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Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

The Mongrel Mage – Recluse Novel by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. – Not His Best

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I read everything Modesitt writes although sometimes I wonder why.  Some of his novels are excellent, full of interesting, well-developed characters, rich setting and back story, detailed world building.  A few are less rewarding to read due to an abundance of minutia, slow pacing and wooden dialogue, but all have something to offer.

The Mongrel Mage falls on the less-exciting side of the scale.  Modesitt places the events a few centuries, after The Chaos Balance when Cyador falls to the Accursed Forest, and before The Towers of the Sunset when Creslin establishes Recluse and the Westwind falls.  That’s an interesting time, when white and black mages co-exist, before the white order establishes their mage-ocracy and there should be plenty of room for Modesitt to write more stories in this setting.

Beltur lives in Fenard with his uncle Kaerylt, a strong white mage.  Beltur learns white chaos magic but isn’t very good at it.  The Prefect of Gallos sends his uncle, his uncle’s apprentice Sydon, and Beltur along with a small squad to check out some problems with the herders in the southern grasslands part of Gallos.  This section of the novel lasts a long time, pages and pages of riding, meeting with people, eating, riding some more.  Oddly, Beltur is viewed as weak but he is very good at casting concealment.

When the group returns to Fenard the Prefect summons them, attacks and kills uncle Kaerylt while Beltur escapes.  He flees to a healer he is attracted to, who connects him to black mage Athaal who is returning to Elpatra, part of Spidlar.  This then kicks off the middle part of the story where Beltur travels with Athaal, learns how to be a black mage and handle order, then gets himself employed to forge cupridium.

Eventually Gallos decides to invade Spidlar and attack Elpatra.  Beltur is drafted to act as a mage in support of a reconnaissance company and of course manages to save the country.

Major Problems with the Book

Beltur Character.

Beltur is a typical older teen wanna-be-entitled brat.  Uncle Kaerylt treats him well but not any better than he treats apprentice Sydon, and Beltur gets all the dirty jobs because Sydon dumps them off unless Uncle sees it.  But our hero manages to stifle his sighs and grin and bear it because he is so, so, so something.  Frankly I don’t see a problem with making apprentices or nephews work, and labor division never feels fair to those doing the work.  I kept wanting to yell at Beltur to get a grip, quit your whining and get on with it.

When he escapes Fenard, Beltur discovers he is actually more an order mage than a chaos mage, and darn good at it too.  In fact he’s pretty much the strongest guy around!  But of course he manages to remain humble etc., etc.

Then when he’s drafted he discovers that some of the other mages, those who have been order mages all their lives, think he’s a mongrel, not a real black, doesn’t deserve the pretty girl, and work to get him killed.  There is absolutely nothing given that would explain their attitude aside from jealousy over the girl and the fact that Beltur started as a white.  Beltur figures it’s because he isn’t good looking and is so powerful despite being trained as a white.

In a word, Beltur is obnoxious.

Beltur felt like a hanger onto which Modesitt hung the suit “Black Order Mage / Young Guy Finding Himself” and not like a real person.  ALL of Modesitt’s heroes are misunderstood, suffering types, ALL are stronger than/wiser than/better than and all are beset by other who want to kill/exploit/dominate them.  It gets tiresome.

Glacial Pacing.

After we spent a third of the book riding through grasslands, then another 10% or so journeying from Fenard to Elpatra, we then go on yet more tours with the reconnaissance company.  Modesitt used to write tight novels that balanced action with description, but he’s gotten way more descriptive in many of his recent books.  He doesn’t use the extra filler to develop his characters or increase tension.

The result is a book that is less enjoyable to read, doesn’t feel as meaty.

Formality.

Beltur himself says that he was raised by his father, then his uncle, to be quite formal and disciplined.  Formality itself isn’t a problem, but it adds to the overall slowness and lack of coherency.

For example, in all Modesitt’s books characters all conform to some dress code.  Black mages wear black, healers wear black and green, so on.  When they talk to each other they don’t make small talk or chit chat, they talk serious.  When they talk to people outside their group they are pure business.  Beltur buys a set of clothes from a tailor who appears quite interesting but never even attempts to talk to her.

The lack of normal conversation often underlies many of the plot conflicts.  Majer Waeltur didn’t know Beltur could shield himself and others or toss back chaos bolts.  Of course he didn’t ask Beltur either.  No one in a Modesitt book ever thinks to just talk to someone.

Political Correctness

Let’s see.  We get a short musing on income inequality when Beltur realizes he made more in a couple days forging cupridium blades – which no one has done for centuries – than his friend Athaal made in a week spotting diseased sheep and plants.  We have a gay couple whom some see as “different”, almost mongrels themselves, and of course it’s only the evil mages who dislike Beltur who think this.  Once again traders care about money and status and nothing else, certainly not people or fairness or helping anyone.  Beltur just sadly shakes his head at the overall stupidity, cupidity of it all.  Gaah, I dislike this character!

