Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
A Talent for War (Alex Benedict #1)
The acclaimed classic novel and fan favorite--the far-future story of one man's quest to discover the truth behind a galactic war hero.
ebook, 320 pages
Published
June 29th 2004
by Ace Books
(first published 1989)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
Oct 15, 2008
Jessica
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
McDevitt Fans
Shelves:
fantasyscifi
This is the first in a series by one of my favorite authors.
Alex Benedict learns that his uncle, who raised him, has disappeared along with several hundred other people aboard a space space headed for a remote location. His uncle leaves him the entire estate, along with the mystery that consumed his life before his disappearance. But Alex isn't the only one trying to solve the ancient puzzle of what happened to the Confederacy's most admired war hero and the other parties involved are much more...more
Alex Benedict learns that his uncle, who raised him, has disappeared along with several hundred other people aboard a space space headed for a remote location. His uncle leaves him the entire estate, along with the mystery that consumed his life before his disappearance. But Alex isn't the only one trying to solve the ancient puzzle of what happened to the Confederacy's most admired war hero and the other parties involved are much more...more
A gem of a high-tech Sci-Fi mystery & thriller, in which Alex Benedict, a dealer in exotic antiquities several millenia in the future, first makes the acquaintance of his long-time partner and star-pilot Chase Kolpath, while investigating an archeological mystery bequeathed to him by his uncle.
The story revolves around the legend of a history teacher turned into an outstanding military strategist. One of the teacher's books is read two centuries after his death by the main character, and fea...more
The story revolves around the legend of a history teacher turned into an outstanding military strategist. One of the teacher's books is read two centuries after his death by the main character, and fea...more
Alex Benedict lives in a time of a tenuous Confederacy of human-inhabited planets. The various planetary governments maintain their relationship to one another largely due to the shared military threat posed by the alien Ashiyyur species. Otherwise, the humans from different worlds hold each other in political distrust, a situation exacerbated by slow travel and communication technologies.
Benedict inherits from a deceased uncle an intriguing, albeit maddeningly undefined, historical puzzle. Were...more
Benedict inherits from a deceased uncle an intriguing, albeit maddeningly undefined, historical puzzle. Were...more
Jun 23, 2012
Ramsey Hootman
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
didn-t-finish
Seriously, seriously boring.
Having read and enjoyed McDevitt's Academy series, I figured I'd be just as happy starting in on Alex Benedict. Jack McDevitt is sort of my guilty pleasure reading - fun sci fi adventures, not too deep, easy reading, with the alien civilization/archaeology bits I like.
A Talent for War has just proved boring, though. I'm, I dunno, maybe halfway through, and the only thing that's happened is that Alex's uncle died and Alex is trying to figure out where he was going whe...more
Having read and enjoyed McDevitt's Academy series, I figured I'd be just as happy starting in on Alex Benedict. Jack McDevitt is sort of my guilty pleasure reading - fun sci fi adventures, not too deep, easy reading, with the alien civilization/archaeology bits I like.
A Talent for War has just proved boring, though. I'm, I dunno, maybe halfway through, and the only thing that's happened is that Alex's uncle died and Alex is trying to figure out where he was going whe...more
Of all my friends who read sci-fi, I've not met one who is a fan of Jack McDevitt. The only reason I discovered him was because my wife randomly picked up one of his books at the library when stocking up on reading material for our honeymoon. He has since become one of my favorites. A Talent for War is my most recent read from McDevitt, and it did not disappoint.
Like his other novels, A Talent for War is in a genre I would call "space archaeology". McDevitt's heroes are a bit like a futuristic I...more
Like his other novels, A Talent for War is in a genre I would call "space archaeology". McDevitt's heroes are a bit like a futuristic I...more
Sep 05, 2011
Toby Udstuen
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction
This is the first book in the Alex Benedict series. Jack McDevitt is the best and this series shows it. It combines the deep thoughts that make McDevitt a great read, while injecting more action then McDevitt's has had in past books.
Alex Benedict is the hero of the story here. Benedict is the grandson of a interplanetary archologist who dies at the start of his last adventure. The grandfather's will leaves everything to Alex Benedict, including the mystery of what his grandfather was looking fo...more
Alex Benedict is the hero of the story here. Benedict is the grandson of a interplanetary archologist who dies at the start of his last adventure. The grandfather's will leaves everything to Alex Benedict, including the mystery of what his grandfather was looking fo...more
This was a recommendation by a friend who actually brought it over for my husband to read while he receovers from spinal fusion surgery done earlier this month.
