Modesitt, L. E., Jr.

Average customer rating:

Another good book, but a step down from the previous two
Good, but....
Much better!
A good entry in the Recluse Saga
Perfect sequel!

The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812534042

Book Description

The saga of Recluce, launched in The Magic of Recluce and continuing in The Towers of the Sunset and The Magic Engineer reaches a new climax in The Order War. "Modesitt has created an exceptionally vivid world," says L. Sprague de Camp, "so concretely visualized as to give the impression that Modesitt himself must have dwelt there." Publishers Weekly says, "Modesitt creates a complex world bgased on a plausible system of magic and peopled with engaging and realistic characters."Set after the events of The Magic Engineer (and prior to The Magic of Recluce) The Order War illuminates great figures and major events in the historic war between order and chaos that is the central focus of the saga of Recluce.The deadly White Wizards of Fairhaven, wielding the forces of chaos, have completed their great highway through the Westhorns and now threatened the ancient matriarchy of Sarronnyn, the last bastion of order in Candar. The ruler of Sarronnyn appeals to the Black order wizards of Recluce for help.Justen - a young Black Engineer in the city of Nylan - joins the relief force. Despite their success in destroying more than half the White armies, Sarronnyn falls to the White Wizards, and Justen is chased into the most inhospitable desert in Candar. These trials are but the beginning, for the White Wizards have all Candar in their grasp. Justen must fight both Recluce and Fairhaven, as well as the highest powers of order and the forbidden technology to harness chaos itself in his efforts to halt the conquest of the chaos wizards.The Order War is the fourth book of the saga of Recluce.

Customer Reviews:

Another good book, but a step down from the previous two.......2003-10-23

This book brings the Rucluce Saga full circle with the introduction of Justen the Gray and the destruction of Fairhaven. I was really excited about this story because I thought that those two topics could be really great. However, I was somewhat dissapointed in many aspects of this book. I don't really know what it was, but I just wasn't able to get into this book as much as I did the last couple. Much of the book seemed to drag on with very little being accomplished, and while the action was thrilling (with Justen and Gunnar whipping the Whites, and the Whites whipping innocent people in turn) it was few and far between. I think more could have been done with the druids (I don't feel like the reader really learns much about them) and with the Black Devil (which just supplied transport for Justen to get to Fairhaven) and what was with the metal rods that Justen used to kill those last Whites??

Look, this is a good book that fits nicely into the saga, but it just didn't live up to what I was expecting. I still look forward to the next book, in which the story returns to Lerris.

Good, but...........2002-02-10

The more I read Modesitt's work, the more I fight with the thought, "Do I get the next?" They have gone from great to good. The editorials and comments on the next couple of books don't look promising.

I have to agree, that Modesitt's sometimes just gives too many details about his character's professions. There's only so much I want to read about blacksmithing, engineering, and carpentry. He spends a lot of time telling you what a blacksmith does and thinks about, but doesn't put it into user friendly terms.

Lastly, there is only so much bread and cheese people can eat without MAJOR CONSTIPATION! Sounds like his characters would hae some serious "order" problems since every meal is BREAD and CHEESE. I think laxatives need to be introduced by a gray mage. It is, after all, a form of order which produces chaos ....

Do I get the next???

Much better!.......2000-08-05

This, the fourth book in the series (after THE MAGIC OF RECLUCE, TOWERS OF THE SUNSET, and THE MAGIC ENGINEER), is a vast improvement over the others. The pacing in this book was so much better. The other three had large sections in the middle where nothing really happened, at least in terms of plot progression. This book has slow areas, but they were the slow areas of mostly any other good book out there. They were used for character development rather than for philosophy, as in the first three books. In addition to the better pacing, Modesitt has cut down on the utterly confusing leaps of intuition that were a glaring mark throughout the first three books.

Modesitt's characterizations continue to be very strong here. All of the characters in his books are believable and the villains are not just some two dimensional cardboard cutout. I think the characterizations are the strongest part of Modesitt's writing. Since there's not always a lot of action, the growth of the characters is what keeps my attention in these books.

Modesitt continues to build a vivid, interesting world. I can't wait to find out what this "Legend" he keeps talking about really is. The only real shortcoming of this book is the lack of maps so I can figure out where the heck the characters are in relation to places they've been!

A good entry in the Recluse Saga.......2000-03-04

I enjoyed this novel in the Recluse series because it gives further insight into the complex magical system that Modesitt has created. It is fun to see how Justen changes through the book, and to watch the relationships with his brother, and other characters evolve. The pacing was a bit slow, just as in other Modesitt novels, and at times I got tired of the myriad of details he provides. Overall, enjoyable, especially the second half.

Perfect sequel!.......2000-02-14

This was an excellent sequel to the Reculce saga. I love the way this book has continued Creslin's line and also cleared up some questions from the first book The Magic of Recluse. I can't wait to get to the next one. I would like to read more about Justin though.

Average customer rating:

Review of "Wellspring of Chaos"
Still a good series after many books
Another Excellent Recluse Novel
Superb storytelling based on gripping characterisation
meandering

Wellspring of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Ordermaster (Saga of Recluce)
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ASIN: 076534808X
Release Date: 2005-04-05

Book Description

Kharl is the best cooper in Brysta, one of the major cities in Nordla, and his life has been as ordered and dependable as his barrels. His trouble begins when he saves a neighbor's daughter from the violent advances of two upper-class men. Then he rescues an actual rape victim he finds unconscious in an alley, a blackstaffer -- a young expatriate mage -- from Recluce, and that makes his wife very uneasy. The culprit in both cases turns out to have been Egen, the cruel and corrupt son of the local ruler. When the blackstaffer is mysteriously murdered in Kharl's cooperage, Kharl is jailed, tried, and flogged, and in a shocking turnaround released--and his consort executed for the murder, which she did not commit. Egen again. Kharl ends up on the run, with just a handful of coins and a few clothes, but he also takes the slain woman's black staff and her book, The Basis of Order, which explains the principles of its power. The diligent cooper is about to learn a new, very different skill.Wellspring of Chaos is the twelfth book in the Recluce Saga and takes place roughly 60 years after the close of The Order War (Recluce #4). It is Modesitt at the top of his form, returning to his most famous fantasy world, yet does not require previous knowledge of Recluce to be enjoyed. It's publication is sure to be one of the fantasy milestones of the year.

Customer Reviews:

Review of "Wellspring of Chaos".......2007-05-13

Like all books by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., this one is gripping. It kept me up *way* past my bedtime too many nights. Modesitt knows how to tell a story, and keep you on the edge of your chair -- not so much suspense, as drama. He really knows how to write and how to make a story work. When you look forward to getting finished with what you have to do so that you can get back to reading the book, you know it is a darn good book. But, I find all his books like that. Perhaps his style of writing just resonates with my interests, but I'm certain that I am not the only one. The "conclusion" of the "Wellspring of Chaos" story is his book "Ordermaster." THAT book is responsible for a lot of lost sleep because I could not put it down.

I believe that I have read every Fantasy Novel Modesitt has written. I'm not such a fan of his Science Fiction, but few if any can write fantsy as well. Only Mercedes Lackey's books are as gripping as Modesitt, but she has a completely different style. (Her books make you sweat and slide *off* the edge of your chair.)

I would recommend "Wellspring of Chaos" AND "Ordermaster" to anyone who likes fantasy fiction -- especially if they have read any of the previous books in the Saga of Recluce series.

Still a good series after many books.......2006-08-11

Kharl is a cooper - the finest in Brysta. He works hard at his craft, his family, and his integrity. Kharl takes in a blackstaffer, from Recluse, who's been beaten and abused and is, later, mysteriously murdered. The blame is placed on Kharl. After jail and a trial, his consort is found to be guilty and is hanged. His sons desert him. His business dries up. He has few friends. But these friends rally him, in the nick of time, to flee the cooperage and the corrupt rulers of Brysta. His path takes him from the streets, begging for coppers, to escape on an ocean vessel and to other lands. Along the way, he discovers the order magic of the black staff and his growing abilities to fight chaos in the world.

L.E. Modesitt is the author of the Recluse fantasy series. The series is thirteen novels, so far, with Wellspring of Chaos the twelfth in written order and tenth in chronological order of the world of the Recluse series. Ordermaster, is the sequel to Wellspring.

He writes of two sides to magic - order and chaos.

Order is the magic that is related to structure and is mostly useful in knowledge and defense. Order mages are known as black mages.

Chaos magic is white and has explosive power. Chaos mages are flamboyant and often visibly powerful.

Modesitt has written other fantasy novels, including the Spellsong and Corean Chronicles series'. He has also written science fiction series', including The Forever Hero, The Ecolitan Institute, Timegod's World, and Ghosts.

