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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is the kind of book that McDevitt specialises in - the science-fiction archaeology thriller. Don't be fooled by the the date it was written - this book still stands up brilliantly today, and it's a scandal this book was out of print for so long.
Lost in the fog of an old interstellar war, legend, truth and misinformation merge in the story of how Christopher Sim built a rag-tag group of ships into the mystical guerrilla fleet that fought the alien Ashiyyur invaders to a standstill. Alex Benedict takes on the legacy of his dead uncle - a lifelong work trying to find out the truth of Cristopher Sim and his exploits. How much of the story is true? How much demon was in the hero? Was Sim really killed by a betrayal, and what happened to his lost and legendary flagship?
McDevitt builds the legend of a hero forged in a desperate war, and then dismantles the legend to find the man beneath, his triumphs, failures, and betrayals.
This book is a thoughtful, exciting, atmospheric, page turner.
Lost in the fog of an old interstellar war, legend, truth and misinformation merge in the story of how Christopher Sim built a rag-tag group of ships into the mystical guerrilla fleet that fought the alien Ashiyyur invaders to a standstill. Alex Benedict takes on the legacy of his dead uncle - a lifelong work trying to find out the truth of Cristopher Sim and his exploits. How much of the story is true? How much demon was in the hero? Was Sim really killed by a betrayal, and what happened to his lost and legendary flagship?
McDevitt builds the legend of a hero forged in a desperate war, and then dismantles the legend to find the man beneath, his triumphs, failures, and betrayals.
This book is a thoughtful, exciting, atmospheric, page turner.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This brilliant book opened my eyes to the possibilities of science fiction. McDevitt weaves his tale of legend and popular myth very cleverly within a futuristic world and allows the reader to view facets of our own world through new eyes. McDevitt's uncomplicated and unpretentious style introduces sci-fi ideas in a matter-of-fact way which allows the story to flow and the characters to define themselves. I found the end truly heart-rending; there are parallels here with modern day "heros". At the end of the day a legend is exactly that - a collection of wishes we formulate about a person to make ourselves feel better, when the reality might actually be quite different...
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you're going to read McDevitt's novels, you can either start with this one and then ignore the rest, or read the others and save this for last to see the flair McDevitt used to have.
This is a great page-turner. It's easy to get pulled into the plot, and the frequent use of "archive" material in the chapters adds a real melancholy to the story (which in itself is both clever and somewhat moving; a very unusual combination for a sci-fi novel.). Having read Omega, Polaris, and Engines of God, A Talent For War is the one I enjoyed the most - and it's a great pity the others aren't more like it.
The story is essentially the uncovering of a semi-legendary hero accredited with saving mankind from an implacable alien enemy. The hero himself, however (Christopher Sim), has great depth and humanity, and ultimately, it seems everyone has taken what they wanted from his mythos, rather than the truth - until the events in the story take place. And the truth both is and isn't what people want to hear.
This is a great page-turner. It's easy to get pulled into the plot, and the frequent use of "archive" material in the chapters adds a real melancholy to the story (which in itself is both clever and somewhat moving; a very unusual combination for a sci-fi novel.). Having read Omega, Polaris, and Engines of God, A Talent For War is the one I enjoyed the most - and it's a great pity the others aren't more like it.
The story is essentially the uncovering of a semi-legendary hero accredited with saving mankind from an implacable alien enemy. The hero himself, however (Christopher Sim), has great depth and humanity, and ultimately, it seems everyone has taken what they wanted from his mythos, rather than the truth - until the events in the story take place. And the truth both is and isn't what people want to hear.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
History repeated in the future
This is a storming book. It starts quite slow but gradually things click into place and the pace develops; snippets of future history are dropped in and echo recent and historical... Read more
Published 3 months ago by MasterChef
Difficult to keep going with....
"A Talent for War" is the third novel by Jack mcDevitt that I've read this year, following "Engines of God" and "Deepsix" from the Academy-series Universe. Read more
Published 8 months ago by J. S. Millard
A Talent for History
This is the first book in Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict series, in which Alex and his talented assistant Chase Kolpath meet for the first time. Read more
Published 11 months ago by John M. Ford
If you like science fiction then read this book
I have varied tastes in SciFi from the greats of the 60s to the modern stuff from Reynolds & Hamilton. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mr. T. C. Jones
Great detective tale!
This is the second book by this author that I have read and it is a great feeling to know that he is no one hit wonder. Read more
Published on 19 Aug 2007 by Mark Mewell
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