Adiamante by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are more than a handful of SF novels that tackle the moral and practical idea of conservatism, ecological or otherwise, that need a little love from us readers.

In this particular case, it's clothed in a very solid space-opera skin, peopled with realistic characters mired in their own worldviews, and each insists that they are entirely in the right.

Of course, we're also dealing with post-cyberpunk civilizations 10k years after an interstellar war, with a fleet of super-strong battleships returning to what is left of Old Earth.

The moral, ecological, cultural clashes are handled extremely well. It's also a freaking great tragedy from the very start.

Communication failures, worldview failures, even logic failures dominate this text, and yet that is entirely the point. All of us can successfully argue our worldviews and be fully, logically consistent, and yet be utterly WRONG.

I've always enjoyed L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s even-keeled fantasy, his focus on balance and reason. Apparently, his SF shares many of the same qualities and proves, at least to me, that we are all SF authors of our own demise.


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