I typically stay away from the fantasy section of the bookstore, not because of any dislike for fantasy, but because the genre is riddled with clichés and Tolkein knockoffs. However, when an intended five-day trip unexpectedly turned into a two-week stay, I picked The Magic of Recluce up from the nearest bookstore, hoping for a light read to help pass time. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book actually had a great deal of originality. There are no elves, no dwarves, and no clichéd mystical races at all. The whole "evil mastermind plots to take over the world and destroy all that is good" plot is abandoned for something more original and sincere. Dragons and other such beasts don't make an appearance and no one winds up being the last of a certain type of people, destined to destroy the evil of the world. Modesitt has managed to come up with something new, making for an interesting read. However, there were numerous problems that sometimes detracted from the full experience of the journey. Three and a half stars. Spoilers follow. Lerris, the main character of this tale, is bored and constantly struggles to find his lifelong niche in the strictly regimented order and perfection of Recluce. He tries a brief stint as an apprentice woodworker to his uncle (one of the most well known and respected woodworkers), but ultimately fails due to his lack of interest in perfection and laziness. His boredom is seen as threat to the island's careful order, so he is given two choices: exile or dangergeld. He chooses the latter and, black lorken staff in hand, sets off to begin his journey. Our hero trains for several months, often being seen as a frustration and misunderstanding skeptic by his instructors. The one thing he excels at is combat training, specifically with his staff. He meets two significant characters during his dangergeld training: the giggling, somewhat absent sword master Krystal and the strong, proud, man hating Tamra, a fellow staff wielder. He is given his dangergeld quest (basically to travel through Candar and do some soul searching) and is soon on is own in the strange, dangerous world. From here, there is a lot of traveling from town to town and staying at various inns. Along the way, he stumbles across Justen, a gray wizard, and Antonin, a white chaos wizard intent on spreading chaos for his own personal gain (and who, supposedly, wishes to overtake Lerris's body, as chaos magic greatly weakens and ages the wizard using it). Lerris trains with Justen for a bit, learns to defend himself from Antonin's possible mental attacks, and discovers his talent with order magic. Unfortunately, his tutelage is cut short due to a "good" deed on Lerris's part and the young man is on his own once again. He continues to travel and eventually settles down in a small town, working as...an apprentice woodworker. He's a lot better at it this time around and manages to make some money for the old, less than talented woodworker, and then manages to save the woodworker's family from the white wizard that is spreading chaos in the village. Lerris continues on his adventures to the end of the book, which include being reunited with a friend (and later lover), defeating a few white wizards, stopping a war, and rescuing another friend. What I appreciated most about The Magic of Recluce was the unique take on magic. Modesitt seemed to take an almost scientific approach when explaining how the white/chaos magic and the black/order magic worked. Each system of magic had its strengths and weaknesses, something I really liked. Perhaps there could have been a little more explanation of how the magic (especially Lerris's order magic) actually worked in the physical sense. Like, how exactly does he make these things happen? What does it feel like? These things just aren't explained and would have made the book that much better. As a character, Lerris worked well for the most part. He wasn't a hero bent on machismo and saving the world from evil. In fact, he's almost the opposite and displays a certain level of selfishness at times. He makes it clear that he just wants to live and do what he wants. He's a bit annoying and tiresome in the beginning with his constant boredom (though, I think that might be the author's fault in how the boredom was constantly portrayed, usually something like this, "...but, Lerris was bored."). He would rather ask questions instead of listening for answers and doesn't really have the patience to learn anything. However, at the same time, there's something very relatable about him and his situation. He's a flawed character, and that makes him likeable. I think that almost everyone can relate to not fitting in at home; to not be given a straight answer to a seemingly simple question; to just want to live without the pressure of achieving perfection. He makes mistakes and demonstrates time and time again that he isn't infallible. Lerris grows a lot as a character throughout the book and is a lot more likeable at the end of the story. Speaking of character growth, that's what most of this story is. If you're looking for a book with action on every other page and characters that are constantly clashing swords, put this book down and move on to something else. There's not a lot of action here. The overall pacing of the novel is actually one of my problems with it. A huge amount of time is spent travelling from place to place and staying at inns, and it sometimes gets a bit boring to read about. Were it not for the great amount of personal discovery along the way, I might have given up during these large sections of travel. In contrast, parts of the book that I expected to get more time, such as Lerris being trained by Justen, got a comparatively small amount of pages. A lot of time is also spent in the town of Fenard, where Lerris uses his order magic to perfect his woodworking and set things right for Destrin's family, but only a chapter is given to defeating Antonin and rescuing a friend. The pacing all in all felt a bit off, with very little time given to plot important parts and a lot given to not so important parts. The final battle with Antonin was, to me, very anticlimactic. Modesitt's style makes it very hard to picture the characters' actions, as he relies on his sound affects to portray the action instead of actually describing it. There also wasn't any description on how Lerris was feeling while he used his order magic against one of the best chaos wizards. Was he frightened? Determined? Doubtful? We never really know. Also, Antonin is portrayed as being a very, very powerful white wizard, yet he is beaten after throwing a couple of fireballs and then being pitted against Lerris's (who's a relatively new magician) shield. I expected something better from such a powerful character. On a random side note regarding characters, I didn't really like Krystal's character growth. I thought she was a great character in the beginning and expected her to mature and change a little bit, but when we meet her again, she seems to be an entirely different person. There's pretty much nothing of the old Krystal in her, which bothered me greatly. However, I did like the characters of Justen and Tamra. The latter's relationship with Lerris (more of a brother-sister thing) was very refreshing to see instead of just becoming part of a love triangle or what have you. I