But since my husband isn't a huge reader, and his pain meds are interfering with his ability to focus (and he is stil on GRRM's 2nd volume in the Song of Ice & Fire series)...I snatched it up instead.
This was an absorbing read. I didn't know going into it whether there was any earlier books I should read first (luckily it was the 1st...more
But since my husband isn't a huge reader, and his pain meds are interfering with his ability to focus (and he is stil on GRRM's 2nd volume in the Song of Ice & Fire series)...I snatched it up instead.
This was an absorbing read. I didn't know going into it whether there was any earlier books I should read first (luckily it was the 1st...more
A Talent for War is an incredible piece of sci-fi world-building that owes as much to adventure narratives by Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard and B. Traven as it does to the space stories of Heilein, Asmiov and Clark that are its more obvious and immediate predecessors.
The story involves an antiquities dealer’s search for a mysterious artifact after the disappearance of his uncle. There’s also a noir-ish femme fatal, but she’s mostly a subplot, because what drives the story is not so m...more
The story involves an antiquities dealer’s search for a mysterious artifact after the disappearance of his uncle. There’s also a noir-ish femme fatal, but she’s mostly a subplot, because what drives the story is not so m...more
I abandoned this book at the halfway mark (page 160 or so). Abandoning books is something I hope to get better at rather than slog through something I'm not enjoying and likely won't benefit me in any way.
A Talent for War starts out great. This reader was instantly engaged in the central mystery. The first 50 pages are so set one up for a quick-paced interstellar whodunnit. The next 100 pages get bogged down in back story. Our hero, Alex Benedict, needs to research past military history in order...more
A Talent for War starts out great. This reader was instantly engaged in the central mystery. The first 50 pages are so set one up for a quick-paced interstellar whodunnit. The next 100 pages get bogged down in back story. Our hero, Alex Benedict, needs to research past military history in order...more
Aug 25, 2012
Clark Hallman
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction
A Talent for War is the first novel in Jack McDevitt’s Alex Benedict series, and it’s another good read from this ingenious story teller. The novel takes place about 9,000 years in the future. Space travel has been perfected enabling human civilizations to expand through a large part of our galaxy. However, unfriendly alien civilizations are also encountered. Alex Benedict receives a posthumous message from his uncle informing him to take over his lucrative business as an archeologist and finder...more
A solid future history novel, this was my first McDevitt and certainly not my last.
When Alex Benedict's estranged uncle dies in a hyperspace accident, he leaves behind information on the archaeological find he was working on. The nature of it means it has to be picked up from his uncle's house. Before Alex can get to the house, thieves have broken in and stolen the information. Alex is left to reconstruct the information with the help of sophisticated house AI, named Joseph, and his uncle's busi...more
When Alex Benedict's estranged uncle dies in a hyperspace accident, he leaves behind information on the archaeological find he was working on. The nature of it means it has to be picked up from his uncle's house. Before Alex can get to the house, thieves have broken in and stolen the information. Alex is left to reconstruct the information with the help of sophisticated house AI, named Joseph, and his uncle's busi...more
Apr 02, 2013
Brooke
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2013,
science-fiction
I was hesitant about trying McDevitt again after reading Time Travelers Never Die. I'd described that book as "light and fluffy" and while I didn't think it was BAD, it wasn't the sort of thing I would purposely seek out.
However, I'm glad I gave A Talent for War a shot, because it was fabulous. It's basically a historical fiction mystery in a sci-fi setting. McDevitt has painted this really rich and captivating history about a war hero and the questions that main character Alex Benedict starts...more
However, I'm glad I gave A Talent for War a shot, because it was fabulous. It's basically a historical fiction mystery in a sci-fi setting. McDevitt has painted this really rich and captivating history about a war hero and the questions that main character Alex Benedict starts...more
Another one of McDevitt's trademark studies of our future-past, in the form of his Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath characters (the first of an excellent series) chasing down the secrets of a past war and its heroes.
