Narrated by William Dufris
Audio Length: 10 hours and 32 minutes
This is the first novel that I read by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., which is amazing because it seems that he puts out a new novel every other week. The reason I have not read any of his other works is that most are part of a huge series that I have no hope of catching up. The reason I picked Haze is that it is a stand alone novel and for the cool cover art by Sparth. Unfortunately, the cover art is the best thing about the novel. Is it completely unreadable? No. It is just that this storyline has been so many times that it would take a spectacular storyline to develop something new and fresh. Haze falls way short of introducing something new or original.
Summary
Haze is your typical fish out of water story times two. The novel alternates between the main character’s current mission and him remembering back to previous assignment. Major Keir Roget is an agent for the Federation and he is usually sent undercover into potentially hostile places to assess threats against the Federation. The set up for this story is pretty decent. The Federation has discovered a planet that has a haze shielding that blocks all types of sensors. Roget is sent to the planet surface to discover what is behind the haze and if there some life forms behind it. Like I said, a great set up for a Sci-Fi story.
Review
Unfortunately from this point forward the story is relatively unremarkable. Roget discovers a human society with very advanced technology. He spends a lot of time talking to the habitants, walking around, taking in the sites and an inordinate amount in restaurants. Mr. Modesitt must have been hungry when he wrote this story because there are numerous passages describing the food selection on menus and what the characters are eating. Even kinda made me hungry at times. There is no real conflict between Roget and the citizens of Haze even though they are aware that the Federation has come to their planet in order to assume control of it. The world building is weak and not very imaginative. Basically there a few changes in way their government operates, the way they communicate among themselves, etc. But none of these are all that interesting. Essentially by the end of the novel I could care less if the Federation demolished this planet or not.
The other story involves Roget going undercover as water monitor to a religious community of St. George. A previous agent had died in accident while hiking. So Roget is being sent in to investigate. Again this involves a lot of time talking to the habitants, walking around taking in the sites and an inordinate amount in restaurants. The story is not really clear how this mission was supposed to force Roget to question the motives of the Federation and cause him to reconsider his current line of work. Personally, I saw no need of this story line except to fill pages for the main story that was taking place on Haze.
Even with all these issues I highly enjoyed the ending and the choices Roget made. I just wish that it would have come sooner in the novel. Then the last third of the novel could involved Roget living with decision and exploring further. It seems to me that by the story started to get fascinating is when it ended.
William Dufris is a veteran when comes to audiobook narrations. The only problem I has was that he had narrated the voice of Neb from Ken Scholes Lamentation and Canticle. So I kept thinking of Neb while I was listening to the story.
In many ways this novel was a disappointment as I believed it missed on so many notes. There are tiny bits of goodness but too much of it felt like filler to me. So, I guess the novel just left me in a haze (bad joke, sorry).
My Rating
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