Archform: Beauty

by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Narrated by BJ Harrison, Tina Wolstencroft

Overview

Four centuries in the future, the world is rich-nanomachines watch the health of the wealthy and manufacture food and gadgets for everybody-but no utopia, as we see in the lives of five very different people: a singing teacher, a news researcher, a police investigator, a politician, and a ruthless businessman.



Theirs is a society where technology takes care of everyone's basic needs but leaves most people struggling to extract a meaningful life from a world crowded with wonders but empty of commitment and human connection. Alternating the voices and experiences of these five characters in a tour de force of imaginative creation, L. E. Modesitt overlaps, combines, and builds their disparate stories into a brilliant tale of future crime and investigation, esthetic challenge, and personal triumph.



In the same way that he has built fantasy landscapes of surpassing fascination, Modesitt creates a believable future, one imbued with a deep understanding of the way politics work and how people act and react when their sense of themselves, of justice, and truth, is exploited by others for power and control. When there's nothing left to need or want, will beauty live on in people's lives or disappear forever?

Editorial Reviews

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The Barnes & Noble Review
L. E. Modesitt Jr.'s science fiction thriller Archform: Beauty is a refreshing change of pace from his popular fantasy offerings like the Recluse saga and the Spellsong Cycle. Four centuries in the future, technology has both advanced and distorted human society. Although most of the population is psychically connected by implanted links and benefited by nanomeds that can cure almost any ailment, there's a morose emptiness in people's lives. Have technological advances killed artistic creativity -- and appreciation of true beauty?

Seen through the eyes of five unrelated characters, the story unfolds quickly, as their very different lives are linked through a series of mysterious deaths. Eugene Chiang is a police lieutenant who specializes in finding patterns in crime statistics. Chris Kemal is a crime boss posing as a multimillionaire legitimate businessman. Elden Cannon is a senator trying to get reelected without comprising his code of ethics. Jude Parsfal is a media researcher who uncovers some potentially deadly information. And Laura Cornett is a music professor struggling to make ends meet and quickly becoming disillusioned with society's apathy towards the arts. As more and more high-profile people are mysteriously killed, all five characters' lives intersect in a dangerous convergence that could mean disaster for everyone involved.

Comparable to Modesitt's alternate-history Ghosts sequence (Of Tangible Ghosts and Ghost of the Revelator) in both thematic complexity and ultra-stylized futuristic setting, this book is as ambitious as it is thought provoking. In a word: beautiful. Paul Goat Allen

Kirkus Reviews

New SF from the versatile author of Ghost of the White Nights (2001), etc. By the 25th century, rising sea levels have drowned much of the eastern US. The population divides into "filch" (filthy rich), "sariman" (middle class), "servies," and ex-criminal "permies" who've had their attitudes permanently readjusted with microscopic-machine "nanites." In the North American capital, Denv, police lieutenant Eugene Chiang keeps tabs on crime statistics, using his experience and intuition to spot trends-such as a small but puzzling increase in minor crimes, suicides, and ODs in under-25s. Also troubling is the death of lawyer's wife Nanette McCall, killed apparently accidentally when her nanite vehicle protection system malfunctioned. Music professor Luara Cornett struggles to make ends meet amid incessant budget squeezes and falling demand for real, live music-today's hottest commodity is "rez," the resonant amplification of a piece's emotional impact: behavioral conditioning that works. Good-guy senator Elden Cannon confronts unexpected opponents and shadowy string-pullers, straining his reputation for honesty. Media researcher Jude Parsfal uncovers some odd facts about Martian Republic business practices; he also finds Nanette McCall's death suspicious, and notes an inexplicable increase in fatal heart attacks among apparently healthy individuals. Ruthless businessman Chris Kemal, meanwhile, buys and sells: politicians, commodities, drugs, anything that will extend his family's shady empire. As the first-person narratives of these five individuals intermingle, what eventuates is an investigation of genuinely fascinating, intriguing, provocative, and inspirational scope. Modesitt's alwaysworth reading, but this may well be his best ever.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175634724
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	05/17/2022
Series:	Archform: Beauty , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

Vienna, 1824

As the last notes of the orchestra fade into oblivion, the audience surges to its feet, the applause thundering across the hall.
The tottering, wild-haired conductor remains facing the orchestra, as if afraid to turn, until the concertmaster, tears streaming down his cheeks, steps forward and takes the conductor's arm, guiding him to face the audience. The conductor finally smiles as he takes in the ovation he can see, but not hear.
But the smile that crosses the creased and pallid face is part joy, part wonder--and part horror that none recognize or sense but the conductor, who is also the composer. Both horror and wonder are lost in the applause that storms across the city, an applause that is darker than the night outside, an applause for music that casts a shadow far wider than any know and for far more years than any could guess.

Copyright © 2002 by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

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