Wellspring of Chaos is very appealing in that here is a man who is hard-working, gifted, and cares for the disadvantaged. He quickly loses everything. He is Job. When other men fold, Kharl befriends a continuum of people: street urchins, businessmen, and a ship captain. He is able to get away from the evil that threatens him and adapt to come back to fight another day. It is a story of strength and of doing good in a world that is corrupt.

Kharl revisits other places in the world that Modesitt has written about in earlier books in the Recluse series. It is a nostalgia of sorts, taking the reader back to places of wonder and magic...and evil.

There are a couple of odd tendencies that Modesitt has in this series. One is that he often writes in side effects (i.e., hssst, thrap, or crrruuuummp). It gets the point across but can be somewhat disorienting. The other is his use of units of measure. Some, I'm quite fond of, like "kay" for a long unit of length, similar to the kilometer or click. Others were quite deceiving, like the "glass", which is a unit of time, like and hour. The "glass" could easily be lost on the reader if the context is not strong. In fact, I didn't realize what a "glass" was until about halfway through Wellspring. I've yet to read any of his other series' so I don't know if these are also present in them.

I would recommend the Wellspring of Chaos (and the entire Recluse series) to lovers of fantasy, certainly, but to anyone who loves a good hero story. Modesitt focuses on one, main character, taking the reader from small beginnings through trials and hardships, and eventually to heroic bravery...usually at a price.

Another Excellent Recluse Novel.......2006-06-08

To be honest, I don't know that I could ever give this author anything less that 5 stars. The Saga of Recluse has captivated me like no other fantasy setting out there. Modesitt has created a world with endless possiblities and continues in The Wellspring of Chaos. This novel stands out from all the others for several reasons. First, the story is set in a different part of the world. Second, the main character, Karl the cooper, is middle-aged - not a youth. Third and foremost, Karl has a completely different attitude from all previous heroes.

Karl stands out in that he is not frustrated by his lack of knowledge. Of every main character, Karl starts out with less information about order, chaos, and how to use them. Unlike the other novels, Karl shows patience in his growth and values the little tidbits of information he gleans along the way. STill, the same mechanics of the Saga of Recluse are still here. Karl sees a problem and he fixes it - patiently. In fact the detail and patience each main character has shown throughout this saga is what ultimately draws me back to this fantasy again and again.

Superb storytelling based on gripping characterisation.......2005-11-10

Modesitt Jr's `Wellspring of Chaos' takes us to Nordla, thence to the town of Brysta to the home of a middle aged cooper named Kharl whose aptitude for woodcraft is quietly pushed along in his cooperage. He suffers from all the usual problems of a well settled man, teenage sons with issues, a wife pushing him along to improve the business, the daily struggle of providing for his family. As a periodical so aptly indicates on the jacket, there are no youthful "callow youngsters who grow into heroes" just a hard-working man who suffers the cruelest of fates when he decides to help a young female Recluce blackstaffer who is beaten and left for dead on his workstep.
The social consequences of his individual kindness means his charge is murdered under cover of an arson, his sons leave him, his wife is arbitrarily executed by the actions of a prideful and callous young nobleman, his cooperage is attacked and then he is taxed out of his home and his place in society is irrevocably destroyed. Force to flee and hide in the town's gutters, he befriends another runaway, Jeka, and his patient, logical approach begins to reveal a hidden talent for order. With Jelendra's staff (the dead mage from Recluce) and her `The Basis for Order' book he kills a white mage who is preying on the youth of Brysta to gain new life and finds himself fleeing to the sea and taking a position as second carpenter on the Seastag under captain Hagen. After proving himself a capable fighter and using the tentative beginnings of his order power to assist the ship he finds himself involved in a political and real battle to save Lord Ghrant's lands. His single handed destruction of a powerful mage and the opposing lord elevates his status far beyond that of a cooper and hands him a minor landholding.
Clearly the beginning of at least a two novel story about Kharl, Modesitt again effortlessly proves that he can create a fantasy tale of true magic around a very ordinary character in much the same way he has done with the Corean Chronicles. It is the mark of an excellent storyteller that you can get eighty odd pages into a novel, pause and realise all you've really done is learn about making barrels and the trade of said barrels, but be throughly entertained. A clear case of superb characterisation removing the need for quick fix plots that lurch from one big explosion to another to keep reader attention because the characters themselves engender no empathy at all. For any fan of the fantasy genre Modesitt is in a very different league to many others simply because of his style. Character is more important than plot, narrative is tightly drawn and captivating and the novels are strangely gripping.
Luckily, Modesitt is a prolific author so there's never any lack of material to read.

meandering.......2005-08-22

"Wellspring of Chaos" is the story of a just man in an unjust world. The main character is a middle aged man, married with two children, who works as a cooper (barrel maker). He is emontionally distant, hard working, and entirely convinced that he knows what is right. He is oblivious to politics, current events, and the subtleties of peoples' reactions. The beginning portion of this book is a well executed tragedy in the Greek sense -- bad things happen to a good man, through no fault of his own. His personality is well defined and quite interesting, particularly since he is so different from Modesitt's other characters.

After this marvelous beginning, alas, the author appears to have no idea where to go. Most of the book wanders without focus. The location changes throughout the book, and describes what has happened to lands last seen decades or centuries before in previous books. Occasionally, people wander up to our hero and utter mystic messages. Lots of pages are devoted to carpentry and eating and musing about justice. This book has no real plot, but rather wanders pleasantly hither and yon.

Eventually, the book jumps gears, and the main character's personality changes. He starts observing everything, questioning everything, learning magic, and being more proactive. The quest for justice fades into the background. I found these changes incongruous, but perhaps you will not.

My overall impression was that "Wellspring of Chaos" would have made a marvelous short story.

The Magic Engineer (Recluce series, Book 3)

Average customer rating:

Slow, unbelievable and poorly written
Saga of Recluse, Part 3
textbook Extruded Fantasy Product
And yet again.
Painfully bad

The Magic Engineer (Recluce series, Book 3)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Towers of the Sunset (Recluce series, Book 2)
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ASIN: 0812534050

Book Description

Return now to the world of Recluce in The Magic Engineer.

Customer Reviews:

Slow, unbelievable and poorly written.......2006-04-07

Somehow, I enjoy reading this book. Somehow, I want to keep reading. But at least once a page, I wonder why.

The book is broken down into nearly two hundred chapters, most of which are brief character sketches (of the same few characters!) or "a day in the life of..." static stories. Some of the chapters touch on world events in a very loose sort of way. Most, though, are full of details about what the main character has for lunch and in what order he eats it, which unimportant side-characters he speaks to about unimportant matters, and the steps involved in forging this or that object out of iron. I'd estimate that fully a quarter of the book is a list of steps in iron-smithing, and the steps aren't even given in a way that helps me visualize it. I really don't need to know.

You'd think that, with scores and scores of character sketches, the reader would at least become attached to the characters. Nope. The characters are inconsistent and uninteresting, with unbelievable dialogue. Even Dorrin, the main and most interesting (or only interesting) character in the book, so frequently breaks character that I have trouble believing he's a real person.

The prose bothers me even more than the uninteresting characters and slow-paced story. The author is incredibly repetitive, predicting an event, mentioning it several times (often in the exact same words from different characters' mouths), and then reiterating it. Contradictions abound. Characters or narrative will say one thing, and then a few chapters, pages, paragraphs, sentences or even words later, the opposite will be said. Many times while reading this book, I found myself looking up at the sky and shouting, "Why! You just said X two sentences ago!"

I feel like I'm reading a story written by a high-school student. Mistakes I'd think any author would know to avoid are made every page -- repeating the same word many times in the same sentence, narrating an observation and immediately having a character make the same observation, having characters "begin to do" things instead of actually do them, saying things "look as if" or "are almost as if" instead of just straight out saying how they are. Ellipses are used profusely, for no apparent reason. Am I really to believe that the character heard every word of a dialogue except for "I" and "and?" Characters are called "young" without any real indication of their age. The main character's physical description is limited to "a wiry, red-headed youth." I've met many people, including writers, who make these kinds of mistakes their whole lives. They're usually people who don't seek out criticism and can't take it when it's given.

And finally, there's the central love story. Two characters barely speak to each other. Every six months or so, they have a page or so of dialog before the woman has to ride across the country again, and we're given no reason to believe they have more contact than that. Then, suddenly, they're in love and have their hands all over each other. No explanation. No transition.

So why do I enjoy reading this book? Maybe I just like torturing myself. Maybe I'm attracted by the loose but somewhat interesting plot, and hope from chapter to chapter that I might get just _one_ more detail that has any relevance to the story. The main character, despite his inconsistencies, makes use of an interesting set of abilities, and gets headaches when he lies, which I find amusing. Those few things are enough to merit two stars instead of one.

