In the far future, Earth is just one planet inhabited by humanity, the capital of a long-abandoned interstellar empire. Having renounced the arrogance and pride of empire, the people of Earth have built a new society based on a rigid set of principles that stress environmental conservation and nonaggression. Slowly the planet is recovering from millennia of selfish exploitation and the destruction of wars.
Suddenly a former colony's fleet of twelve warships built of nearly indestructible adiamante appears in orbit and tries to intimidate the people of Earth into submission. The people of Earth will not surrender, but their principles also don't allow them to take defensive measures until the fleet actually attacks.
Ecktor deJanes is the newly appointed planetary coordinator and has the terrible responsibility of protecting the lives of all the Earth's inhabitants. Somehow he must maintain his society's principles while preventing the fleet from turning the planet into a lifeless ball of rock.

Review

Though L.E. Modesitt's greatest success is the ongoing Recluce fantasy series, his first novels were SF- -to which he returns in Adiamante. Far in the future, Earth is still scarred by old wars and pollutants, and infested with deadly new predators. Nevertheless it's a low-key, appropriate-technology Utopia, thanks to a genetically enforced social code known as the Construct which prohibits distrust, threats or pre-emptive violence. No such rules apply to the 12 giant invader ships from the computer-happy colony world Gates, sent to punish Earth for exiling their ancestors after a conflict so ancient that it's become folklore. Our planet's hastily appointed co-ordinator Ecktor has the job of steering through the crisis without violating the Construct, while the visitors hope to provoke some incident that'll give them the excuse to lose their terrible weapons. Earth's mind- linked elite have a secret defence of their own, but a painful and expensive one. Physically unable to lie to or threaten the grim visitors, Ecktor offers diplomatic hints and parables: for example, their ships are armoured in utterly unbreakable adiamante, the toughest substance known to science, shattered fragments of which are strewn through the world's topsoil ... It's a tense, thoughtful story, as pressure piles up and the situation escalates towards disaster. --David Langford

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