As always, McDevitt's ability to weave a rich and believable picture of historic events that haven't happened yet, seems as familiar as the trials and tribulations of a present-day researcher trying to find the ancient city of Thebes or understand the legend of the Spartans (somethin...more
As always, McDevitt's ability to weave a rich and believable picture of historic events that haven't happened yet, seems as familiar as the trials and tribulations of a present-day researcher trying to find the ancient city of Thebes or understand the legend of the Spartans (somethin...more
It seems a tough task to write a detective story with a reluctant investigator. Much easier for the gumshoe to be driven—by profit motive if not by passion or principle. McDevitt shows us the story though ambivalent eyes. Alex Benedict is just picking up the pieces after his Uncle disappears, presumably dead. His particular susceptibility to jump-sickness on interstellar voyages motivates him to travel only when the reasons are compelling; he conducts much of his investigation as an interactive...more
This book was like reading a guilty secret for me. I love a sleuth adventure for the once in a lifetime antique. As an ex-antiques dealer myself, I cannot help but be fascinated by a dealer in deep space, finding artifacts, stumbling over the antique finds of the millennium, especially when set in a future so far distant that anything is possible. The author does have long wind when it comes to war strategy and made up historical trivia but actually, all that detail makes the search for the impo...more
This is the first book of the Alex Bennedict series. The narrator in this first entry is Alex himself whereas later his assistant Chase is the narrator. Interestingly, McDevitt seems more competent at writing a strong female persona than a male one. In the first novel, Alex seems very self congratulatory. Chase, as a narrator, is much better at seeing Alex's strengths and flaws, and so the character of Alex is more complex in later novels. The same doesn't seem to hold true with Chase however, s...more
A very good example of "future history". Two parallel storylines, set a couple centuries apart, yet both thousands of years from our own.
The book is not perfect; the main characters in the "normal" storyline are flat. They serve only as mouthpieces and narrators for the far more complex "historical" characters developed and explored in the other storyline.
McDevitt is a master plotter. The historical mystery unfolds at just the right pace, and is shaded with classical Greek history so as to lend...more
The book is not perfect; the main characters in the "normal" storyline are flat. They serve only as mouthpieces and narrators for the far more complex "historical" characters developed and explored in the other storyline.
McDevitt is a master plotter. The historical mystery unfolds at just the right pace, and is shaded with classical Greek history so as to lend...more
Took a while to get going and left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Partly, that's because the back cover said this historical legend (like, George Washington combined with Mazer Rackham AND Ender) was going to be revealed as a fraud, which is totally not what happened. And since I was getting steadily more annoyed at the hagiographic depiction of the guy when I never got the pay-off of discovering him to be a lousy guy or whatever, it was frustrating. Also, the mystery was a little clumsy.
All t...more
All t...more
This is the first book in McDevitt's Alexander Benedict series. It was interesting to go back and read the first book in the series after reading all the others. This book is told from the point of view of Alex Benedict. The rest of the books in the series are told from the perspective of Chase Kolpath, Alex's pilot and assistant.
A Talent for War was a good story. Alex becomes obsessed with a mystery his uncle was investigating before being lost on a transport ship. Alex follows the seemingly co...more
A Talent for War was a good story. Alex becomes obsessed with a mystery his uncle was investigating before being lost on a transport ship. Alex follows the seemingly co...more
While not the greatest (this will be short as well), it had a great personality and the backstory of the war between the Ashiyyear and the Dellacondas jumped out at me and kept me through the story in and out on Alex Benedict's adventure. While the writing was sub-par (too much mundane information that didn't exactly characterize Alex in any interesting way) and the dialogue a bit hammy and expository for its own good, it had a special story that really caught your attention... especially when t...more
Although the cover blurb annoying gave away far too much, this is a really fascinating literary exercise--deconstructing a war that everyone in the book learned about in school, the foundation of their current system of government, pulling the reader along and into a culture defined by the exploits of characters long dead at the time of the book's action. This is the first of the Alex Benedict books and it is interesting to see more of his background, to meet Chase Kolpath for the first time, an...more
This is a tough review to write, I almost quit reading the book once or twice and there were numerous times I couldn't put the book down. The book dwells on a war that took place 200 years ago and historical analysis of the war. It is the historical analysis that drags some. The excitement comes with the mystery of some artifact that is being searched for and why that artifact is so important. There are some parts that can be figured out prior to the conclusion, but while I thought I was correct...more
A good start to a series that I'm reading because the most recent installment, "Firebird," has been nominated for a Nebula award. Some resemblances to Iain M. Banks' "Culture" books, although more conventional in approach; perhaps Isaac Asimov is a better comparison. The series is set in a future in which the human races has expanded to multiple planets (with, of course, the aid of a star drive), and has encountered an alien race, with a resulting war that seems to have ended in something of a d...more
Warm and cosy detective investigation, misleading cover blurb adds paranoia and tension. The blurb says a great historic war leader is a fraud, leading to all kinds of wild speculation as the novel goes on. The Aliens in particular are a creepily disturbing bunch. The history feels real, even though our hero sails through on a sea of inherited wealth, it's a nice warm universe, very similar to the kind of place Zelazny or Vance and many others have given us before. It still works well. The space...more
This was a great book. Primarily a mystery, but set in the future, where it is also a convincing sci/fi novel. The focus is on the hero of the war with the alien race of telepaths, which ended several hundred years ago. The main character stumbles into the mystery of what really happened to end the war, and he becomes determined to find the answer.