Saga of Recluse, Part 3.......2005-07-10

The Magic Engineer is the third book (in order of publication) in L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Saga of Recluse. This book takes place some two hundred years after the events chronicled in The Towers of the Sunset. In many ways this book is similar to the first in the series, The Magic of Recluse. Young, Black (Order-based) mage gets sent out into the world to (seemingly) figure out his role in the constant struggle between Order and Chaos. In this book, the role of young cats-off is filled by Dorrin, a descendant of Creslin from the prior book. One word of warning here, for the first part of the book, Dorrin is an extremely annoying character. Once he settles in as an apprentice blacksmith in part two, his character starts to mature and he becomes much more likable.

Like the first two books in the series, Modesitt enjoys showing us virtually every detail of everyday life. It is through these details that Modesitt pulls you into this world he's created, and this is what makes it real. Although you wouldn't think it would be interesting to read about all of the mundane things like black smithing, cooking, or gardening, these details make the characters come to life.

Overall I rank this as one of the better fantasy novels I've read in awhile. Modesitt's system of magic (Order vs. Chaos) is one of the more well-developed and original out there. This book also is a great study in character development as Dorrin starts out a whiny, naive character and ends up as, well you'll have to read the book to find out! Also, this book does a good job of standing on it's own. There are some references to characters and events in the second book, but nothing necessary to know before starting this one.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys rich, well-crafted fantasy!

textbook Extruded Fantasy Product.......2005-03-15

This is 600 pages of some guy building a boat. Elsewhere in the mystical land of Recluce a titanic battle is being fought across seas and continents -- but we don't get to see any of this, cause we're stuck watching this guy build his blasted boat. Eventually the war moves closer to home. Will the guy and his friends actually get caught up in an interesting plot? You needn't worry on that score, as Modesitt is able to quickly wrap everything up inside twenty pages. You quickly wonder why the rest of the story wasn't as short.

Blame me if you like, I made no attempt to read the earlier volumes before starting this one. Still, Recluce on first blush seems a fairly whitebread, uninteresting fantasy world; the twin forces of Chaos and Order little more than Evil and Good, renamed; and Modesitt's present-tense prose more irritating than illuminating.

And yet again........2005-01-10

Oy. Is this the third book or the 1st? Once again, it's the story of a young lad who doesn't want to admit he has powerfull magic powers as a healer and so hides in a village of the 'norms' and makes his living as a blacksmith.

And once again, in the end our young hero learns to manage his powers and uses them to defeat the evil. Yet, at a cost.

Oh man, why do I keep reading this series. I've got the 4th (or 5th, I can't tell the way this series keeps jumping between sequels and prequels) on my bookshelf at home. So I'll probably read it, even if it -is- just the same story I've read 3 other times.

Painfully bad.......2003-08-12

This book comes highly recommended (the cover features glowing reviews from magazines and famous names in the field, such as Robert Jordan). However, I found it to be a huge disappointment.
The plot is centered around Lerris, a young order-master from Recluse, and his quest for answers to questions which are never presented to the reader (or perhaps I'm too dense to understand what they are). He is sent out of recluse because he's easily bored. Lerris never actually ASKS the questions he wants answered, but this doesn't stop him getting frustrated when no-one will answer them.
The dialog is at points unclear, and much of it consists of Lerris talking to his pony. Throughout the book we are privy to Lerris's thoughts, which are not very realistic either.
Lerris spends most of the book riding his pony or working with wood, which makes for boring reading. Whenever there is action, it is almost never described. Many times I found myself asking - WHY did he do that? but even though we are privy to Lerris's thoughts, some of his actions are cryptic.
As for the system of magic: it's supposed to be semi-scientific, but it has many inherent contraditions, and is not explained well. I didn't like it much. The actual working of magic was rarely described (Lerris just says "I created a shield" - but not how).
Also, the book is interspersed with ridiculous comics-style sound effects such as "Wheee... uuhhh...." and "whhhssttt" that do little to illustrate the plot, and in many places actually replace descriptions of what is happening. This became very annoying very quickly.
Overall, a low-grade fantasy novel. Don't buy.

Average customer rating:

superb story
Speedy service
To fans of Modesitt's Recluce Saga
Finally a stroy from the other side of the coin
A wonderful book...

The White Order (Saga of Recluce)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Colors of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)
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ASIN: 0812541715

Amazon.com

In this author's popular Recluce fantasies--beginning with The Magic of Recluce--the classic theme of youngsters growing to adult power and responsibility is repeatedly retold in terms of magic skill. Past books focused on the apparent good guys--"black" magicians who use order-magic (cooling, healing, strengthening) and constantly oppose the White Order of chaos wizards whose talent is fire and dissolution. Young hero Cerryl has a natural bent for chaos, and for him the Whites offer the only game in town. Painfully, he learns about balance: order-magic can be deviously used for destruction, chaos can cleanse and anyway requires order-control if it's not to destroy the user. This moves interestingly away from simplistic "black is good, white is bad" magical color-coding ... but although Cerryl is a decent, ethical white wizard, the Order remains unpleasantly tyrannical--for example, an instant life sentence of slave labor for the equivalent of expired license plates. The magic training is interesting if repetitive (apprentices practice firebolts by zapping blockages in the public sewers), but Modesitt's real story lies in waiting for Cerryl to become a full mage of the Order and perhaps confront its injustices in the massive sequel, Colors of Chaos. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

L.E. Modesitt's bestselling fantasy novels set in the world of Recluce are among the most popular in contemporary fantasy. Rich in detail, Modesitt's Recluce books are a feast of wonderous marvels. Booklist notes, "Modesitt's elaborate and intelligent working out of a system of magic and a system of technology parallel to it is becoming more the lifeblood of the Recluce books with every new volume. . . his saga continues to gain in popularity." The White Order is the story of Cerryl, a boy orphaned when the powerful white mages killed his father to protect their control of the world's magic. Cerryl, raised by his aunt and uncle, is a curious boy, attracted to mirrors and books, though he is unable to read. When he is old enough, Cerryl is apprenticed to the local miller. The miller's daughter teaches Cerryl to read his father's books, and it seems that the talent for magic has been passed from father to son. When Cerryl witnesses a white mage destroy a renegade magician, the miller realizes the boy will not be safe there, so Cerryl must be sent to the city of Fairhaven to find his destiny.Thus Modesitt takes one of the most enduring and mythic themes in fantasy and makes it his own. The White Order is a powerful new addition to the Recluce saga, guaranteed to add many new readers to Modesitt's devoted following.The White Order is the eighth book in the saga of Recluce.

Customer Reviews:

superb story.......2006-11-18

Modesitt writes yet another amazing volume in the Recluce Saga. This book weaves together elements of fantasy and science fiction exquisitley. Cerryl is very intruiging as are Jeslek, Sterol, and Anya. In a world were much is not as it seems Cerryl's struggle to survive is a work I would compare to J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Cerryl's final task is the best ending out of the first eight of the volumes in the saga.

Speedy service.......2005-08-15

I ordered the books of the Recluce series that I was not able to get from the book store and they had no way to order it. All the books but one could be ordered from Amazon.com. The site had a link for me to order the one book as an used book. All the books from Amazon.com came within 2 weeks. I was very happy about it. Finished the 3rd book in series about 2 weeks ago and am waiting for the used book to arrive in order to continue series. All book that came directly from Amazon.com have arrived and I will recommend them (Amazon.com) to all my friends and relatives for those hard to obtain items. It is easy and very very fast on the delivery. I am extremely happy with my purchases and future purchases are anticipated with certain series.

To fans of Modesitt's Recluce Saga.......2005-05-10

This is for fans of Modesitt's Recluce Saga, best read after THE TOWERS OF THE SUNSET. Set several hundred years after Creslin settled Recluce, THE WHITE ORDER is first in a set that brings Recluce fans a balanced understanding of the White Order. This is one of the reasons Modesitt is a good author, because he doesn't present good verses evil in pure shades of black and white. Black, in the Recluce Saga, is order magic, and white is chaos magic. Good and evil are perspectives depending on where you stand--just like in real life.

Cerryl--the hero of THE WHITE ORDER (and COLORS OF CHAOS)--starts off as a young orphan being raised by an aunt and uncle who are so poor they need to hire Cerryl out to a lumber mill for his own support. Cerryl knows his father had been a renegade White, murdered by the White mages from Fairhaven. He does not speak of this to anyone for fear he too could be murdered. Cerryl has a bit of the magic himself but he uses it only in secret. When his aunt and uncle are murdered, the owner of the sawmill sends the boy to Fairhaven to be a scrivner's apprentice. The scrivner is not as kind as the family at the mill had been: Cerryl has to heat his bath water magically or use it ice cold. And thus he is found out. Luckily, Cerryl has a cover story of being a 'shirt-tail relative' of the family at the mill, so no one seeks further into his personal history and he is admitted into apprenticeship with the White Order. Now, this section of the book is slightly similar to the Harry Potter series while Cerryl learns the ins and outs of magic (he has two friends: another young man and a young lady), however this school of magic is not sweet and charming. In Fairhaven, a potential White mage of great power needs to hide his power from his jealous superiors. Cerryl is constantly tested with harder and harder challenges, each deadlier than those previous, until... you will have to read it to find out.

