Quantum Shadows

By: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Best-selling author of The Mongrel Mage, L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Quantum Shadows blends science fiction, myth, and legend in an adventure that pits old gods and new against one another in a far-future world.

On a world called Heaven, the 10 major religions of mankind each have its own land governed by a capital city and ruled by a Hegemon. That Hegemon may be a god, or a prophet of a god. Smaller religions have their own towns or villages of belief.

Corvyn, known as the Shadow of the Raven, contains the collective memory of humanity’s Falls from Grace. With this knowledge comes enormous power.

When unknown power burns a mysterious black image into the holy place of each House of the Decalivre, Corvyn must discover what entity could possibly have that much power. The stakes are nothing less than another Fall, and if he doesn't stop it, mankind will not rise from the ashes.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2020 L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Quantum Shadows carries the overtones of our genre’s finest writers - Zelazny and Wolfe - which is enough to commend it.... Modesitt has given us a vision all his own - a vision with the power to transport and challenge us in equal measures.” (Peter O'Rullian, author of The Unremembered)

Refreshing and different. A nice change-up.

This was a refreshing change-up from the typical science fiction and fantasy fare. The story is interesting, the pacing is relaxing and the story meanders through a mystery that you have to unpack with minimal exposition and amidst lot of philosophical ponderings. The world building was really cool, and I would welcome more stories set there if the author was so inclined. I thought the narration was oddly slow and halting; however, once I bumped the speed up to about 115% - 120% it was a lot better.

thought provoking

a very enjoyable read. an enlightening view of the ephemeral deities and religions from an outside perspective

He was channeling Roger Zelazney in this one.

L.E. Modesitt must have just reread The Lord of Light. I was surprised by how much this reminds me of Zelazney s masterwork. He even put in the bad poetry at the beginning of the chapter s. All that being said, this is an excellent book by a great writer and I highly recommend it.

The least Modesitt book

Little plot, little story line, boring. I'm a fan of almost all of Modesitt BUT... this one I pre-ordered and was seriously let down
The only one that comes close is "Flash". The first 130 pages of that book were boring. Then the story started to roll.
I was still waiting for this story to start to be involving when the epilogue started.
In this book it seems Modesitt had a sermon to give us and nothing, not even the story, would get in his way.
Had I not read "Flash" I would not have believed this was by the same author.

Worst Modesitt book I have ever read

I really enjoy a lot of Modesitt books. There are times when some of his books drag a little for whatever reason and you can push through it because you are attached to the characters or invested in the story line enough to want to see where things are going. This was not one of those books. It's like you took all of the slow, uninteresting bits from the Recluce and Imager series and made a novel out of them. There is barely any plot. It reads more like a travel journal on someone's vacation. Plenty of description of inns and hotels along with lots descriptions of all the meals being eaten. I got through almost 8hrs out of the 10 and just decided to give up. The entire 8hrs I listened too felt like it could have been summarized in one chapter.