Amph The Saga of Recluce and other series: the L.E. Modesitt, Jr Thread

It says middle of his second decade. I first read that as mid-twenties too, til everyone kept saying how young he was, so I went back and realized my mistake.

 

Yeah, first decade would be 0-9, second decade would be 10-19. By the Death of Chaos (book 5 and the one that takes place directly after Magic of Recluce), Lerris is in his very early 20s, but not until then.

 

Another point I'd like to draw attention to:

While a lot of people try to equate "order" with good and "chaos" with bad, I think it's very telling that our first impression of the order masters is their throwing Lerris off his home island of Recluce despite being so young... and our first impression of a white wizard (pp 147-151) is of him heating stones to warm people who are cold, an act of charity. Pretty solid early indication that its not nearly so clear-cut as that.

Really, it's all about balance, though that theme doesn't fully emerge until book 4 (and subsequent books). It's present before then, but more subdued.

Incidentally, the page numbers I'm using are from the MMPB that was first published nearly 20 years ago - I'm assuming you two are using the same, since that's by far the most common edition. If not, however, I can use chapter numbers instead - just let me know.

 

That's a very good point, and I agree.

I'm using the MMPB, too. I'm just not reading as fast as the two of you, apparently I'm where Lerris is starting dangergeld training, so about 50 pages in.

 

I just saw that the fourth imager book is coming out on the 8th of november. Will anyone be reading this when it comes out? I already have my plate full with Inheritance #4 and the new Mistborn book.

Evil.

 

I'm very much looking forward to it... but may end up waiting for the paperback. Or possibly getting it from the library.

In typical Modesitt fashion, its set many centuries before the first three with a new main character

 

Ummmm... I finished.

 

...and?

There's plenty more in the series (and they definitely should be read in publication order, even though that's not even close to chronological).

 

It was good. Like I said before, it really reminded me of The Name of The Wind. That's a good thing though. It's too bad it doesn't continue on. Looks like I'll have to wait a bit to reunite with Lerris.

I started The Towers of Sunset. I really don't like the way it's written. Present-tense 3rd-person... Are all of the rest written that way? It's not a deal breaker, I just don't like it.

"Many critics" are crazy. First-person was great for that book.

 

The two with Lerris are the only ones in first person - the rest are a mix between third person present and third person past tense.

Towers of Sunset seems to be a very polarizing book - its my least favorite, for example, yet plenty of others consider it their favorite.

Also, I agree - I think the first person view worked very well for the first book. I'm glad he didn't try to use first person for them all, though. Seems kinda appropriate that the "I" was reserved for one character only during the Recluce Saga.

 

Ok so Im trying this out again making myself read. It ll be slow going as Im reading Empire(bugs) at the same time.

 

Every time you say "bugs," I get a squicky feeling And yes, do!

Glad you liked it, ImpKnight! What did you think about the magic system? (Though maybe in HTR since JS hasn't read it.)

I'm a hundred pages in and liking it, actually more than I did the first time (though whether that's because I know more or because I'm quite a bit more grown up and can understand it better, I'm not sure). But I do understand the magic system a lot better this go-around, which is nice.

Like RJ said, Towers can be polarizing. For instance, even though it's his least favorite, it's my favorite out of the five I read (though that was about six years ago, so that might change).

 

The magic system was a little on the boring side, but that's not to say it's bad, just not a in-your-face-look-what-I-can-do magic. I saw the balance thing with Recluce coming once, I think it was Justen, mentioned it. The one problem I have with magic systems like these is that you never know what they can do. Eg. In Mistborn, it was pretty clear what a mistborn/misting could do, whereas in The Wheel of Time, Rand just one day makes some portals that fly around killing Trollocs. If you know what I mean.

But, the Saga continues.....

 

The magic system is definitely less in-your-face, which I think also makes it a bit more complicated.

 

I didnt much time to read at all today. Tomorrow Im going to Shreveport all day for a fam reunion so I wont get anything read then either...

 

The magic system manages to both be extremely simple and yet very complex at the same time - and has the added bonus of being very clear on how things work (i.e., they can make themselves effectively invisible because of the order/chaos involved in rays of light. Simple, because everything in the magic system boils down to manipulating order or chaos... and yet complex, because how those manipulations work can be quite complicated.

I'll actually be pausing my reread shortly because I just got Empress of Eternity, Modesitt's new SF book that just came out in PB. And since I instituted my "one book per author at a time" rule specifically because of reading two Modesitt books (one SF, one fantasy) at the same time before... I'm not going to do that again. So Magic of Recluce will get set aside long enough for me to read EoE, then I'll go back to it

 

I'm amazed that I'm 100 pages in Midterms are killing me, but I'm going to start really concentrating on it in a few days.

I already put The Towers of the Sunset on hold, so I do intend to finish this quickly. (Though I have a bit of a problem with checking out too many books from the library )

 

Im on pg 66 or so when Lerris is in Nylan. I ll keep with it as its starting to catch my interest a bit.

 

Good!

 

Glad to hear it, JS

Found a bit of time to read over the weekend, and finished Empress of Eternity. Very interesting, very unique - it has three separate stories going on in three completely different time periods, but they all tie together by the end.

Now back to the awesomeness that is Magic of Recluce

 

Didnt get much done today. Im reading Magic everyother day swapping out Empire.

Ive only gotten to them training with the weapons and them picking out which ones they are meant to have due to that enchanment on them.

 

300 pages into Towers. It's growing on me.

 

100 someodd pgs in Magic. Im def confused with the whole Order Vs Chaos so far...

 

Good!!

IMO a hundred pages in, it's still not explain very well I think it becomes clearer; Lerris does have that book. At this point, Lerris doesn't really understand, either, which means we don't.

I'm about 150 pages in.

 

Is there Telepathy in here? Several times Lerris has thought something and others have answered him afterward.