I have been asked why I read Modesitt. "He's boring" some say. One reviewer uses the term "pedestrian". Well, Modesitt's stories can plod on occasion--BUT!--this reviewer finds his books worth reading. Why? Characterization. Those of us readers who seek pure escapism in our entertainment require vivid characterization and Modesitt delivers. Yes, I want action, and Modesitt has that too, it's just strung out between showing-descriptions of characterization that this reader prefers over blocks of dry world-building info-dumps as presented by other well known authors. And, no, Modesitt's prose is not always tedious--he goes somewhere with his stories and rewards his readers for their patience (note to romance fans--he does do romance but not a lot of sex scenes). The style is solid, and a worthy read for fans of sword & sorcery who want extended entertainment.

Finally a stroy from the other side of the coin.......2004-05-10

While this wasn't really the most exciting book of the series, it was still one of the best. Mainly because of the alternative perspective that it gives the reader about Whites. This book chronicles the rise of Cerryl, who one day becomes the leader of the Whites in their fight against Recluce. This book makes it clear that all Whites aren't evil and that the school of white mages actually teaches and believes that it does more good for Candar than bad, and even the bad is only a necessary action for the future good of the people.
This book is very well written (as are all of Modesitt's books) and the characters are great. The story line is cool, with plenty of action as well as lots of intrigue within the order of the Whites (mainly counter play between Sterol and Jeslek). This book is definitely a valuable addition to the saga of Recluce. Modesitt continues to fill in the missing blanks of his multi-generational story.

A wonderful book..........2002-04-19

As I said in the title, it's a wonderful book. Modesitt has managed what seem to me to be some of the most developed characters I've encountered in Fanctasy literature (or in any other type, for that matter)...It's beautifully written...you should read this book and all the rest he's written. Or, at the very least, this one and the three after it (Colors of Chaos, Magi'i of Cyador, and Scion of Cyador). All are VERY (!!!) good books.

Average customer rating:

Even further back in time. Good, but predictable.
Best of a so-so series
Great read :)
Understanding & Enjoying the World of Recluse
Very Good

Fall of Angels (Saga of Recluce)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Chaos Balance (Saga of Recluce)
The Death of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)
The White Order (Saga of Recluce)
The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4)
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ASIN: 0812538951

Book Description

L. E. Modesitt's bestselling fantasy novels set in the magical world of Recluce have established a standard of entertainment in contemporary fantasy. "In Modesitt's universe, where good and evil, chaos and order, are in perpetual conflict, a young wizard finds that his destiny is to strike a balance, but at considerable personal cost. Modesitt creates a deeper and more intricate world with each volume," says Publishers Weekly. "Modesitt's elaborate and intelligent working out of a systemof magic and a system of technology parallel to it is becoming more the lifeblood of the Recluce books with every new volume. . . . His saga continues to gain in popularity," says Booklist. Each Recluce novel tells an independent story that nevertheless reverberates though all the other Recluce novels to deepen and enrich the reading experience.Now in Fall of Angels, Modesitt moves deep into Recluce's past to chronicle the founding of the Empire of the Legend, the almost mythological domain ruled by woman warriors on the highland plateau of the continent of Candar. He tells the story from the point of view of Nylan, the engineer and builder whose job it is to raise a great tower on the plateau known as the Roof of the World. Here the exiled women warriors will live and survive to fulfill their destiny. Here a revolutionary new society will be born . . . if Nylan can get the tower built and defenses in place before the rulers of the lowland nations come with their armies to obliterate them all. And if Nylan can learn to control the magical powers that are growing within him.Thus Modesitt relates the story of how magic comes into the world of Recluce, in a fantasy novel destined to please the growing Recluce audience and win new readers to the series.Fall of Angels is the sixth book of the saga of Recluce.

Customer Reviews:

Even further back in time. Good, but predictable........2004-02-07

The Fall of Angels chronicles the arrival of the Angels on the world of Recluce, the founding of Westwind, and the birth of the Legend. The book follows the same general theme as most of the previous books, with an Order-mage/engineer forging weapons with which to defend against the forces of Chaos. I really liked the characters in the book, and Modesitt brings out his best a far as dialogue and character interaction.
While the book was really fun to read and and the story line progressed smoothly and quickly, I thought that it was very predictable (thus the sub 5-star rating). I mean, considering the fact that the reader knows that Westwind survives and that the Legend lives on, there weren't really too many possible outcomes for this one. Also, with Ryba's foresight, she kept predicting occurances that would come later in the book. I'd really be interested in reading more about Heaven itself.

Best of a so-so series.......2003-01-23

This book, along with "The Chaos Balance", are the only two books I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the Recluse Series. Although the same main character type is used once again in these two books (Fall of Angles and The Chaos Balance) as in the rest of the series, the background information and the supporting characters make these two books enjoyable. Especially when comparing the leader of the Angels (Ryba) against the leader of Lornth (Sillik).

The only major fault I have with series, is the lack of maps. The same map is provided to the reader in all of the hard-cover books of this series. Unfortunately, all the different books deals with different historical times of this imaginary world. Thus it is frustrating for the reader to keep track of the main character as he sojurns across the continent of Candar (Candar is where the majority of the stories takes place). If the publisher had read any of the books, he/she would have realized that the names of the countries and towns do not always match the names shown on the map. This is especially egregious in a series where each book represents a different historical period of time. Hint - Names of cities and countries changes as they are either destroyed or absorbed by other civilizations.

Great read :).......2002-07-25

I want to first mention that I'm not a big fan of sci-fi in books. I love fantasy (dungeons and dragons) books, but (generally) dislike fantasy TV/Movies because they don't do it well. My feelings on Sci-fi are usually the opposite. When I first started reading Fall of Angels I thought I'd made a huge mistake because it starts off as a straight sci-fi book, and yes, maybe those ray guns on the cover should have been a warning, but the covers on the previous Recluse books have been completely unrelated to the story inside, so I basically stopped looking at the covers.

This book has the usual extremely slow, hard to get into introduction that I've found in all the Recluse books I've read so far. This one was slightly less boring than usual, but I still found it took me a week to past the first quarter of the book.

Once you get into the book, describing it to you would make it seem really repetitive. Nylan builds a weapon, Ryba and the Guards use it to decimate the attackers, Nylan gets sad because of the use of force, repeat. ;) Sprinkle that with Nylan's comments about how stories ignore the boring building of societies and infrastructure, and pay attention to the big battles etc.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the twist of an advanced civilization getting used to the backwards word of Westwind. I liked getting the full story/background of the beginnings of Recluse. I think this was one of the better books from this series.

Understanding & Enjoying the World of Recluse.......2000-11-16

-L.E. Modesitt jr's Recluse series is a world of magic and balance. a world that will grab you and make you loss track of time as you are unable to put his Recluse books down. The author, recommends that you read his book in the order of they were published. If you are the person who likes to read the last 50 pages of a book first, and then skip around to different areas of the book as you read it through, then by all means, read the Recluse series in the order of publish. WAIT!..... If you are a reader who truly enjoys finding yourself part of the on going story, as read a series from the start of he story to its end. Then the Recluse series will grab you and not let you go until the conclusion of the series. L.E. Modesitt, jr. has written an 11 books series of the Recluse world so far. This author wrote the Magic of Recluse first. As be has published books, he has jumped around throughout the story time line of the world of Recluse, and put together books of set, and other single books, which he may add another book to that part of the story in a future published book. This author has written the story in books of set, that is the first three book of story: 1st book) "Fall of Angels", 2rd) "The Chaos Balance" & 3rd) "The Tower of the Sunset". Tells the birth and the destruction of kingdom of highly skilled warriors, with the third book leading into the creation of a new kingdom, (Recluse). Then the next book is, 4th book of the World of Recluse) "The Magic Engineer". Then Modesitt, jr. switches to the side of Chaos, and tells a story where the character's of Chaos will became heroes in your eyes too. So with time, you will gain a better understanding of the World of Recluse through the following books: 5th book) "The White Order", & 6th book) "the Color of Chaos". The next set of books that go together in the World of Recluse, are: 7th book) "The Order War", 8th book) "The Magic of Recluse", & the 9th book) "The Death of Chaos". As for the last two book that the author has written, he has drifted into the life of some of the troops found in the World of Recluse. My $0.02 worth.

Very Good.......2000-08-01

Great book, well worth reading

Average customer rating:

Chaos and Order vie for control of this review
The best book of the series!! (so far)
Mixed feelings
One of the best in the series
A challenging, rewarding read.....