Lots of science fiction and fantasy authors shove their politics into their books, sometimes by having the main character explain something (see John Ringo) or by matter-of-fact comments that of course thus and such is…  I don’t care for it unless the politics are directly part of the story.  In this case they feel shoved in.

No Map!

Not sure who fell down on this one, but the action all takes place in Gallos and Spidlar.  The book includes a map of the whole of the world and more detailed map of Hamor.  It was hard to keep straight all the roads to Elpatra, which side of the river we were on, why the better road was on the side opposite from the city, where Axalt was, Suthya, so on.

Put a nice, detailed map of Elpatra and regions around it, and a map of Candar that shows all these countries and cities.

Good Points

As usual Modesitt builds on his already well-developed alternate world, Recluse.  The backstory is hinted, not rehashed.

Overall

I used to buy most Modesitt novels because I re-read every one, many over and over.  But the later Recluse novels aren’t worth re-reading.  I don’t expect I’ll re-read Mongrel Mage either, although I’ll ask our library for the sequel, Outcasts of Order.

3 Stars

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Assassin’s Price by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Imager Series, Finally a Different Hero

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If you read any of L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s novels you are familiar with the basic plot and characters in his books.  We have the quintessential hero, a man (or woman in the Soprano Sorceress series) who has unusual talents, sees deeper and farther than anyone else, is self-controlled and emotionally disciplined, struggles to right deep-seated wrongs despite some amount of suffering.  The hero is always the person with the talent, the person who grins and ruefully shakes his head at the unfairness and how other don’t understand.  The hero is never the actual political leader.

In fact, most of Modesitt’s rulers and leaders are obsessed with power and money and seem to care little for the health of their people.  It’s the talented hero who cares and who forces the leader/ruler into governing wisely.  The other books in the third Imager series, Madness in Solidar and Treachery’s Tools, fit this formula.  Alastar is the enormously powerful imager who leads the collegium to once again serve Solidar and who pushes ruler Rex Lorien to act.

Assassin’s Price is refreshingly different as to the hero.  Alastar and the imagers play supporting roles and the lead is young Charyn, heir to Lorien.  The novel opens with Charyn acting as do most of Modesitt’s young heirs, petulantly demanding better pistols to overcome his inability to hit targets when he shoots.  We don’t see what exactly causes it, but Charyn grows up, matures to take responsible interest in commerce, innovation, people, the country’s finances, legal matters.

Charyn’s father doesn’t want him involved in much, seemingly resents his son’s interest, so Charyn does some of his work quietly.  For example, he opens a trading account at the new exchange so he can learn about the factoring businesses that seem to be growing ever larger and richer.

Villains in the past novels play returning roles in Assassin’s Price and we see new, different threats and conspiracies.  We get hints at the end that Charyn may increase council involvement in governing Solidar, which may eventually cause the Rex to fade out.  (From the first Imager novels set several hundred years after Assassin’s Price we know the Rex institution does not last.)  It will be interesting to see how this plays out in sequels.

Pacing

I’ve complained about Modesitt’s glacial pacing in past novels, books that go on and on without telling us anything new about the people or that have odd scenes that do nothing to advance the plot.  People walk and armies march for pages and pages, never really doing much in several Recluce novels, notably Heritage of Cyador and The Mongrel Mage.  (The bird attack in Antiagon Fire is a good example of an odd scene that adds bulk without content.)

Assassin’s Price moves along well.  There are a few slow spots and a few scenes that move a little too quickly.  The confrontations with Ryel and with his wife just happen, blink, and you miss them.  But overall this novel has the quality I enjoyed so much with Imager and Scholar.  It is by far the best of this new series.

Overall

I enjoyed Assassin’s Price considerably more than most of Modesitt’s recent work.   He has a story to tell, an interesting and likable character, decent writing, his usual solid world building.

4 Stars

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Madness in Solidar – Imager Series – Resetting Priorities and Alliances

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Madness in Solidar: The Ninth Novel in the Bestselling Imager Portfolio (The Imager Portfolio) is a stand alone novel occurring 400 years after Quaeryt helped form the united kingdom of Solis and built the Imager Collegium in the 5 book Scholar series.  Unfortunately Quaeryt’s successors lacked his skill and drive (or ruthlessness) and the collegium has faded along with the unity of Solis overall.  Imagers are weak; training is not rigorous; the collegium takes golds from the Rex but provides little in return.  In Solis the Rex alternates between temper tantrums and unrealistic demands.  He lacks funds and demands a 20% tax increase and insists the collegium assassinate the High Holders from strongest to weakest until they agree.

