Feeling a bit scifi-y over the weekend, I wound up buying and reading The Ethos Effect by L. E. Modesitt Jr.. I’ve read one or two of his Recluse books, but this is my first of his science fiction. While it had a one or two short comings, I enjoyed it immensely and will definitely be reading more of his sci-fi.
The Ethos Effect is set (or so wikipedia tells me) in the same universe as a previous novel (The Parafaith War), but I didn’t have any difficulty in following the plot or the characters without having read it. The plot follows the political, economic, and military events in the arm, a region of space occupied by a number of human societies including the large and powerful: the theocratic Revenants, sustainability-focused Eco-Tech Coalition, and Argentis; through the middling the Republic of Tara, and Keltyr; to the small and only tenuously independent. The book follows events as they unfold around Commander Van C. Albert, a black officer in the Taran Republic Space Force.
Through a series of unusual events, including a mysterious attack and two attempted assassinations, Van is promoted and retired from the Space Force as a Commodore. He returns home but is unable to find work as a pilot and finds himself compelled by yet another assassination attempt to accept a job offer from Integrated Information Systems, a mysterious foundation from the Echo-Tech Coalition he first encountered during his brief posting as military attache at a Taran embassy.
The remainder of the book follows Van’s experiences as pilot of one of IIS’ three interstellar ships (far from being the commercial couriers they appear each is armed and equipped as a light cruiser) and a roving Director of the powerful foundation. Through his role, Van learns of and experiences the economic and political beginnings of what eventually degenerates into a war with the theocratic and expansionist “Revs” giving up their back-room economic for all out invasions.
This book, like many of Modesitt’s, contains numerous excerpts from in-universe authors, in this case a treatise on societal ethics. In addition to these quotations are the discussions and introspection by Van and the other characters about the nature of ethical action on the parts of both individuals and societies. At times a touch preachy, these passages and the ideas they discuss are interesting and on occasion provoke more than a little thought (as well they ought: ethics, both personal and societal, seems rather too neglected a topic in Western societies these days).
The denouement of the story comes as Van (and those readers who did not read The Parafaith War) that the mysterious Trystin, head of the IIS, feels responsible for the Revs’ society and the destruction they’ve wrought over the past several hundred years. When Trystin takes drastic actions to prevent the Revs from killing even more millions of victims, Van is left in a similar position: feeling at least some responsibility for the reprehensible actions of a culture and with the means of preventing them, though at a terrible cost.
Were is waxes philosophical, the ideas presented are intriguing, and the action sequences are well written and replete with well conceived details and interesting touches. Some of the characters and their interactions seemed a touch stilted in places and the parallels between some of the Arm cultures and their Old Earth predecessors were perhaps a little too clear, but overall it’s an excellent book and has inspired me to look at the rest of Modesitt’s work.