The Death of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4)
Fall of Angels (Saga of Recluce)
The Chaos Balance (Saga of Recluce)
The White Order (Saga of Recluce)
The Magic Engineer (Recluce series, Book 3)

ASIN: 0812548248

Book Description

Candar is being invaded and Lerris must become the greatest wizard of all time-or see his whole world destroyed.

Customer Reviews:

Chaos and Order vie for control of this review.......2005-04-26

Did I mention that L.E. Modesitt Jr. is my hero? So anyway...here I am, reading this absolutely wonderful book, drooling over books to come, and along comes the end. I wasn't happy with the end, but it was done well if I'm forced to be honest. Anyway, here's the good vs. bad points:

Good:
1) More woodworking! Long, detailed and easy-paced sections with Lerris making furnature. Its cool. I've never read a fantasy story like this, where the main character destroys evil on Sunday, and makes a nice furniture set on Monday. And it works.
2) I got to see a number of great characters from previous books all show up. Kinda like when the cast of the Love Boat showed up on Fantasy Island (heh).
3) I love the clever ways Lerris learns to use Order and Chaos.
4) The plotting as to why this latest crisis has come about is realistic (within the bounds of that universe), which is important.

Bad points (my policy is to write something negative in all reviews, however trifling):
1) Not enough woodworking! I'd be happy with an entire book with Lerris making furnature, trying to meet deadlines, getting new commissions, making his "masterpiece", etc.
2) I sort of wish the characters weren't so worried about killing the people who want to kill them. They seem a bit squeemish. I think this is because the alternative is characters with tremendous powers who don't have any obstacles. If you make them worried about the mayhem they create, it limits them, and the story becomes less of a cakewalk for the heros.
3) I didn't find the crisis between Krystal and Lerris to be something I could sympathize with. It seemed geared to making certain things happen later in the story. I could see the strings of the puppeteer.
4) The ending was executed well, no spelling errors or anything, but I wasn't happy with the outcome.

The best book of the series!! (so far).......2003-12-24

In the Death of Chaos, the story of Lerris, Justen, Krystal, Tamra and the other exiles of recluce comes full circle. The story line was great, with lots of awesome battle scenes and crazy magic preformed by black, white, and gray wizards. The story culminates with Hamor attacking Candar and Recluce with a massive fleet of battleships and cannon.

Not only the story line makes this the best book in the series thus far. The characters are lovable and believable, while at the same time completely badass. The dialect and the relationships between characters in this book are very well thought out and realistic. The one thing that I thought Modesitt could use a little work on is his obsession with minute details, some of which don't really need to be included. I mean, he kinda turns a long story into an even longer book by included lots of information that isn't really pertinant to the storyline.

Mixed feelings.......2002-04-03

I've notice this crazy trend with online reviews - raves with little explanation equal positive feedback from readers, and those that are critical receive quite low marks. Now tell me - those of us who are "well read" in the genre of science fiction and epic fantasy - can any of us really say that Modesitt is in the upper echelon of fantasy authors? Certainly not. Were there such a list though, men like Jordan, Martin, Tolkein, Rawn, and Jacques would be at the top. Their worlds are captivating, believable, with characters that DO rather than say, and you feel transported. Modesitt does have numerous redeeming qualities: a good magic system, interesting political commentary (moreso than most fantasy), and a penchant for making his heroes so mellow and modest. On the other hand, the meal scenes are intolerably long, slow, and frequent. There's a lot of inexplicable happenings - for example - why did Lerris and Krystal need to be bonded? In that area of the book - I reread the same 10 or 15 pages that SEEMED to be explaining, but I was baffled at to the apparent necessity. My theory - just so that we could have more lovey dialogue and a few situations where she could answer question he had thought and not spoken. At least there was more conflict than in previous books (the Magic Engineer was awful), and that perked my interest and saved me from many naps that otherwise would have been taken. I would caution anyone who has not read - this is SLOW stuff. There's nothing wrong with that if done right, but I can only safely say that the Recluce series gets it partially right.

One of the best in the series.......2001-08-20

This book is very interesting and a rewarding read. Having read the first 6 books of the series this has to be one of the best ones. The "inconsistencies" stated in some of the other reviews really aren't there at all. Lerris as well as Justen were GREY wizards (and you could make a case for Gunnar being one too). So there powers balance out since they use both chaos and order. As to Lerris' relatives, since Lerris pretty much destroyed all the order and chaos in the world they could not hold there ancient bodies together without order. All in all this is one of the best books I've ever read and is well worth the price.

A challenging, rewarding read............2001-06-06

The first book by Modesitt that I read was 'The Towers of the Sunset', and it took me months to finish it, when normally it would have taken me a few days. I thought it was so-so. I read another in the series after it, and thouroughly enjoyed it. When I came back to 'The Towers', I loved it. I only say this, because it seems a lot of the books in the series were like that. I missed the deeper picture. 'The Death of Chaos' is one of the best books I have had the pleasure to read. I found it to be thoughful, and insightful, and consistent. One of the points in the other reviews is the lack of consistency in that Lerris, the main character, is an order focus at a time of too much order. In Modesitt's world, magic is divided into Chaos and Order. These different aspects are always balanced. If there is too much Order, Chaos will start popping up in the form of White Chaos wizard foci. The fact is that he was a 'grey' wizard, with great power of the balance. He didn't tilt the scales either way, leaving the rules set by Modesitt intact. Another aspect of Modesitt that was hard to get used to was the style of his writing. He leaves much to the imagination, which once I got used to I found again to be highly rewarding. With his wit, and turn of phrase, Modesitt seems to show that almost every line in the book was written with care, to bring you to careening to the climatic ending. All in all one of the best books I have ever read.

Average customer rating:

A good story, but very similar to others in the series.
more of the same
Understanding & Enjoying the World of Recluse
The Best Book That There Is
You'll be wanting more when you're done this one.

The Chaos Balance (Saga of Recluce)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Fall of Angels (Saga of Recluce)
The White Order (Saga of Recluce)
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The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4)

ASIN: 0812571304

Book Description

The saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., has become one of the standard works of fantasy in the 1990s. VOYA says, "Modesitt's logical structure of the interrelationship of order and chaos, magic and technology, is one of the most through in modern fantasy. The personal growth of his characters and the depiction of their world, it well-written and credible - and involves the reader.... The serious fantasy reader will revel in Modesitt's work." Launched with The Magic of Recluce, the novels of Recluce have gone on to sell over a million copies in paperback.The most recent of the Recluce novels, Fall of Angels, introduced the engineer/smith Nylan, the only man among the leadership of the company of "angels" marooned on a high plateau in the west of Candar, and perhaps the one person most responsible for their survival. But the angels are a matriarchal band, and so Nylan must leave his companions and seek a life elsewhere. He travels down from the plateau into the world of warring kingdoms and strange magics with his companion, Ayrlyn, the healer, and his infant son. They are in search of a place to lead a peaceful life, but they look different from the locals, and their talents are most valued in battle - and so the war between chaos and order begins again.The Chaos Balance is the seventh book of the saga of Recluce.

Customer Reviews:

A good story, but very similar to others in the series........2004-03-24

This books chronicles the fall of Cyador and the rise of Naclos. Even though the history and information about chaos/order relationships contained in this one are important for a reader wanting to understand the world of Recluce, I was somewhat disapointed by the fact that this book reads almost exactly like the others in the series. Basically, Nylan, your typical smith/order-mage, spends most of the book struggling to understand and master his powers. The book ends in the same way most of the others have- Nylan destroying a huge White army at the last possible second and being punished for it just like all the other heroes have been, by going blind and aging. I did like the characters in this one, good and bad, but I felt like I knew what was going to happen the entire time (which it turns out I did) so I didn't really get caught up in the suspense very much, just tried to get through it in a hurry to more on to the next one, which doesn't make for enjoyable reading. Hopefully in future books, Modesitt will change up the general story outline, maybe detailing the colonization of the planet by the Rats.

more of the same.......2000-11-27

This was first Modesitt book in which i was bored from start to finish. seemed to be mainly a repeat of hi sother works, mainly "The MAgic Engineer" using the charactors from "Fall of Angels". Even the ending comes as completely predictable to anyone who has read the rest of the series. Unrecommended. Try his first in the series, best in the series, "The magic of Recluse" instead.