Alastar, the new collegium Maitre, seeks a compromise while simultaneously battling his senior imagers to build up the curriculum, re-establish the collegium as a force and find alternative sources of funds.  No one wants a compromise and the senior imagers are conflicted with at least one actively against Alastar and his fellows.

It’s hard work to establish – or re-establish – foundations for any organization, and I admire Modesitt for building a book around the work.  Nonetheless, it’s not exciting. Alastar spends more than half the book meeting with people, realistic for any leader but nothing that makes enjoyable reading.

Best Points of Madness in Solidar

The plot is better in Madness than in Rex Regis or Antiagon Fire, the previous 2 Imager novels, with fewer pages spent describing long travel days.  There isn’t a lot of action but the story keeps moving.

The conflict feels more realistic, incohesion that turns into internal division that turns into treachery. Alastar has no good option when Rex Ryen demands a solution – his solution, his way – and threatens to destroy Alastar and the collegium unless they abet him in murder.  Alastar works to a solution, albeit not a happy one, that allows his imagers to survive and patches Solis together.

So-So Points

Like most Modesitt heroes, Alastar is decent, driven, hard working, agnostic, sensitive and individually powerful.  He doesn’t feel or read like a real person and I didn’t have an emotional connection to him or any of the other characters.

Rex Ryen and his family members are sketched out enough to be foils for Alastar, not fully developed characters.  However they respond consistently and there are no magic turnarounds where villains become good guys or vice versa.  The other imagers, High Holders and factors are likewise thin but sufficient.  The army commander is the weakest character, drawn so unlikable that I wonder why anyone would follow him.

Not Good Points

The worst part of the book is Modesitt’s interminable word play between characters.  It allows us to see how shiny bright and righteous Alastar is compared with the devious and greedy holders, but frankly, it’s boring.  After reading the last couple Modesitt books I’ve lost my tolerance for this stuff.

It’s also unbelievable.  I don’t know anyone who would talk that way.  “Acquiring some knowledge may be more costly than it is wise to purchase.”  This is one of the first sentences from the first High Holder Alastar sees.

Overall

Madness is a comedown from the first three Imager books, set several centuries later and from the excellent Scholar and Princeps yet such an improvement on the most recent few novels that I’m hoping Modesitt is back to creating novels full of plot with interesting characters, conflicts, setting, and with fewer verbal dances that show off the hero’s sterling qualities.

Overall I’d give Madness in Solidar a solid 3 stars and will read future books in the series.

Ponderous, Plodding and Platitudinous – Rex Regis by L. E. Modesitt

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I read and enjoyed the first two books in the second Imager series, Scholar and Princeps, both of which had Scholar Quaeryt working to build a world where imagers could survive and prosper.  Both books were fun to read, Quaeryt was interesting and ruler Bhayer’s problems in building a prosperous country were a worthy backdrop.

The book after Princeps, Imager’s Battalion, was a bit boring with pages upon pages of Quaeryt marching with the army, Quaeryt uncovering more about Rholyn, Quaeryt finding treachery within and without Bhayer’s army, Quaeryt helping other imagers develop their skills, Quaeryt proving over and over how important, skilled and humble a hero can be.

The series starts to fall apart in Antiagon Fire, which follows Imager’s Battalion, with the same problems of slow plot, endless army marches, hard-to-visualize terrain and setting, and our over-the-top hero bringing one more country under Bhayer’s governance.  Antiagon Fire includes a semi-supernatural sequence that adds little and feels out of place.

Rex Regis, the last book featuring Quaeryt (thank heavens), is more of the same, except even less action, no character development, and pages upon pages of humble head shaking as he sees his imagers rebuilding the city, pages of platitudes about force, power and greed’s corruption and endless comments about the lack of sexual equality in Modesitt’s quasi-medieval cultures.

The plot centers around army leaders Myskyl and Deucalon, both of whom Quaeryt distrusts and fears are treacherous.  Neither has reported to Bhayer and Quaeryt hears that Myskyl has collected and withheld tarrifs.

Sure enough, Myskyl is plotting with one of the High Holders to either take over from Bhayer or to carve out an independent realm in the north.  Bhayer sends Quaeryt to find out the facts.  Typical of the prior books, Quaeryt does more than investigate, he resolves the problem.  Several plotters and imagers die.

Just for grins I opened Rex Regis at random and pulled these comments:

“The land is everything to the High Holders and golds are everything to the factors…”
“…there’s more there than meets the eye in a first reading.  Just as there is with you, dearest.”
“There is always treachery, especially by those who are powerful, but for whom no amount of wealth and position will suffice…and seek forgetfulness in the elixir of power.”

Modesitt had used these same themes of greed, power, force, gender discrimination in most of his books.  His books are more effective and much more enjoyable when he uses a lighter touch, letting us readers see the problems vs. shoving them at us every single page.