also really appreciated the sheer amount of character growth in many of the characters. There are a lot of things that just aren't explained very well. For example, how did Lerris know that Justen was his uncle...I reread that part several times and I still don't get it? How did Lerris figure out that he had a gift with order magic (which I thought was interesting, considering his initial aversion to order)? And why does everyone except Lerris seem to know how important his father is? Why doesn't he seem to care? Things like that ended up being a bit distracting. There are several points in the book where something outside of Lerris's viewpoint needs to be explained, so the story switches from first person past tense to third person present. I don't mind the switch in point of views, but the change in tense was very distracting (and since I personally don't like present tense, it was particularly irksome). As other reviewers have mentioned, Modesitt's tendency to throw in the corny sound affects is very annoying. We know what a horse sounds like. We can imagine what the sound of a fireball whooshing past is like. We know thunder booms and sheep bleat. We don't need to be told. On top of that, the sounds aren't even described accurately. It reads as being almost amateurish. All in all, The Magic of Recluce should be applauded for its unique take on magic, attention to detail, and relatable main character. It also has some fantastic character growth. However, there are also a lot of problems with the book, such as the sound affects, a lack of explanation in some areas, and the pacing issues. Despite these issues, I recommend this book to anyone looking for a good non-standard fantasy novel. This review is also posted on Amazon.com.
This book has some flaws. But more importantly, it's an original take on a fantasy world, with an engaging story that has good character development, and it manages to avoid some other flaws that are common to the genre. That's enough that I can overlook the flaws it does have and consider this book worth reading.This is my third time starting to read this series, with a couple of years in between each read-trough. I've never read the entire series, I've always stopped around book 8 or so. I want to see if I can finish it this time.The good stuffThe fantasy elements in the book are good and original. The magic system is complex, with rules and consequences, so it can't be used as just a deus ex machina to solve problems. There are factions in the magic world with complex politics between them and none of them is a clear "good guys". The world the book is set in is a complex one wih history, politics, economics, religion, etc. Of course a lot of this isnt fleshed out yet in this first book, different books in the series are set in different time periods, and we'll learn more about the world and everything in it trought the series.All of this, and yet the book doesn't bore us with long-winded explanations of how it all works, instead we learn of the details and mechanics a little bit at a time, as they come up and become important to the plot. The reader isn't privy to more information than the main character has, there's a lot the main character doesn't know, and until he figures it out we won't know either.The book is slow-paced, in a good way. I like that there's so much character development and world-building in between the action, and I like that you get to see everyday scenes with details about the craft the character does for a living, and how the character have to worry about things like money. The book would have had a lot less depth if we only got to see the big important stuff. That said there were a couple of parts that were a bit long-winded even for me, particulary some traveling sequences. The first section of the book up until they leave the island is a bit slow-paced when re-reading, simply because you already know the things they're introducing and building up to there and the real interesting parts of the story hasn't started. But that's just when re-reading, I think that part is paced fine for a first read-trought.The character development for the main character is good. He starts out as an annoying teenager, and near the end he's young adult who even thought he isn't perfect and doesn't know everything, is a bit more responsible, a bit more knowledgeable, and generally handles things better. This change happens gradually and is justified by the time that passes and the experiences he has trought the book. I wouldn't have minded a bit more development for the side characters, but since there isn't anyone who takes up a huge portion of the book it's not a big complaint.I mentioned in the first paragraph that the book managed to avoid some common flaws of the fantasy genre. The main one I was thinking about was how many fantasy books try to impress the reader with "look how unusual and quirky everything is in this fantasy world is". I'm just speaking for myself here, since a lot of really popular and well-liked fantasy books do this, but I can't stand that. This book doesn't try to do this at all, which makes me happy. The bad stuffThe interactions between Lerris and the other dangergelders are very roughly written. After they get separated things get better, and once he settles down in Fenard the problem is gone completly. But it's a solid chunk of the book that has this rough character interaction, and it detracts some from the book. From what I remember this problem doesn't come back in later books.Another flaw is that the main characters personality is annoying to start off with. This was clearly intentional, but I think it should have been toned down a bit. But luckily he grows out of it trought the course of the book. I can see how some people reading the book for the first time could be put-off by this after reading only the first couple of sections.The important side-characters are a bit more one-dimensional than they should be in this first book, but I know that this get better later on, and some of the characters in this book will even return and get more fleshed out. I'm also not a big fan of how the female characters in this book are potrayed, the author tries to make some strong female characters which is good, but their potrayal just feels clumsy. But I know he gets it right later on in the series.The last of the main flaws is that the last section and the ending doesn't feel justified. The book did not manage to convince me that the main character couldn't have just left it alone and gone and lived the rest of his life without facing the antagonist. I think there should have been a bit more build-up here, some more interactions between the main character and antagonist trought the book, or at least the main character thinking about the situation more often and in more detail, and having him show some more emotion about what the antagonist was doing.I see that some other reviewers didn't like the third-person interludes where we got to see what was going elsewhere in the world. I think these should stay in, but maybe be made a bit less obscurely written and more fleshed out.Final thoughtsThis book is not the best in the series, but it is the introduction to one of my favorite fantasy series, and even thought it has some rough parts, and the writing style is not for everyone, it is worth a read if you like the genre.
