Rating: 
Summary: You will like the hard action.
Review: The cover of _The Parafaith War_ claims echoes of Haldeman's _The Forever War_ and Henlein's _Starship Trooper_. The plot is traditional: hero is ambivalent about war he fights against hard-to-understand enemy; hero thinks too much; hero pulls rabbit out of hat, changes history and gets girl--we are in neutral storyline territory. There is a good complement of interesting props, and the hard action marches on without major hiccups, enjoying some good moments. Modesitt storytelling, though, is woody: the hero Trystin Desoll is flat, as are most support characters, and the contrast between the stilted secular and sacred cultures at war is handled with the depth of a grade-school textbook. This is _Starship Trooper_ many decades too late. Don't look in it for what you found in _The Forever War_: it's not there
Rating: 
Summary: Tense story of a man determining how far his duty extends.
Review: The Parafaith War is a three-part fugue on the basic theme of a soldier's responsibility to look beyond the immediate impact of his actions. This book draws on many of the elements of genre favorites such as Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and Armor, but attempts to go beyond what the authors of those stories say about a soldier's possible greater responsibility: by performing his duties to the best of his ability, might he not be extending the war needlessly and harming his cause? And what can he do to discharge his duty in such a way that the end of the war really is approached? Tristan Desoll's solution is helped by an advanced alien race interested in testing humanity's capacity for overcoming just such paradoxes (a race which looms in the background as severe judges should humanity fail), but his own abilities and skills are tested to their limits. Desoll's development is well-handled, the action is tense when at its best, and Desoll's bleakness of personality fits well with his motivation to go beyond mere orders. The setting is necessarily artificial and somewhat shallow, you won't find the excessive richness of society and history such as that for which Frank Herbert is famous, but I believe that is by design; any more description than what is given would only distract the reader from Desoll's development and dilemnas. The perhaps larger questions of theology and society that are raised similarly serve as props for the morality play that is at center stage in the book, and might even have been toned down without adversely affecting the impact of the conclusion. Seems like it was written with conversion to screenplay in mind; perhaps a movie will be forthcoming.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtfully refreshing
Review: The Parafaith War was the first book by L. E. Modesitt that I've had the chance to get my hands on. From the first moment when I thumbed through the pages and read the blurb in my local bookshop I knew I had something special here.Story of the book follows Trystin Desoll, a young Eco-Tech military officer on his growth and development, from a simple line officer, manning what is in essence a computerized bunker with big guns, all the way to the thoughfull and emotional end to this great story. Trystin's society has a problem. Eco-Tech coalition is being attacked by Revenants, a religiousely crazed group of people bent on taking over the universe in the name of their god. I was very surprised at the ammount of emotions and thoughts this book provoked in me, as compared to books in the same war-in-the-future genre. The content is very fragmented, the story slows down only to tell us details of several events, while at other times we follow the story through a series of short vignettes that are strung together only by the simple thought ever so present in the times of war: Be smarter, or perish.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Sci-Fi Book out there.
Review: This book combines the brutality of Starship Troopers, and the creativity of Dune. This book rules, it gives good technical details and very imaginative. I think that this book is good for most teenager (those that can read). I hope the author writes more books like this. THANKS.