Rex Regis is spoiled by the sheer length relative to anything actually happening or to character development, the vision sequence with Erion and the fact that Quaeryt is much less likeable as he gets ever more certain yet humble.   The book is at least twice as long as it needs to be.

On the good side Modesitt wraps up Quaeryt’s and Vaelora’s story and shows how the early imagers worked with Bhayer and the others to forge a new country.  Madness in Solidar, picks up the imager story a couple hundred years later, with all new characters (and a few less platitudes).

I’ve read every book Modesitt wrote and own many, but the deterioration in this Imager series and the similar plodding in his latest Recluce novels, decided me against purchasing any of his future books.  I’ll get them from the library.

 

 

One-Eyed Man: A Fugue with Winds and Accompaniment L E Modesitt Science Fiction

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I stayed up till midnight to finish The One-Eyed Man: A Fugue, With Winds and Accompaniment, the latest novel by my favorite author L. E. Modesitt. The book had some problems but I enjoyed it overall. In fact I will re-read it, as I do most of his books, to catch the nuances.

The hero, Paulo Verano an ecologist from the world Bachman, is sent to evaluate the ecological impact and risks that humans may have to the world Stittara. The book mentions several times that Stittara would be abandoned were it not for it being the source of anagathics, drugs that enable people to maintain their looks and health nearly to the end of their lives.

Paulo knows he is getting into a risky area. The anagathics are enormously profitable and no one would want to abandon the planet. Yet there are some strange phenomena, including sky tubes, never fully defined but apparently long structures that float in the sky. No one has ever been able to sample a sky tube and there has been speculation they may be alive, similar to jelly fish. Paulo is well aware that the government that hired him hopes he comes back with a nice, safe, sanitized study that shows no ill effects to the environment from humans.

It’s clear that the Unity government cares deeply about the environment and forbids damage to alien life. There are (of course) opposition parties and it is due to pressure from one of these parties, the Deniers, that Paulo is hired to conduct his study. It’s not at all clear what the issue is that the study is supposed to appease, but it isn’t germane to the story.

There are subplots but they are sketched. There is tension between the outlanders and the city folks; between the corporations doing research on the Stittaran natural anagathics and the Service, between the planetary council and the Unity Survey Service, and more. For some reason Modesitt sketches these but does not explore them. We see characters from each of these groups but their motivations are unclear and the reasons behind the tensions are not revealed.

Modesitt showed the political wrangling by letting us eavesdrop on bits of conversations between plotting members of the groups. These conversations were never complete, never enough to tell you what the characters wanted or feared. I felt like the subplots were dangled in front of us, then whisked behind a curtain just as we got close enough to see the rationale.

There were some annoyances. Modesitt again made spelling changes, duhlars for dollars, that were silly. We got a little economic diatribe about taxation. Interesting, yes, I always find Modesitt’s ideas worth consideration, but it did nothing for the story.

Several of the characters made no sense at all. They were not cardboard cutouts, but their motivation and exactly who they were and why they mattered wasn’t at all clear. The Syntex succession shenanigans added a plot twist and motivation, but hardly deserved the pages Modesitt spent.

I felt as if I were Paulo, muddling through the tensions and people, all with different objectives that none ever wanted to state and with ecological impacts that he could almost see but never measure. Those parts were frustrating.

The actual environmental sampling and trips were dull. Paulo found nothing, yet he knew there was something. We could tell there was something with the sky tubes and the ever-present purple and gray grass that had not changed in millions of years. One of the corporations planned a deep drilling test that would touch the planet’s core. Paulo found that horrifying. Yes, it seems like a very bad idea to drill a hole down to the molten planetary core, but this was somehow connected with organisms like the sky tubes and space. I re-read this part and still didn’t quite get it.

The ending was solid in that Paulo shares his thinking with us as the sky tubes, drilling, alien predecessors from 150 million years ago. But it felt so rushed. And it was incomplete. We didn’t get real answers about the sky tubes, or any more insight into Stittara.

As usual Modesitt built in a love story with a strong female character. This part reminded me of the The Ecologic Envoy, where the two are afraid to love, haven’t spent much time together, yet feel a sense of connection. The other parallel is that the characters must leave and go elsehwere.

The Unity government didn’t make sense. It’s mentioned that Stittara is over 73 light-years from Bachman and it takes about 75 years to reach, although far less for the traveler due to relativity. The fastest way to send a message is by physically taking it. If one can only communicate at the speed of light, then star systems must be close together. Characters mentioned the time delay several times, noting that after 150 years no one at Bachman will care about Paulo’s study. Given the delays, how does one have a central government with Unity-wide elections.

I always enjoy Modesitt’s novels with their strong sense of morality, multiple layers, challenging plots and characters. I didn’t like this as well as some others but it was still worth reading. Did I mention staying up till midnight to finish?