The Ethos Effect Audiobook By L. E. Modesitt Jr. cover art

The Ethos Effect

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The Ethos Effect

By: L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Narrated by: Wayne Mitchell
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A military science-fiction adventure from L. E. Modesitt, author of the best-selling Saga of Recluce series, set in the universe of The Parafaith War. The Ethos Effect combines hard science-fiction adventure with an insightful examination of the relationship between the sacred and the secular.

Set two centuries later, after the events of The Parafaith War, Commander Van C. Albert, the resourceful officer who once defeated a larger enemy ship, indirectly caused the loss of a civilian liner. Cleared by the board of inquiry but an embarrassment to the high command, he finds himself in dead-end assignments.

Seriously wounded foiling an assassination, Van awakes from a coma to find that he's been decorated, promoted, and summarily retired. Looking for new employment, Van will find that a simple piloting job turns him into a point man in a conflict that will shake the worlds.

©2004 Modesitt Family Revocable Living Trust (P)2021 Tantor Adventure Military Science Fiction Fiction War
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Reader was too emotional for my taste. Otherwise it was excellent. Four stars out of five.

Enjoyed the sequel to Parafaith WR

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I like the premise of the book, but it is not up to the standards of quality I expect from Modesitt. For example, the romantic interest ended up basically being a few thousand words of content describing several meals, one request for data, and almost nothing else. That one information request that moved the story forward could have easily been provided via another source, without describing several meals. As I said, it feels to me like this book lacked a critical editor.

Feels overly long, needs pruning/rework edits.

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Poorly formulated analysis of centralized beliefs pretending to be a mediocre science fiction novel. You can feel the contempt middle of this book. At least the technical jargon and militaristic perspective was somewhat interesting.

Disillioned author

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Narrator issues:
- harsh voice quickly became distracting.
- multiple words mispronounced.
- reading of high action sections injected too much emotion, sounded false and sometimes hard to follow.
- attempts at voice characterization were failures.
Story was only mediocre, for a Modesitt book.

Narrator was a disappointment

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