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    Haze
    Haze
    Haze
    Audiobook10 hours

    Haze

    Written by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

    Narrated by William Dufris

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    What lies beneath the millions of orbiting nanotech satellites that shroud the world called Haze? Major Keir Roget's mission is to make planetfall in secret, find out, and report back to his superiors in the Federation, the Chinese-dominated government that rules Earth and the colonized planets.

    For all his effectiveness as a security agent, Roget is troubled by memories of an earlier mission. When he was assigned to covert duty in the Noram backcountry town of St. George, he not only discovered that the long-standing Saint culture was neither as backward nor as harmless as his superiors believed but also barely emerged with his life and sanity whole.

    Now, scouting Haze, Roget finds a culture seemingly familiar yet frighteningly alien, with hints of a technology far superior to that of the Federation. Yet he is not certain how much of what he sees is real-or how to convey a danger he cannot even prove to his superiors, if he can escape Haze.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 9, 2009
    ISBN9781400182916
    Haze
    Author

    L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

    L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the bestselling author of the fantasy series The Saga of Recluce, Corean Chronicles, and the Imager Portfolio. His science fiction includes Adiamante, the Ecolitan novels, the Forever Hero Trilogy, and Archform: Beauty. Besides a writer, Modesitt has been a U.S. Navy pilot, a director of research for a political campaign, legislative assistant and staff director for a U.S. Congressman, Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues, and a college lecturer. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.

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    Reviews for Haze

    3/5

    78 ratings8 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I've found Modesitt's Recluse fantasy series repetitive and uninspired, but had higher hopes for his science fiction. This book is part character study and part philosophical novel, in which the main character, a secret agent named Kier Roget, visits a mysterious, sheltered utopia that is gradually explained to him over the course of the book. That main story is interwoven with flashbacks to Roget's previous assignment, placed under cover in a Mormon community in what was formerly southwest Utah. The story as a whole is set some thousand years in the future, well after America has fallen and China has come to dominate the Earth. Yet, the Earth's history is mostly just a backdrop; Modesitt's real interest seems to be to explore the alternative society he has located on the planet Haze. Haze may be purely the product of Modesitt's imagination, but it could also be an attempt to work out what a society built around a neo-Stoic philosophy would be like. One of Haze's distinct features is that freedom of speech has been largely replaced with respect for informed expertise -- residents can be fined (for libel) for saying untrue things (whether lies or careless mistakes) in public discussions. That's consistent with Stoic epistemology. It also is characteristic of the creative but shallow thinking that pervades this book and makes it frustrating to read -- one can imagine very serious breakdowns in a society that criminalized false or mistaken speech, and yet Modesitt gives Haze a pass on this, while assuming that human nature makes Earth's bureaucratic government pervasively corrupt. The story sidesteps questions about Haze's advanced technologies -- which are supposed have resulted from the culture's spirit of skeptical inquiry -- by having Roget speak only with nonscientists who parry his technical questions as being outside their areas of expertise. If the book doesn't really come together as philosophical speculation, it is equally awkward as a character study. Roget, although he's supposed to be an accomplished secret agent, comes across as a poorly-socialized engineer who lives a bone-dry emotional life. The various conflicts that drive the plot are more or less resolved (by technology ex machina, as it were), but the story never explains convincingly why they happened in the first place. I'm glad to have given the book a try, but wouldn't recommend it, and think I'll skip Modesitt's other science fiction.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting. The many adventures of the main character are awesome
    • 2/5
      This is an oddly constructed novel with two different stories running in alternating chapters separated in time by about five years. Keir Roget, an agent of the Federation Security Agency is the main character in both.
      The earlier story has Agent Roget investigating a ‘Saint’ (Mormon) terrorist cell. His cover story during this is as an energy monitor, ostensibly responsible for ensuring people are not wasting energy. In the course of his investigation, the terrorists infect him with some memories of a long dead senator from Utah, a former part of the United States, a political entity absorbed by the Federation a thousand years ago. The senator was popular at the time, but he seems otherwise unexceptional. Why the cult chose him for their attempt to ‘convert’ Roget is unclear, as are their long-term goals or even their beliefs.
      This is also true of the Federation, which seems to have come about after a long period of Chinese economic hegemony. At times, the Federation seems benign and patient, concerned mainly about maintaining order, and at other times, it seems oppressive and even paranoid.
      The second story follows Agent Roget as he is inserted onto a mysterious planet protected by high-tech shielding. It is populated by a ‘Thomists,’ a group that splintered from Earth about two thousand years ago, although there is some suggestion of non-linear time hanky-panky going on. Roget is supposed to assess the threat these people pose and report back.
      He discovers an unashamedly elitist society even more obsessed with energy efficiency than the Federation, and which has some odd societal practices regarding politics, commerce, production, and the like. None of these are well explained or, quite frankly, seem to make much sense, but in daily life the place is pleasant enough. This may be because they are ideologically and culturally less diverse than Earth and so are subject to less social strife. Their advanced technology helps, too.
      One discontinuity that did strike me, however, was that in this technologically advanced society, many people seem to hold menial service jobs. I would think that a society that could develop underground trains that travel three times the speed of sound or teleport ships into low orbit could develop artificial intelligence systems to handle baggage or wait tables.
      I believe this book is supposed to be a cautionary tale about energy overuse, national arrogance, and possibly a few other things, but it doesn’t quite pull it off. The political and philosophical dichotomies are poorly presented. There is no clear cause and effect established between decisions, actions, and eventual results. Ignoring the possible thematic element for the moment, the story itself is not especially interesting and the characters are lackluster.
      Although I’ve enjoyed many of Modesitt’s other novels, I cannot honestly recommend this particular book.
    • 2/5
      I really expected better from Modesitt.It started off promising with the landing on an alien (albeit human) world. Unfortunately it rapidly deteriorated -- no reason he shouldn't have asked the 'questions ' that came to Riget's mind; a very forgettable travelogue of Haze (Dubiety); Roget's previous assignment should have been the first part of the book rather than running parallel; the Tanner/Roget sequence was just stupid and the ending was just SO SAPPY it was just as stupid.
    • 4/5
      In a far distant future where the Federation (not of Star Trek fame) controls the galaxy with an iron fist a planet is discovered shrouded in a hazy shield that prevents the Federation from learning, what, if any, human habitation exists. Agent major Kier Roget, along with four other agents in individual ships, are dropped into the turbulent atmosphere to penetrate the haze and learn the truth. Intertwined with this is another story line that takes place sometime earlier in which Agent Roget is sent in undercover to a remote Earth colony to learn why another undercover agent lost his life. The memories of that encounter are troubling and have a tenuous bearing on Rogent’s current mission.Agent Rogent and one other succeed in penetrating the shields, but the other man is driven crazy by what he sees. What Rogent discovers is an all too human culture that is quite alien to the Chinese dominated Federation, and technologically advanced in ways quite foreign to the Federation.Rogent is paired with a woman guide to help him understand this alien culture and provide enough evidence to prove that they are no threat to the Federation, but if the Federation did attack it would face unimaginable consequences. What unfolds is a highly detailed description of this alien culture with hints at an advanced technology that goes back four thousand years, two thousand before the Federation was even created.This is by no means an action/adventure novel, but enough intrigue is sewn in to make it a compelling, yet troubling read.I feel anyone who truly enjoys the social complexity and technological innovations of science fiction will find this a solid and enjoyable read. There is some military action, but it is far from the highpoint or the purpose of the novel. I did enjoy this more than all the other L E Modesitt novels I’ve read as the details were well woven into the fabric of the story such that it doesn’t bury the reader.
    • 4/5
      I admit this is the first Modesitt science fiction novel. I'm no stranger to his work in the fantasy field, having read all the Recluce and Spellsinger novels and two of his Imager novels.