Understanding & Enjoying the World of Recluse.......2000-11-16

L.E. Modesitt jr's Recluse series is a world of magic and balance. a world that will grab you and make you loss track of time as you are unable to put his Recluse books down. The author, recommends that you read his book in the order of they were published. If you are the person who likes to read the last 50 pages of a book first, and then skip around to different areas of the book as you read it through, then by all means, read the Recluse series in the order of publish. WAIT!..... If you are a reader who truly enjoys finding yourself part of the on going story, as read a series from the start of he story to its end. Then the Recluse series will grab you and not let you go until the conclusion of the series. L.E. Modesitt, jr. has written an 11 books series of the Recluse world so far. This author wrote the Magic of Recluse first. As be has published books, he has jumped around throughout the story time line of the world of Recluse, and put together books of set, and other single books, which he may add another book to that part of the story in a future published book. This author has written the story in books of set, that is the first three book of story: 1st book) "Fall of Angels", 2rd) "The Chaos Balance" & 3rd) "The Tower of the Sunset". Tells the birth and the destruction of kingdom of highly skilled warriors, with the third book leading into the creation of a new kingdom, (Recluse). Then the next book is, 4th book of the World of Recluse) "The Magic Engineer". Then Modesitt, jr. switches to the side of Chaos, and tells a story where the character's of Chaos will became heroes in your eyes too. So with time, you will gain a better understanding of the World of Recluse through the following books: 5th book) "The White Order", & 6th book) "the Color of Chaos". The next set of books that go together in the World of Recluse, are: 7th book) "The Order War", 8th book) "The Magic of Recluse", & the 9th book) "The Death of Chaos". As for the last two book that the author has written, he has drifted into the life of some of the troops found in the World of Recluse. My $0.02 worth.

The Best Book That There Is.......2000-08-19

This book is an exelent follow up on The Fall of Angel. Nylan the engineer of the angel war ship Winterlance in the previous book fell to a world and built a tower of which Ryba the leader clamed the title Marshill of Westwind and brought the power of the Legend unto the world creating a feministic rule on the Roof of the World.

In the Chaos Balance Nylan and his consort Ayrlyn and Nylan's son fled the roof of the world to Lornth where he agreed to help them fight the empire of the white demons Cyador.

Nylan leaves a while to the great forest Naclos and learns alot about Order Magic and goes back to the battle and uses his power with the help of the forest to destroy the white army and all of Cyador. After doing so he settles down with his consort in Naclos while the Forest reclames its original boundaries.

You'll be wanting more when you're done this one........1999-08-18

It was excellent, as is the whole Recluse Series. If you have read any of the the series you'll want this one. If you haven't read any of the series you had better get started and catch up with the rest of us. Modesitt has given us a very believeable and logical system of magic as well as characters you can enjoy reading about. His delve into the history behind the land and his attention to details is superb. I couldn't put it down. Heck I haven't been able to put any of them down.

Shadowsinger: The Final Novel of The Spellsong Cycle

Average customer rating:

Not one of Modesitt's best
Accompanimento Obbligato - Not Quite
A sorry conclusion
A sorry conclusion
Good, but typical

Shadowsinger: The Final Novel of The Spellsong Cycle
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Shadow Sorceress (The Spellsong Cycle, Book 4)
Darksong Rising: The Third Book of the Spellsong Cycle
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The Soprano Sorceress: The First Book of the Spellsong Cycle
Ordermaster (Saga of Recluce)

ASIN: 0765342588

Book Description

The Climax of The Spellsong CycleSecca, foster daughter of the Soprano Sorceress, and now her successor as Sorceress Protector of Defalk, must deal carefully with her willful master and wield her power to save his kingdom from the armies, fleets and master sorcerers of the Maitre of Sturinn. Faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, she is forced to test her own powers over and over again, while teaching her new husband and her inexperienced apprentice the skills they will need to aid her in creating spells powerful enough to shake the foundations of the world.

Customer Reviews:

Not one of Modesitt's best.......2004-01-25

"Shadowsinger" leaves a whole lot to be desired.

Lady Secca, Sorceress-Protector of Defalk, has married Alcaren, hidden Sorcerer and Lord of Ranauk (where women rule), and they're in deep, deep trouble. At the end of "The Shadow Sorceress" (book 4), the Maitre of Sturinn was on the loose, a nasty Sorcerer has gained power in Neserea, and no one knew what was going on there despite all their scrying with mirrors.

Secca and Alcaren do have some assistance as they set off to fight; they have the help of the Matriarchy of Ranauk (this comes in handy during several sea battles, which are ridden out on Matriarchy-controlled ships) along with some minor assistance from the state of Norwei. And they have Secca's experienced musicians ("players"), who accompany her and boost her power, along with an assistant sorceress who's rapidly improving (Richina) to spell her now and again, as well as a whole lot of grit and nerve. They're willing to fight the "good fight," and keep the Sturrinese and the nasty Nesereans out of Defalk, and aid their sworn allies to the best of their ability.

In between fighting battles with the various folks out to get them, Secca and her cohorts must fight her own land's leader, Lord Robero. He's afraid of her, yet he needs her to defeat Defalk's enemies; it's a very subtle balance, and the pendulum is starting to slip.

And the Sturrinese, a nasty race of men who enslave and chain their women, are making overtures toward Robero, too. Meaning Secca and the others have a whole lot more problems.

All of that is fine, as far as it goes. But I think Modesitt went too far with the Sturrinese, as they are just too maliciously evil to be believable. They are the equivalent of Germany under Hitler and the Nazis -- but worse.

Even Nazis didn't chain their own kinfolk.

The rank evilness of the Sturrinese causes all sorts of other difficulties, because it just doesn't logically fly. Simply put: I'm supposed to believe that the Sturrinese men have been willfully chaining and torturing their women for umpteen-hundred years? All of them? Why? Why do this to their mothers, their sisters, their lovers? And even if they believe it's right, morally and ethically, it still makes no sense.

Why would they want to take 1/2 of their work-force out of the equation? (Trust me, with the type of chains those women wear, they are not able to do most labor, and even doing "minor household tasks" would be a major stretch. They wouldn't be able to do much else with the constant strain of carrying around and wearing those nasty heavy chains.) How can they afford to do something as idiotic as that?

And why hasn't their "empire" fallen about their heads long before this out of sheer stupidity?

Getting back to the story, the Maitre, leader of the Sturrinese and their most powerful Sorcerer, says that they've united 1/4 of the world under their "beneficent leadership" (paraphrase mine). Why would anyone else in the world sit still for this? Sorcerers can be taken out, and not just by other Sorcerors/Sorceresses (we only saw it happen once, I think in book 2, but it has happened and probably could happen more if people used tactics instead of brute force); a massed force could have toppled these asinine, ahem, *individuals* long before this book starts.

That took a full one and one half stars away from the potential five right there. And could have taken far more, if the rest wasn't so engaging.

In addition, although I like Secca and Alcaren very much as characters, they don't get much time to grow together, and the romance between them is truncated. I disliked that very much. Even when times are hard and bad, if you're partners and you believe in one another and trust each other, you can find more time for romance. Granted, Modesitt hints very well and there is some very subtle romance going on (as well as some not-so-subtle lust). But it's not enough for my taste.

In addition, I don't believe Secca would take over as Lady of Defalk, not after all Anna had to do to stay out of that position. Granted, Secca can still have children; she's in her mid-30s, and she's not too old, plus she could always adopt (this was a possibility with Anna if Anna had kept the throne). But one of the big points made in both books 4 and 5 was that Alyssa, Robero's consort, was smart and tough. Granted, Alyssa couldn't keep Robero from doing stupid things, but was it her fault she couldn't control him? She's no sorceress, only a very smart woman, who got the Hell out of the way when it was clear to her that her husband was Hell-bent on destruction (which, to me at least, proved how smart she was).

It would have made more sense to have had Alyssa resume holding Defalk as ruling _Lady_ -- and have the heirs be picked by her, Jolyn, and Secca alike. Secca shouldn't be the ruler, because there is at least one nasty Sturrinese priest out there, and anyway, the other lands are going to be in violent upheaval for quite some time. She doesn't have time to both be a ruler _and_ put down all the strife in my opinion.

And by Modesitt putting Secca on the throne, it brought up another question. I kept wondering how Secca, who was the pre-eminent sorceress of the world of Erde, was going to be able to train successors? Granted, Richina (her assistant) is well on the way to becoming independent, but Secca shields Richina from the worst spells and doesn't seem to want to let Richina in on the decision making, meaning at best that Richina, once she starts taking students, won't be able to teach ethics or decision making. And that's not right, because Richina is powerful (albeit young), and deserves to know what's going on.

And there was one writing idiosyncrasy that drove me nuts throughout all five books of this series. Every time Modesitt goes away from his main character (whether it's Anna in books 1-3 or Secca in 4-5), he switches from past tense to present tense, almost as if to say, "We're looking through someone else's eyes now!"

Trust me. The reader can figure that out without this sort of clue. There's no reason to do this, it's distracting, and every time Modesitt did it, it made my teeth grind. Which is why I took another 1/2 star away.