Rating:
Summary: deserves it's 5 stars
Review: This book has created a world, a bunch of characters, and some motives for these characters. But what is most interesting is that LE Modesitt has created a belief system for these people that his characters fight against and come to know eventually. I was impressed by the writing in this novel, the story was interesting enough in it's plot twists and use of futuristic technology, counting only that, this novel was good. But then add to that the facet of religion, and the role it plays in bringing about the downfall of a culture, how one man uses this influence in religion to speed up this process, and how this book makes us reevalute our own values and you have a book that approaches literature. The arguments Modesitt makes arem't always right, nor on the conservative side in terms of religion, but all his points are thought provoking, and it is for this reason I suggest reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not so much a novel as a piece of Literature
Review: This book has created a world, a bunch of characters, and some motives for these characters. But what is most interesting is that LE Modesitt has created a belief system for these people that his characters fight against and come to know eventually. I was impressed by the writing in this novel, the story was interesting enough in it's plot twists and use of futuristic technology, counting only that, this novel was good. But then add to that the facet of religion, and the role it plays in bringing about the downfall of a culture, how one man uses this influence in religion to speed up this process, and how this book makes us reevalute our own values and you have a book that approaches literature. The arguments Modesitt makes arem't always right, nor on the conservative side in terms of religion, but all his points are thought provoking, and it is for this reason I suggest reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good action novel with some technical faults
Review: This is a good, fast-paced, action story that is an interesting read. The societies involved are fairly well thought out and the reader does not get hung up in the backgrounds, which, nevertheless, support the story well. Two problems do not detract much from the story line. The author seems not too familiar with weapons, even though the first half of the book depends upon use of military firepower, For example, the author has the hero "switch to semi-automatic" fire on an assault rifle and has the rate of fire increase! using more ammo. The opposite, of course would occur. The other problem I had was with the homelife and society of the religious fanatics being apparently a clone of common American 20th century society. Any religious society I know of has the fanaticism imbedded within their cultural interactions at home as well as when addressing foreigners.
Rating:
Summary: Good action sequeses, with some interesting ideas as well.
Review: This is the kind of novel that sci-fi is about. It is a novel about a war that speaks to a major social issue. The first half of the book sets up a universe at war. This part of the book goes into large detail, about the defense of a devoloping world, from religous radicals. The action sequences are for the most part very good, with the execption of a couple of sceanes where the description loses focus and becomes vague. The second half of the book is about the main characters attempt to find a solution to the war, by acting as an itellegence agent for his race. This book is smart, and does a good job devolping the atomoshere that the two societies have twords the war. More than any other war novel that I have read, this book gives the war experence as a combination of combat, as well as the social aspects of the war that each side faces as consequence of the fighting. This allows the book to look at the reasons and modivations of both sides of the conflict, and to show how the war itself makes both sides reason for fighting obsolete. The most interesting part of the book is where one side character points out that one side is fighting for land that they will never need, and the other side is taking so many casualties, that they no longer need the new land. WARNING: This book may offend some deeply religous people due to the way that religon is protrayed in the book. A church that is a little too like the Mormon church is protrayed in a way that could be taken badly.
Rating:
Summary: Good action sequeses, with some interesting ideas as well.
Review: This is the kind of novel that sci-fi is about. It is a novel about a war that speaks to a major social issue. The first half of the book sets up a universe at war. This part of the book goes into large detail, about the defense of a devoloping world, from religous radicals. The action sequences are for the most part very good, with the execption of a couple of sceanes where the description loses focus and becomes vague. The second half of the book is about the main characters attempt to find a solution to the war, by acting as an itellegence agent for his race. This book is smart, and does a good job devolping the atomoshere that the two societies have twords the war. More than any other war novel that I have read, this book gives the war experence as a combination of combat, as well as the social aspects of the war that each side faces as consequence of the fighting. This allows the book to look at the reasons and modivations of both sides of the conflict, and to show how the war itself makes both sides reason for fighting obsolete. The most interesting part of the book is where one side character points out that one side is fighting for land that they will never need, and the other side is taking so many casualties, that they no longer need the new land. WARNING: This book may offend some deeply religous people due to the way that religon is protrayed in the book. A church that is a little too like the Mormon church is protrayed in a way that could be taken badly.
Rating:
Summary: Its hard to put this book down once you start reading it.
Review: This was the first book that i read of L.E. Modesitt. The story takes place in a distant future, were man has divided itself into two imperies and are fighting eachother and the heros people are of course losing, and ofcourse there are some mysterious aliens involved and all in all you get a pretty intresting story, full of suprises
| 
