"Great space opera"
It has been five millennia since mankind has colonized
planets all over the galaxy. Three main power groups
control various worlds. The Comity has a humanistic
worldview; The Covenanters are a Christian sect who
believes that the Comity and the Sunnite Alliance
(Muslims) are heretics who don't believe in God but in
themselves or a different deity; the Sunnite Alliance are
the mirror image of the Covenanters. It is because of
these divisions and previous armed conflicts that Comity
doesn't tell anyone about the journey they are making to a
sunless world named Danann. It is racing through the universe at an unheard of speed,
a perfectly formed world with only one city on it
preserved by the frozen ice that encrusts the planet. In
a few years it will go where humanity cannot travel so an
expedition is mounted to explore the world, looking for
technology, artifacts and a hunt for what kind of aliens
created such a world since humans have yet to encounter
other intelligent life. Spies on board the ship and an
attack by Sunnite warships try to prevent the Comity from
bringing back what is on Danann, either because they want
it or they believe it is a product of Satan and will usher
in Armageddon. Readers who like great space opera will find THE ETERNITY
ARTIFACT a fantastic reading experience. The characters
are well developed and their motivations are
understandable to the audience. It is fascinating to
watch the various members of the expedition explore an
alien made world and interpolate theories from what they
find there (mindful of the cult classic movie Fillard
Millmore). Mr. Modesitt has written an exciting work that
contends that political and religious differences that
exist today will remain as dogmatic as ever in the future
regardless of technology. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted September 15, 2005
Summary5,000 years in the future, humankind has spread across
thousands of worlds, and more than a dozen different
governments exist in an uneasy truce. But human beings
have found no signs of other life anywhere approaching
human intelligence. This changes when scientists discover
a sunless planet they name Danann, travelling the void
just beyond the edge of the Galaxy at such a high speed
that it cannot be natural. Its continents and oceans have
been sculpted and shaped, with but a single megaplex upon
it--close to perfectly preserved--with tens of thousands
of near-identical metallic-silver-blue towers set along
curved canals. Yet Danann has been abandoned for so long
that even the atmosphere has frozen solid. Within a few
years Danann will approach an area of singularities that
will make exploration and investigation impossible.
Orbital shuttle pilot Jiendra Chang, artist Chendor Barna,
and history professor Liam Fitzhugh are recruited by the
Comity government and its Deep Space Service, along with
scores of other experts as part of an unprecedented and
unique expedition to unravel Danann's secrets. And there
are forces that will stop at nothing to prevent them, even
if it means interstellar war.
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