this trilogy, New Augusta is a planet, whereas in the Ecolitan series New Augusta is a city on Terra. Since this trilogy ends with the planet New Augusta left unprotected from outsystem raiders, maybe the Imperial refugees fled to the newly reclaimed Old Earth and established a new capital city named for the old capital planet.

Another puzzlement is the succession of political hegemonies. After the ecollapse of Old Earth, the colonies formed a Federation and later an Empire. Moreover, there was apparently a Directorate on Old Earth in the interregnum after the collapse caused by Gershwin's disruptions. There are some indications that the Empire of the Ecolitan series, also based on Terra, was formed after the fall of the Directorate.

The colonists who settled Accord were from the Noram region of Old Earth. Possibly these colonists were descendents of the shambletowners and devilkids, maybe mixed with an influx of refugees from the Old Empire. Moreover, the New Empire may have been established by the spiritual (and genetic) heirs of the Captain on Terra, later incorporating survivors on the former planets of the Old Empire.

One final note: if this novel reminded you of Battlefield Earth, it may not be a coincidence. Hubbard's novel was published only five years prior to the first novel in this series. Possibly Modesitt felt that he could write a more realistic version of that classic scenario.

Highly recommended for Modesitt fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of individual daring, dedicated perseverance, political and commercial intrigue, and personal combat with a touch of romance.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This is an interesting series for a couple of reasons. Keep in mind that it's a collection of Modesitt's first novels so a lot of the concepts he goes over in his later books a little more elegantly are here for the first time and it shows in a little slower plot development than his later books.

First, the world that Modesitt provides is most of the reason to buy Modesitt's novels and this is no exception. The post eco-disaster Earth followed by how an interesting construction of how an amoral wealthy high-tech society might function is well done. Particularly enjoy the fact the hero here figures out precisely what the pressure points of the society are and they're reasonably logic assumptions.

Second, the hero himself is far from perfect. He does what he does without true regard for his victims -- essentially the living incarnation of an idealist who has some neat toys. He also has something of a moral backbone that twinges periodically (but starts decaying as he gets older). Its fun to watch him work and self-destruct.

As another reviewer put it, not a kids novel but certainly worth a read.

Modesitt has a style of writing and a type of character that he has successuly spun and respun into many different books. This series follows the mode of the others. Everything one loves about Modesitt's writing is there- good sci-fi cowboy adventures in space. Everything one hates about Modesitt's writing is there- formulaic writing, longer sentences that this one, and hammering on current populist themes (how mankind ruined the earth and, unless controlled closely, will despoil the universe in it uncaring lust for more materialism.. blah blah blah). Unbelievely long and tedious, but then again, I knew that going in, and I still read Modesitt!

Forever Hero opens on an Earth devoid of beauty - an Earth that has learned to be as cruel to us as we have been to her. The hero of the tale is, of course, a boy who grows up in this wasteland. He is then 'rescued', trained, and given a career in the Service arm of the empire, a multi-planet government that strives to contol all of the known universe. His goal to rejuvenate the planet is not entirely in line with the empire's financial wants, so the remainder of the trilogy covers all the scheming, plotting, manipulating, and outright rebellion he goes through to attain his goal.

The book was a bit long at times, made me quite uncomfortable other times, and angry... well, more than once. Not that the book wasn't good, it was very good - I'm just not sure it was my style. The reasons the book made me uncomfortable and the reasons it made me angry are pretty simple. He does extreme things. Blowing up several thousand innocent people to rid the world of a few hundred bad apples is just not my idea of morally acceptable, and the learned-from-my-mistakes justification didn't make up for it. I was also very uncomfortable with both the way he chose to teach certain women a lesson and the way he chose to live his 'golden years'.

I did, however, like the reality Modesitt maintained throughout. The hero didn't instantly have expert skill with every weapon known to man as soon as he picked it up. I wasn't asked to worship his every whim, idea and personality trait. And despite the fact that I consider the mistakes and accompanying attitude unacceptable, he did try to learn from his mistakes (and in keeping with the aforementioned reality concept, sometimes he learned and sometimes he didn't).

Also of note was the development of relatively minor characters. So often these characters are left hollow shells designed only to serve a purpose and get out of the way. In this case, even people featured in only a few pages of the book appeared to display strength of character, stubborn blindness to the truth of things, narrowness of perception, and - the rarest of traits found in minor characters - intelligence.

While Modesitt indesputably has his own style, this book has the... epicness (is that a word?) of Battlefield Earth, the character development of Ender's Game, and only some of the wordiness of Mission Earth. All in all, I would consider it worth any sci-fi loving adult's time to read.

In this book, Modesitt uses an earthling as his hero. What is unique about this hero is his flaws. Too often, in my opinion, I read of a 'perfect' hero; however, I rather enjoyed reading of the mistakes this hero made and how he dealt with them.
As in most science fiction books, a leap of imagination is required, but with the leap made, this book is well worth a read by any reader willing to see it through to the end.

The book is worth reading.... It will make you think. It will make you angry. It will bore you at times. I know I'm being vague, but this is a LONG book. Flawed hero is an understatement. If you like to be challenged; pushed to think; then you'll probably like this book. It's certainly NOT for everyone.

A final note: as another reviewer indicated, "It is not appropriate for most children".

just absolutley the best book ive read to date and i have read hundreds of books that and the shipping was quick and the price was nice and cheap definitly recommended to anyone who likes to read

This is a book I've read (and loved) before, but I'm not going to review the story here. As a new Kindle DX owner, I'll limit myself to reviewing the presentation of this book on the Kindle.

The version available for the Kindle has some formatting idiosyncracies. The layout is well-designed in terms of spacing between paragraphs, but the text is fully-justified, which I find harder to read than a ragged-right margin.

Perhaps more importantly, there aren't too many major flow or markup issues. The two which were most annoying to me were the frequent (and improper) occurrence of "Caro ljoy" for "Caroljoy" throughout the book, and the poor representation of hyphenated words in general. It was unclear whether the hyphenation problems were due to excessive spacing between words as a result of the full-justification, or because the hyphenation itself was an artifact left over from a non-Kindle edition.

There were also some other minor formatting problems, such as the occasional word (or part of a word) super- or subscripted, a few non-text artifacts that looked like stray dots on the page, and a font that was less crisp than other Kindle books I've read. None of these were terribly obtrusive, but they popped up often enough to be worth mentioning.

Overall, I'd give this book a 4/5 for ebook presentation, and consider it a worthwhile addition to my Kindle library.

P.S. Shortly after I'd written this review, I learned that this particular Kindle book is in Topaz format, rather than the highly-preferable .azw or .mobi formats. Some of the artifacts are likely due to the use of this sub-standard format. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't currently disclose the format of its e-books on the descriptions page, so if you're prefer to avoid a Topaz-formatted book (e.g. ".azw1") then pass this by or request that Amazon offer it in a different edition. I'd still recommend the book to anyone who isn't put off by Topaz-formatted books, though.