Natural Ordermage (Saga of Recluce) | L. E. Modesitt

Natural Ordermage (Saga of Recluce) | L. E. Modesitt | Another new Recluce protagonist

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Natural Ordermage ...

	Natural Ordermage (Saga of Recluce) L. E. Modesitt Tor Fantasy, 2008 - 624 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. begins a new Recluce story in Natural Ordermage, the first of two volumes set mostly on the continent of Hamor, far across the sea from Recluce.

Rahl, a young apprentice scrivener on the island of Recluce, likes life to work out in his favor. And he has a bad attitude, too. To make sure things go his way, he uses a small amount of order magic in opportunistic moments--but his abilities are starting to get the attention of the Council magisters. So the Council sends him to the mages training school for testing, and through misuse of his powers, which are getting stronger all the time, he gets himself banished to the continent and empire of Hamor.

As an exile in Hamor, working in the Ordermage Council's import and export business, Rahl?s powers increase more?and so does the amount of trouble he can get into.

Welcome to the fantasy world of L. E. Modesitt, where the adventure is just beginning.

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Couldn't put it down

Modesitt has gotten it back. He has really picked up the tempo and character development. The new main character actually does grow and change while at the same time maintaining his core personality./

Another new Recluce protagonist

This book and its announced sequel features the young Recluce native Rahl, son of a scrivener. Rahl has a great deal of ability in order magic, but uses it instinctively--at the beginning of the book he's completely untrained, and since that's forbidden in Recluce he's shipped as a prisoner to Nylan, where the order engineers are kept separated from the rest of the population, to see if he can be of use to them. He does well with languages and weapons training, but when he tries to deliberately do anything much with his magic it tends to blow things up, so he's sent on a "temporary" exile to Hamor, the huge continental empire that's a major rival to Recluce, ostensibly as a clerk for the Recluce Merchants' Association. Only he finds out that things aren't as they should be in his office, and one night is drugged and kidnapped, waking to find himself working in the ironworks south of where he'd been and missing all his memories and his magic. But a Mage Guard officer senses something about him and makes him a mage clerk, and ultimately both his memory and his powers start to return. And ultimately he becomes a Mage Guard himself and discovers and foils a major plot against the Empire of Hamor. What will happen next isn't clear, so I'm looking forward to reading the sequel. Rahl isn't as likeable as Kharl was--he's always complaining about the unfairness of life, which comes across to me as rather whiney. But his heart is in the right place, and there are worse things than a passion for justice as long as it isn't limited to justice for oneself. And his "natural" ordermagery is an interesting idea, as compared with the way other books have presented order magic.

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Don't change a good recipe

Recluce again!
With a slight new twist too. Modesitt as usual is constant in delivering a more than average quality story. We forgive him the sameness in his characters, because of his excellent vision for world-building.
I personaly believe that he grows in strength with every book, even though he stubornly refuses to address old bad habits in his writing voice, it's always a pleasure.
This particular book does not disapoint. The familiar taste of Recluce, with the no less familiar flavour of the typical Modesittian Hero, the magic is in the detail here, as we are all old hands by now. But there's something to be said for staple food, and the old Recluce recipe, was nice back then, and is still nicely cooked now.
In these days of Fantasy-Fast-food, it's not grande cuisine for sure, But it's this increasingly rare Good filling food, to tide you over while you wait for the exotic dessert with a new world to taste around the corner.
A table et Bon appetit.

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Great new title in a longstanding series

Some of Modesitt's books in the middle of the Recluse series fell off the wagon a little, sounding much like many of the other books. But with this new installation, Modesitt has moved from a hero we are all familiar with and tackled a much more dramatic situation, a much more complicated figure. The result, coupled with Modesitt's incredible world building and sense of plot, is a refreshing jumpstart in a saga that had begun to feel redundant. Fans of Recluse, or Modesitt, or even newcomers, will all enjoy this novel and eagerly await the follow-up installation.

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Tough call

I am really broken up on this book and this author in general. Things that are great end up being crummy and things that are bad end up being great. I'm going to try and pro/con this, but its a bit up in the air.

Pros:

-The author does a good job characterizing a character that has lived under strict rule for his entire life. You can tell that Rahl's parents are very over bearing and the author does well in showing Rahl's rebelliousness and difficulty with structure.

-I felt that pages 400-500 were pretty solid in terms of mixing in some different characterization of how this character learned things in comparison to most other characters from this author's formula. I really liked the emphasis on feeling and the shying away from the long mental conversations that this author usually plagues readers with.

-The author does not use as many "...thats a big fellow..." or "..he wont last long..." as he usually does in other books. This is refreshing because overhearing those kinds of conversations comes across as a lot more authentic then when you see it about 40 times per chapter.

-The story in general was intriguing, I liked learning the differences between Recluse and Hamor and thought the author had some interesting insights into free trade and the role of government in business.

Cons:
-This author has this annoying habit of telling you how a character is instead of showing you. Luckily this was to a minimum in comparison to some of his books, but it was still very apparent. For example, we dont see the main character being stuborn, but all the secondary characters tell him he is. We don't get to see this character struggle so much with fights, but we are told its a struggle etc... Id say if 10 were the best and 1 were the worst, this would get probably a 6 in terms of this author's ability to have you experience the story instead of your experiences being told to you (which doesnt really work).

-The fact that we know every single little thing the character does throughout his day can get tiresome. I like detail, and I like when its done well, but when its over the top i tend to start skipping paragraphs and tuning out in certain parts of the novel. I felt the flow was pretty good but there were definitely some dry spots where the novel was tough to get through.

-(Spoiler) The Author attempted to make this character more human than some of his other characters by sending him (SPOILER) to Luba. At first I loved it, I felt like I was reading George RR Martin (maybe a fraction of a second) and he was going to give his character hell. But then Rahl regains his memory very quickly, along with most of his skills etc. So The whole Luba experience ends up being kinda "meh," not adding much real depth to the character. But good attempt

All in all, I give this a 3.5. Its tough to justify shelling out cash for this if it weren't so cheap (thank you inflation), and its hard to justify giving it the time. But its not terrible, and I havent read the sequel, which may prove interesting. Happy Reading

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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