      This novel includes two story lines that alternate and converge. Both stories use Roget's point of view, but during separate time lines in his life. This gives us a glimpse of current events and some of Roget's back story which also serves to world build (or re-build) Earth in our future. Earth is a mess, ecologically speaking, and ruled by the Federation, a Sinese-based empire. Roget experiences discrimination in his career advancement because he is a descendant of the remnants of the United States (oriental supremacy and occidental minority). The current time-line follows Roget as he explores the planet of Haze (Federation designation due to the orbital shields) or Dubiety (as referred to by the inhabitants).

      Modesitt explores two philosophies of government and society. The Federation is an extrapolation of all that's wrong with empires, as history continually shows. Haze/Dubiety is an example of an extreme instance of choice and consequences. Citizens have freedom of choice so long as they never harm another person and take complete responsibility for their actions and their consequences. Modesitt gives several good examples of testing the boundaries of this scenario.

      Comparable to some of the best of Heinlein's social engineering science fiction. Yet the characters take back stage to the themes, but not so much that you get bogged down in data dumps or didactic digressions. I felt the most sympathy for a dachshund named Hildegarde in a painting Roget kept an image of to talk to and ease the loneliness of his existence.

      Most of the science in the Federation appears to be hard science, although I don't remember how the Federation battle cruisers traveled to Haze (whether it was FTL or hyperspace or hard science believable travel). The Dubiens had some technology that seemed fantastic and Modesitt didn't go into explanations so I can't confirm or deny the science behind their "Trans-Temporal Entropic Reversal" system.

      I got a chuckle when Roget's guide took him to dinner at the Lucasan club. See my status updates for more on that scene.

      Roget's leap of faith, although predictable, was no less poignant. And the epilogue, while a bit corny, did bring a smile to my face.
    • 4/5
      It was pretty good, 3.5 stars, but obviously a political speech about our country & where it is heading. I don't disagree. There aren't partisan politics, but a broader view of civilizations & their basic political theories. Lots of holes in the theory since it's basically an action story, but it raises some interesting questions.The characters are his same ones. The hero could be picked out of any of his books. The time is about about 1000 years from now. While technology has gotten better, people & politics are the same & that's the point of the book.Our hero is a highly trained, elite servant of a civilization in which he is a second class citizen. He is surviving, but lonely & without real choices. Contrasting his birth civilization is another that he is tasked with gathering data on. This civilization works very efficiently - if you buy into their POV. The good & bad of both are shown through the eyes of our hero in two different stories; one starts about 5 years before the other & the other is his current mission. The end is pretty obvious, but it is still a fun ride.If there had been less formula, I would have been happy to rate the book higher. The same old character was a bit tiring. At least he left out the romance, which I'm thankful for. There were enough interesting extras that I almost rated it higher, though. Tough call.
    • 4/5
      Haze is a novel set more than a 1000 years in the future. Earth has long been under a regime dominated by descendants of the Chinese and humans have long since started to explore the galaxy. The book follows the life of an agent in two separate but related stories. It took a while to actually get into the story for me. But once I got going, I felt it was very intriguing. One thing I especially liked was that the tech/sci-fi was given. There were no epic space battles, no trippy androids or nanotech. But that did not detract from being a great story exploring society and where we'll collectively end up in the future. This was my first Modesitt book. I may have to give another one a go.