Now that I've gone through the minuses, let me count the pluses. The characterizations were very good in the main; Secca and Alcaren are believable, vivid people. I especially liked Palian, the Chief Player. I enjoyed the idea of harmonies and dissonances being used as a form of magic (although I'm still unsure as to how it'd work, exactly). And I believed in the struggles Secca was having with her usage of power.

Still. Compared to "Adiamante" or the four books about the Ecolitans or even to books 1-3 of this own cycle, it doesn't work. It's not as strong as it could have been, and that's a shame.

Three stars.

Barb Caffrey

Accompanimento Obbligato - Not Quite.......2003-10-13

In Book Four (The Shadow Sorceress) of this five-book Spellsong Cycle, Secca, the ward and foster-daughter of Anna, the Great Sorceress, takes center stage after the latter dies. There is already a disruption in the harmony in the land, as it were. Combating malevolent home-grown sorcerers and staving off the invasion of the women-hating Sea Priests from afar have almost killed Secca.

The Shadowsinger, as Secca is now called in Book Five, along with her sorcerer-husband Alcaren, and a remnant of lesser sorceresses, take the war to the Sea Priests home islands [1]. When the climatic batte is fought, the Sea Priests are vanquished. Secca becomes the first ruler-sorceress of her homeland Defalk. Defalk remains the only super-power at the end of this saga.

Characteristic of Modesitt's writings is the familiar theme on the struggle for geopolitical power and authority and how they are used or abused [2]. In the Shadowsinger, essential leadership qualities with power and authority are contrasted among the relative good (Secca the Shadowsinger), the bad (Robero the Lord of Defalk), and the ugly (Maitre of the Sea Priests).

Modesitt could have written more on music and its effect on the lives of his characters. Afterall, music conveys loneliness and of pain, of strength and freedom, of life and love, of death and sorrow, and of disappointment and never-satisfied love. All these he has written, though contrained and under-developed, in the five books.

If there were a juncture where Modesitt would come through in writing love and music other than music and war, it is between the courtship and marriage of Secca and Alcaren. It would be a spark to the reader if Alcaren, the destined husband and music partner for Secca, says to her bride, "Ich bin mit einem obligaten Accompaniment auf die Welt gekommen"[3]. She then in turn patiently explains and demonstrates to the obliging husband the technique of playing Fernando Sor's "Obbligato on Etude in B minor."

It is ironic Modesitt selects music as the conduit for sorcery. This is a one-dimensional and warped exercise on the speech of the angels. Then again, this is a fantasy - everything is allowed and then some. On balance, it is a fairly good read.

A few final remarks on this last book of the Spellsong Cycle. They all pertain to editorial oversights.

1. The familiar map of the Continent of Liedwahr is curiously omitted in this final book. If one were
to read this book, he would have no reference as to what's where and where battles are fought.

2. The age of Secca and her assistant-sorceress are different in Book Four (The Shadow
Sorceress) and Book Five (Shadowsinger).

* Secca is 25+ years old (Chapter 13, The Shadow Sorceress)
* Secca is 35+ years old (Chapter 6, Shadowsinger)

* Richina, assistant sorceress to Secca, is but a" few years more than a girl" (Chapter 9, The Shadow Sorceress)
* Richina, assistant sorceress to Secca, is now "more than fifteen years younger than Secca"
(Chapter 2, Shadowsinger)

3. This one is really a salient oversight on Modesitt's part. He thinks he is writing about Candar
from the the Recluse series. Here is the quote made by the Maitre of the Sea Priests as he and
his command are out-maneuvered by Secca and her allies.

"Wards that are not wards, or more than wards. Ships from all across Candar..." (Chapter 75,
Shadowsinger)

__________

[1] The crux of the geopolitics and ideological elements in the Shadowsinger parallels the war actions post-September 11, 2001 when United States takes the war of terrorism to Afghanistan. The Shadowsinger is first published in February 2002.

[2] The Saga of Recluse is a long and skillfully crafted study on power and authority. There is the cut -and-dry "black" or "white" ideology, and the in-between "grey" ideology. All are expressed or represented by the respective ideological magic/sorcery.

[3] Attributed to Beethovan: "I was born with an obbligato accompaniment"

A sorry conclusion.......2003-08-21

As soon as I saw Shadowsinger on the shelves at my local Borders I bought it. Up to now I considered the Spellsong Cycle one of the hidden treasures of fantasy fiction. Modesitt has a great way with action that doesn't interfere with character development, and vice versa. I cared about this land and the people in it, most especially Ana. This was her story, her overcoming her insecurity and self doubt, her adventure. For me, the entire story was about her.
When I reached the page where she died, I stopped reading. There was no point in going on. The story, at least the story I cared about, ended on that page. So it was with a feeling of deep disappointment and building anger over being supremely cheated by the author--Ana deserved to be reunited with her daughter dammit!--that I returned the book to the store from whence it came. For those of you who feel the same as do I, don't read this pile of tripe. End your relationship with this wonderful character in The Shadow Sorceress, and use your own imagination to give Ana a fitting end to her adventure.
Mr. Modesitt I remain a fan I guess, but in all honesty, I have had a hard time selecting one of your books since the day I read Shadowsinger.

A sorry conclusion.......2003-08-21

Good, but typical.......2003-06-23

While a good read, Modesitt sticks to the same formula -- and as successful as it is, the books are coming more and more predictable. I enjoyed it -- mostly -- but felt a little let down.

The Towers of the Sunset (Recluce series, Book 2)

Average customer rating:

So hard to read...
Best one of the Series
Fantastic - I expected no less
Here we go again.
Present Tense Use Very Unique and Daring

The Towers of the Sunset (Recluce series, Book 2)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Magic Engineer (Recluce series, Book 3)
The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4)
The Magic of Recluce (Recluce series, Book 1)
The Death of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)
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ASIN: 0812519671

Book Description

Return now to the world of Recluce in The Towers of the Sunset

Customer Reviews:

So hard to read..........2006-02-16

If I had to sum up my opinion of this book in one word, it would be this: terrible. I don't use that word lightly or flippanlty, but I mean it in this case.

I read somewhere in an interview with Modesitt that he has gone through 3 failed marriages and 6 "headstrong" daughters. I certainly think this has influenced his writing. The main character in the book, Creslin, starts out as a very weak male character in a matriarchal society. The problem I have with this is that Modesitt reverses traditional gender roles in this book. I suspect that he does this for political reasons, which is his right as the author, but I personally found it very unappealing.

The lead female character in the story, Megeaera, is bound to Creslin through magic. She can hear his thoughts. She's attractive, and he does have impure thoughts about her. She always reacts very negatively at this, and attacks him for his stray thoughts (I said impure, but some are merely noticing her beauty). When she makes unchaste comments about his appearance, it's okay. This one sided morality becomes not only frustrating but also rather annoying.

Modesitt's writing style is also hard to read. The book is seperated into three sections, with 536 pages. With 144 chapters (the last section is filled with chapters ranging in length from less than a page to under ten pages) the story becomes very choppy and highly fragmented. Many chapters offer little to further the over all plot, some with information that could simply be done away with. The last section details the efforts at building Recluce into a viable nation, but settles on the mundane details such as crops and masonry. It made for a very boring read. (One particularly aggravating obsession of Modesitt is the constant need of the characters to "wash up." Far too much space is taken througout the book describing "washing up" from various chores).

Over all, the book was far too long for the plot, and filled with hard to read and choppy information so detailed as to be completely irrelevant. Save $7.99 and buy something more worthy of your money.

One last note--as in his first book in the series "The Magic of Recluce", Modesitt offers a somewhat graphic description of female anatomy during one scene. Although not "pornographic" in nature, I would describe it as impure or unchaste.

Best one of the Series.......2006-01-15

I loved this book. I have read it cover to cover a few times and get something a little more of the book. Highly recommend this entire series, but if you just need a book to pick up this one is for you too!!

Fantastic - I expected no less.......2005-04-26

Reviewers who have derided this book for its 2nd-person point of view should avoid anything else they find written in the 2nd-person. I will continue to love this style because it puts you right in the driver's seat. It gives you a sense of immediacy that, when used properly, contributes to the sense that the book you are reading is a "page turner". Towers Of Sunset is a page turner, in my opinion.

