L. E. Modesitt is a prolific and accomplished writer. His Tangible Ghost and Imager series break new ground in their respective genres. When he misses the mark, as he does in The Ethos Effect, it is not for lack of complex world-building and a well-wrought plot. The hero, Van Albert, is a decorated starship captain who is forced into retirement when he is injured preventing an assassination. He takes a job with Integrated Intelligence Systems, a secretive interstellar company that sends him into conflicts that challenge his ethics. The Ethos Effect is an ambitious novel of ideas that interrogates military and political ethics systems. It suffers, as many such novels do, from talky self-indulgence. The ideas subsume the characters, action scenes are rushed. The story elements never quite mesh—four stars with reservations. ( )

Political scifi told in classic Modesitt style, which involves lots of conversations over simple food (I could not count the number of times Van eats in a restaurant--once a chapter?) and a simple hero travelling through the world, surrounded on all sides by hard choices and grey areas. I didn't find the main character all that compelling, but there are some good conversations about ethics scattered throughout the novel. ( )

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 while writing a fast paced and gripping novel does one more thing. He engages the reader in questions of ethics and morality. The center of which is when is it correct to act for the benefit of the larger society over the parts of society. A thoughtful book and fun. If there are any typos I am suffering from fat finger syndrome today. ( )

A shallow look at genocide as an ethcal issue. ( )