What do You think about The Magic Of Recluce (1992)?
Definitely will be reading more Recluce. I enjoyed Haze which is the only other Modesitt I have read, but this had better characterization (and character development), and the world was more clearly defined. I really loved the pony - truly a character, and a better companion to Lerris than many of the people he travelled with! I have been around horses quite a bit and have one of my own now, and I can say that they definitely respond to people's personalities - I wouldn't necessarily say order and chaos, but most horses respond calmly to calm people and become nervous when they are around nervous people...
— Michelle
This was an enjoyable read. Nothing spectacular, definitely not five stars for me, but it could have at least been four stars if not for one very annoying component... But more on that later.The characters - I liked them. Some of the relationships that formed between them seemed a little unbelievable and/or unnatural to me, but it wasn't so bad as to interfere with my enjoyment of the story. The magic system - interesting, I liked the idea of order versus chaos and all of the rules that went with each side. The world was also interesting to me, I found myself wanting to keep reading so that I could learn more about Recluce and unravel the mysteries surrounding it. The plot was sort of so so.. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading it.. But for most of the book it just sort of meandered along. The plot was advancing, but I had no idea what it was advancing towards. It only really started coming together and wrapping up in the last third or quarter. But like I said - the ride to get there was interesting, I just would have liked some more hints as to what the overall plot was a little earlier on.Now back to the annoying component.. The sound effects. What the heck was up with those sound effects? They were so awkward and out of place in the story! Some examples of what I mean...Thwup, thwup, thwup... thwup, thwup, thwup... The paddles churned, dipping into the water with increasing speed, and a heavier and thicker plume of whitish smoke billowed from the stack.... clink... clink... clunk... Sweat was pouring from his face, and he was breathing hard.... clink... clunk... Crack!... Whsssttt... "Aiiieee...!" Clank..Thrummmm... thrumm... Splatt... splattt... The cold raindrops on my head prompted me to complete my recovery of the cloak and to replace the pack behind the saddle.Seriously.. What is up with that? They are completely unnecessary, annoying, and everywhere. They didn't really show up right away, which is good because I probably would have dropped the book right away if they had. By the time they did show up I was already interested in the story, so I pushed through. But seriously.. They almost ruin the story. So overall - the story/characters/magic/world in general gets four stars, but I have to take off a star for the sound effects. I will likely read on in the series, but I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed that the sound effects go away.
—Dawn
I enjoyed this book greatly. Lerris is a young man who is being kicked out of his country because he feels that order is boring. He agrees with it completely, but wishes it could be...more exciting. Before being exiled, he and the other exiles are taught self defense and some history/politics/language before they are shipped off to make their own place in the world. Some of them will be allowed to return if they achieve an objective and hopefully become wiser. He is saved from a Chaos magician by Justyn, the Gray wizard. Lerris travels as Justyn's apprentice for a while before he is forced to flee a city for performing unlicensed magic. He eventually is forced to fall back on his boring skill of wood crafting. This is my favorite part of the novel. Reading about him building up his profession and crafting with wood. Eventually he is forced to flee when one his orderly chairs burns a chaotic high official. In the end, he is forced to confront the White magicians in their home. Somehow Lerris grows up, but I seem to miss how that happen. Some parts are obvious when Modesitt describes the woodworking, but most of it just happens all of a sudden and feels random. It is only a small complaint though.
—MarsianMan