I like how the author really builds his characters, but over time, and in small increments. I found myself predicting what was going to happen, and no...more
I like how the author really builds his characters, but over time, and in small increments. I found myself predicting what was going to happen, and no...more
Jan 26, 2011
Leif
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
mystery,
science-fiction
I read Seeker, which is book 4 or 5 in this series, first, and then got this book because I had enjoyed Seeker. I was a little disappointed to find that there was sort of a formula at work, at least in those two books of this series. However, it's a good formula, so I suppose it could be enjoyable to see how the formula is fit around different stories. Mainly, I found the "historical" aspects of the investigations, which are unique in the two books, to be very exciting and fascinating. This was...more
I read Seekers because it won the Hugo, and I did wonder how the partnership between antiquities dealer Alex and his pilot got started. This is the first of the series and it does answer some questions about the characters, their histories, and the universe they live in. It reads more like an investigation than an adventure, and though it shows promise it didn't live up to its potential. I'll probably go on to read the second one, but I doubt I'll finish the series, as they seem a bit bloodless...more
I read the first three Alex Benedict novels and really liked them, and now I have three more to read and it's been a few years, I thought I'd start over from the beginning.
This first one, written some years before the author made it into a series and switched the POV to Alex's associate Chase Kolpath, is told by the main character as if it happened in his past.
It's not light reading, it's smart and entertaining, part scifi, part mystery, part a tribute to history, with some action/adventure pe...more
This first one, written some years before the author made it into a series and switched the POV to Alex's associate Chase Kolpath, is told by the main character as if it happened in his past.
It's not light reading, it's smart and entertaining, part scifi, part mystery, part a tribute to history, with some action/adventure pe...more
Jan 04, 2013
Michael Jones
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Michael by:
Orson Scott Card
I read this book on recommendation (via his blog) from Orson Scott Card. It actually took me a while to get through it - not a lot of time for reading books that I have to use my eyes to read, now that I have to commute by car and not by bus - and it's the kind of book that requires some attention to things of a historical nature (although most of Alex Benedict's "history" is in our far distant future), and names of people and places are important to keep track of. The stories I usually read are...more
The first in the Alex Benedict series by Jack McDevitt
First Impressions: the cover art. Horrible! If a book were based on a cover this one would receive no stars! What were they thinking? Yet, strangely, the upcoming books in the Benedict series have some of the most fascinating artsy covers I have ever seen. Maybe trying to make up for this one.
Anyway, don't let the cover turn you off. If you like SF, space mysteries, and/or intergalactic wars, or even just a good investagation, you may enjoy t...more
First Impressions: the cover art. Horrible! If a book were based on a cover this one would receive no stars! What were they thinking? Yet, strangely, the upcoming books in the Benedict series have some of the most fascinating artsy covers I have ever seen. Maybe trying to make up for this one.
Anyway, don't let the cover turn you off. If you like SF, space mysteries, and/or intergalactic wars, or even just a good investagation, you may enjoy t...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Jack McDevitt is a former English teacher, naval officer, Philadelphia taxi driver, customs officer and motivational trainer. His work has been on the final ballot for the Nebula Awards for 12 of the past 13 years. His first novel, The Hercules Text, was published in the celebrated Ace Specials series and won the Philip K. Dick Special Award. In 1991, McDevitt won the first $10,000 UPC Internation...more
More about Jack McDevitt...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
Jan 20, 2009 04:58am