[Ravenlock]

L.E. Modesitt lives in the same town as me and his wife is a proffesor at the college I go to. I just found out that he writes fantasy books last week, but the people I talked to all have his wife as thier teacher so I was wondering if any of you have read his stuff and if it is good.

[Cersei]

His Spellsong series is really well done !

-Cersei

[Heresy]

Ack. I beg to differ if possible.

I read the first book in the spellsong series and it was riddled with dry, flat characters who meandered any which way through a plot that wasn't there half the time. If memory serves correctly, the main character was a spoiled woman who, despite the bad things that happened in her life, acted as if someone owed her something at all times. She always had to be right and the way the story was written would be to just painstaking to prove she was right.

One thing really aggravated me about the structure of the story. She'd have to sing to use her power and so if anyone was trying to kill her it it was like...

"Wait a moment, I have to sing."

-_-+

For more detail notes on this book, I'm going to have to find my old notebook where I kept record of what I thought was right or wrong with it.

[Jenab]

My first really great fantasy reading was L.E. Modesitt's Saga of Recluce. I've heard a few people say that this series is prosaically mediocre because the same themes keep repeating. They are...

1. Boy grows up to be Somebody Important.

2. Man does well in spite of women being, in general, men's betters.

But anyway, I rather liked the way Modesitt tackles those themes. He's writing a fictional history about a fictional place where a sort of magic works, and (as it is in the real world) history tends to be a record of people doing more or less the same things, with only the details differing. But every story, really, depends on the details for its uniqueness.

I'm going to read Wellspring of Chaos, Ordermaster, Magic of Recluce, and Death of Chaos as soon as I'm finished with Feist's The King's Buccaneer. I read all the other books in the Recluce Saga not long ago (toward the end of last year, I think). I read The Magic of Recluce years ago, but I'm going to read it again so that I'll have read the whole thing in order.

I'd have finished the 13 book series already, but Ordermaster wasn't published until last month, and so I stopped before its prequel (Wellspring of Chaos).

Jerry Abbott

[Ouroboros]

I'm quite fond of Modesitt's stuff. His recent Corean chronicles are a foray into military fantasy, but I would characterise the broad thrust of his work as being heroic fantasy.

Yes, elements of it are repetitive, but its workmanlike and enjoyable. If he only really tells one story, then at least its not a bad story. He's not unlike David Gemmell in that respect.

[Evil Agent]

This is another case where, in case you didn't notice, the first 2 posters posted this 5 years ago! :)

(Of course feel free to continue the conversation!)

[Lowlander]

I tried two different series by Modesitt : Spellsinger and Recluce.

About Spellsinger we can be brief : very mediocre.

The Recluce novels are very interesting. Modesitt gives you a great background about the conflict between order and chaos. It's really a very well-developed world.

It's better to start with the first Recluce novels : Magic of Recluce is the opening book of the series and a very good
book indeed. The 3 following books Towers of the Sunset, Magic Engineer and Order War are prequels to Magic of Recluce. The fifth novel, Death of Chaos, concludes the story began in Magic of Recluce.

So technically you can read Magic&Death as a duology but you'll understand the story and characters so much better if you read the whole series.

A warning : if I had to describe this series I would use terms as interesting, intelligent etc... Don't expect swashbuckling adventure stories. Although there is a fair amount of action/war that's not really the core of these books. So I should warn you many people don't like these books because they believe they're too slow and low on excitement.

Still, personally I recommend the first five novels.
By the way, Modesitt is also a good SF writer.

[DragonReader]

I have only read the first Recluce book, but really enjoyed it. I have the second and will read that soon. His newest series "The Corean Chronicles" looks interesting to me. Has anyone read this?

[Ouroboros]

Dragon-

The Corean chronicles is, as I said above, more or less straight military fantasy. Farmboy leaves farmstead, has a military career and goes home. Repeat for two novels so far and you get the idea.

It's not bad stuff, there's an emphasis on Modesitt's idea of what small unit skirmishes and the life of a minor officer is like. Less varied than the Recluce novels, however, and the hero is as blank and nondescript a chap as you are likely to meet.

Very simlar to the Cyador novels that are part of the Recluce series.

[DragonReader]

Ouroboros,

Thanks for the info. I might eventually try the first novel in the series, but for now I think I'll stick to Recluce.

DR