Good points:
1) As with all of Modesitt's main characters, he is smart, dangerous, and a good person. And best of all - he doesn't know it. He's a hero, plain and simple. His biggest weaknesses are ignorance and uncertainty. I kind of like this because we the reader discover things with him, and overcome obstacles with him (or that's how it feels at any rate).
2) I'm a sucker for romance in a novel, and he has it in this one. It wasn't perfectly executed, but I don't mind filling in the blanks.
3) This should have been the first point, and if I'd written a review for the first book it would have, but here goes: the whole order/chaos thing is PERFECT. I'm sick of good vs. evil. Its an amazing and amazingly executed concept. I might write a review of the first book and go more into this.
4) I'm sort of a sucker for a story-writing-trick that Modesitt uses (in all his books), which is: he likes to have his main characters overhearing other people going "oooh!" and "ahh!" about him when they think he can't hear. This is how we learn how amazing the character is. That and/or they say to him, "What manner of wizard are you...?" Sure, its a little transparant, but its cool. Creslin CAN throw storms around, after all, so its not entirely unbelievable.
5) Actually, this point should have been put first (heh): the book, and his others too, show incredible detail on the objects with which humans interact. That is, if there's a table in the room, its not just a table - its a "better-than-average white-oak table with an attempt at a design on the top and which has seen some rough use." This goes for people's clothes, saddle-bags, buckets, etc. etc. The first book started this trend - Lerris was a wood-worker as well as a wizard (which was reason enough to buy the first book - totally different take on a fantasy character).

Bad points (my policy is to write negative comments on all books, despite how much I loved them):
1) Modesitt is fascinated with matriarchal societies, men vs. women, femenism here, machismo there....and its sometimes distracting. The larger powers in this book - the nations - each have different ideas on a woman's role, a man's role, etc., and I just found it to be a distraction. Not major, but still a distraction. It worked better in his novels of the world of "Corus" for some reason.
2) Sometimes I'm not sure who is talking, who is feeling what, etc., in this book. He just needed to re-work the structure of some of the paragraphs a little, but that's about it.
3) This isn't a bad point so much as a wish list to be fulfilled as I read the rest of the series: I want more to be revealed about the spiritual world. We hear of angels and demons in this story, but they don't make any cameos. I just wonder if its mythology, if magic's the only supernatural thing, etc.

Here we go again........2005-01-10

This book really just mirrors the story in the first book. Young lad ventures out into the world, learns how to control and use his powers, and confronts the enemy in the last chapter.

Even worse this book is a prequel to the first book, so unless you've read the first book recently, you're likely to be a little lost in the beginning. Although the story is mostly self-contained.

Towers of the Sunset still uses the really good background of Order vs Chaos introduced in the first book, but it just tells the same story again.

Present Tense Use Very Unique and Daring.......2004-02-23

In The Towers of the Sunset by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., there was one thing that really leapt out at me from the absolute beginning: the book was written in the present tense. Obviously, my first reaction was one of confusion. It was strange seeing a book written so after I had been so long reading traditional novels in the past tense. It kept throwing me off to be reading it like that for the first twenty-five pages or so. But soon I developed a keen liking for it. I thought that using the present tense made the book much more exciting, putting you in the action instead of making the reader a bored spectator to the book. I truly admire Modesitt for going out on a limb like this. I think that it takes a lot of guts for an author to do something like this, especially in today's overly confined and narrow-minded society. Also, it did a great job of making this book stand out above all others. I read this book a while ago, but it's still vivid in my memory due to its radical and noteworthy style of writing. Chances are that I will remember this book for years to come, both as the absolutely excellent narrative that it was and the exquisite and daring foray into the present tense. Overall, this was a truly excellent book that I would recommend without any hesitation.

Average customer rating:

Excellent
A Great Read
Probably the best of the series so far.
Another Great Read from Modesitt
How many times must he beat the same dead horse?

Colors of Chaos
L. E. Modesitt
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

The White Order (Saga of Recluce)
Magi'i of Cyador (The Saga of Recluce)
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Fall of Angels (Saga of Recluce)
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ASIN: 0312867670

Book Description

The biggest fantasy from L.E. Modesitt, Jr., to date, Colors of Chaos is the story of the White Chaos wizard Cerryl: his education in life and love and his rise to power in the magicians' guild of Fairhaven. This is the direct sequel to The White Order, which told of Cerryl's boyhood and youth, and takes place at the same time as events in Modesitt's earlier novel The Magic Engineer. Yet it stands alone, a portrayal of the growth and change of character and of the strengths and weaknesses of an age-old civilization held together by the power of magic.

Cerryl, now a full mage in the White Order, must prove himself indispensable to Jeslek, the High Wizard. Whether through assassination, effective governance of occupied territory, or the fearless and clever direction of troops in battle, Cerryl faces many harrowing obstacles, not the least of which is Anya, the plotting seductress who's the real power behind the scenes of the white wizards. With his wits, his integrity, and the support of his love, the Black healer Leyladin, he must survive long enough to claim his rightful spot within the ruling hierarchy of the White Order.

This is a must-read for followers of the Saga of Recluce, offering a unique, sympathetic point of view of the White Chaos wizards--the forces that throughout history have opposed the magicians of Recluce.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2006-01-07

I've always been a fan of this series, but this may well be my favorite to date. The tie-in from the "other side of the fence" is very enlightening, and nicely written.

I found myself thinking, "Why don't Cerryl and Dorrin just get together and talk? They want the same thing...", as if these were two real people.

Any book that can make me forget I'm reading a book, is an excellent book indeed.

A Great Read.......2005-11-28

I just finished a re-read of this book (along with its immediate predecessor The White Order), and I now remember why these two are probably my favorites out of the entire Recluce series. Modesitt is in top form here -- the characters are real people making hard decisions as well as they can (not always perfectly), and you truly feel for them, even as you see their weaknesses. The main character (Cerryl the mage) is especially memorable.

Another nice aspect of this book is the parallel with The Magic Engineer. Though I did not enjoy that book as much as this one, seeing the "other side of the story" was quite interesting, as it sheds light on the fact that the characters in both are simply doing the best they can in their respective situations. There are some "better" and "worse" characters, but they show up in all the various countries, trades, and magical abilities, and no character is simply good or evil.

If you are interested in this book, be sure to read The White Order first, as Colors finishes the story that it begins. No other knowledge of Modesitt's Recluce series is necessary, though a read through The Magic Engineer in advance is illuminating. These books will stretch your imagination, make you think, and (best of all) make you glad that you read them.

Probably the best of the series so far........2004-06-18

This book along with the previous book, The White Order, make up a really great story about the white mage Cerryl. While every other book in the series is written from the perspective of the Blacks and portrays all chaos wizards to be totally evil (which most of them seem to be), these books provide a look into the workings of the Whites. It turns out that not all whites are truly evil and in fact many have very honorable ambitions to help the world rather than take it over. The Colors of Chaos was especially interesting because it told the same story as The Magic Engineer (with Dorrin the smith) exept from the perspective of Cerryl. It shows how there are two sides to every coin and that peole from both sides (except a few such as Jeslek & Anya) actually believe that they are on the side of good. In this story, told from the perspective of the Whites, Dorrin the smith and Recluce seem to be the bad guys because of their support of rulers who refuse to pay the road tariffs (to the detriment of all of Candar).

Also, Modesitt's writing style has come a long way from his earlier novels and this book was much more interesting and gripping than its predecessors... I strongly reccomend this book for any Modesitt fans or fans of fantasy in general (although I believe that you'll have a much better appreciation of this one if you read the others in the series first). This book does much to patch up the complex story of the Recluce Saga.

Another Great Read from Modesitt.......2003-11-27

This book is absolutely thrilling. It has great political and economical intrigue. It is made great by the qualities and the diversity of the main character, Cerryl. He is a young white mage in the city of Fairhaven. He was a Patrol Mage, an assassin, and a temporary governor of a recently captured city.

The strengths and weaknesses of Cerryl made the book good but how money and economics influenced the course of action made this very realistic. The political backstabbing made the book very interesting.
Also another book written by the same author blended into this story but was told by the good side. This book was written from the evil side.
Coming to a conclusion this book is a great read. It is not very easy to follow but is still great.

How many times must he beat the same dead horse?.......2002-05-25

This series has gotten really tired; over and over and over the characters mourn the reality of having to use force to get things done instead of everyone being 'reasonable' and 'listening'. It's become less a story of people and places so much as a political view. The characters, history, and dynamics of the world are slowly getting bogged down in Modesitt's ever-repetitive mantra of the stupidity of people, thus requiring armies to rise, fireballs to fly, etc.

I lost count of the times Cerryl anguished over having to turn someone to ash because they were just not following the rules... the necessity of `using force' over reason. It wouldn't be so bad, if Modesitt didn't feel the urge to blatantly say this. It's not as if it's an innuendo or a theme. The characters blatantly say this and do long mental diatribes over it... and it's the same diatribe! It's been the same theme for the last four books! People are stupid/stuck in their destructive ways so force has to be used. Great message, but I feel like I've had it beaten into my skull. Subtle, this book is not and they've become less and less so.

The only redeeming quality of this book is that Cerryl is actually an interesting character, and somewhere in the blunt message Modesitt is delivering there is actually something akin to a story.

My opinion? Eh, don't get the hardcover, don't get it new. Borrow it from the library or get it used.

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