The Order War is the fourth book in Modesitt's Recluce series. The events in this book take place subsequent to the events in the previous book, The Magic Engineer, but before the events in the first book, The Magic of Recluce. To sum this book up, it has a lot of good information regarding the nature of the balance between order and chaos and it introduces a philosophical element extoling the virtues of balance and the evils of extreme order or extreme chaos. The problem with this book is that it doesn't have much else. The PlotJusten, who we met for the first time in the first book, The Magic of Recluce, is an engineer in Recluce. His brother, Gunnar, is a weather wizard, like Creslin. Gunnar and Justen are tasked to go to Candar to act as advisors in helping a country fight off the ever-increasing white hordes of chaos from taking over all of the continent. After this mission, Justen is separated from the rest of the Recluce task force and wanders into Naclos, a place of perfect balance. It is there that he becomes the first gray wizard the world has seen in ages. His new mission is to reduce both Order and Chaos in the world and restore balance, so that the world is not torn asunder between the two extremes. The GoodAs far as the magic system of Recluce goes, this book finally addresses a lot of questions I have had. Is chaos always evil and order always good? Wouldn't some kind of maintained balance be the best situation?These questions are satisfactorily answered in this book. First of all, evil (or at least corrupt) leaders are introduced into Recluce, making at more realistic place. The Chaos wizards are still mostly evil, but at least some individuals exist who seem to wistfully question the morality of destroying large numbers of people instead of rubbing their hands together in delight at the prospect of so much destruction.The concept of gray magic is also very intriguing and it seems to be more powerful than either Order or Chaos alone. The idea of sealing chaos within order to create a gray balance in things is very interesting and, like all of the magic in the Recluce series, makes a lot of sense.The action scenes in the novel are well done and capture the attention of the reader, as they should. The technological aspects and advances depicted over the course of the novel are very interesting also. The Not-So-GoodWhy, then, didn't I give this novel 4 stars like the others lately in the series? The answer is that, even though the book depicts the virtues of balance, the novel itself lacks balance.More specifically, the characterizations of the novel are dry and not very compelling. The character of Justen was the most interesting and he was rather dull. He wasn't written to be all that different from any other main character I've read in a Recluce novel. The only effect of him being a gray wizard instead of a black wizard had on his personality was that he drank beer and had a bit of a happy go lucky attitude that quickly disappeared as the novel's plot progressed. Over the course of the novel he gets falsely accused of being "order-mad". If he were "balance-mad" the book would have been a whole lot more interesting. He would have been a much more compelling character if he got some kind of strange glee out of destroying both chaos and order. There was a romance in the novel, as there has been in most of the Recluce novels, but it was rather dull. There was no conflict or romantic tension that would make a literary romance interesting. The two people concerned just meet and fall in love. While this is perhaps more true-to-life, it doesn't make for a good read. The romantic aspects of a novel should match the scope of the roles of the characters in the fictional world. NaclosThis deserves its own section, because I feel that Modesitt's description of Naclos may have been the "point" of the book. Naclos is a place of pure balance. The inhabitants of Naclos follow a pattern of complete balance. Basically it works like this: If someone consumes a produced good, a service, or a natural resource, they balance out their consumption deficit by providing a produced good, service, or resource in turn. No actual currency changes hands.On the surface it seems very similar to Thomas More's "Utopia", and it also seems to have the same flaw: cheaters. What if someone consumes without replacing or in any way compensating for their consumption? "Utopia" didn't have an adequate answer for this and Naclos' answer is not much better. If someone consumes without compensating for it, the land "takes them" or "gets rid of them". They'll get eaten by a forest beast or killed by a man eating tree or something like that. This suggests some kind of intelligence that must exist behind the maintenance of balance, keeping tabs. However, this is sort of shrugged off and not addressed. It's a little too convenient.Also, why is it this way in Naclos alone and not in any other area of the world? I can only hope these questions and criticisms would be addressed in a later book, but I doubt it. The world of Recluce seems blissfully absent of any kind of organized Religion other than order- or chaos- based expletives (Demons of Light!). ConclusionI can only hope that the series gets better. I kind of doubt it, though, and I'm toying with leaving it altogether...for a while at least. This book was a tough read. For non-Recluce fans I say avoid like the plague. For fans of Recluce, I say know what you're getting into. For fans of the Recluce series' magic system, I say prepare to have a lot of your questions answered...but not much else. If you're still on the fence about the series, I say you can probably end your involvement with this book.
My previous reviews of the Recluce saga have been brutally honest when it comes to how L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s writing is disappointing a second time around. So I want to begin this review by praising The Order War for being the best book so far in the series, in terms of both story and writing! After three repetitive, somewhat dull books, Modesitt has finally produced a volume that drew me into the conflict, made me care about the characters, and found a balance between his intriguing magical system and the drama around its usage.I knew The Order War would be unlike its predecessors almost from the beginning. Justen begins the book as an experienced engineer in Nylan, the city that Dorrin founded back in The Magic Engineer. Unlike Lerris, Creslin, and Dorrin, Justen doesn’t leave his home because he has to “find himself” (although he ends up doing that) or because he’s being sent away. No, Justen leaves as part of a detachment to help an independent country in Candar resist the White Wizards. The detachment fails miserably, and Justen is stranded in a particularly inhospitable part of Candar. He manages to find his way to the Druids of Naclos, where he meets his soul mate and becomes a Gray wizard.I love that Modesitt begins this book with a healthy amount of action. There’s no tedious travelling through the countryside with the occasional episode dealing with bandits; visits to an inn and the accompanying yet excruciating exchanges that deal with menu selection and counting coppers and golds are few and far between. No, we begin with Justen on Recluce, learn about his family, then join him on the mission to Candar. There are plenty of battle sequences and some political machinations on both sides. Although both smithing and woodworking make cameos, neither craft is the focus of Justen’s spare time. Mostly Modesitt devotes his exposition to Justen’s growing understanding of the Balance between order and chaos.The Balance has been a common thread running through all of the Recluce books. Sometimes it has been addressed explicitly, particularly by Justen himself in The Magic of Recluce. In other instances, such as Creslin’s experimentation in The Towers of Sunset, it has been there as an afterthought, something that reacts to a perversion of order or chaos. I feel like The Order War serves a very important role in this series, because it ties together all of these ideas about the Balance and closes the circle first opened by The Magic of Recluce.One of the reasons this series is so compelling is that there are two oppositional groups, one of which uses chaos and the other order. Yet according to the Balance, that is a self-defeating proposition, like global thermonuclear war. Increasing chaos only increases—and concentrates—order, and vice versa. So the more order that the Black Mages concentrate in Recluce, the more chaos foci who appear in Candar. You can’t win; the only way to win is not to play and embrace the Balance, as the Druids do. It might seem like a somewhat trite and obvious conclusion, but Modesitt develops the theme in potent, poignant way.The Order War still suffers from many of the same flaws as the previous books. As in The Magic of Recluce, where Lerris’ questions were thwarted by Justen’s combative responses, Justen doesn’t always get a straight answer to his inquiries either (so that’s where he learned it!). The final act of the book, with Justen and his brother racing toward Fairhaven in a steam-powered “land engine” of Justen’s design, drags. And of course, there are the White Wizards. Oh, the one-dimensionality of the White Wizards! I eagerly await the books later in the series that, if I recall correctly, look at the events in The Magic Engineer from Cerryl’s point of view, helps to make the wizards of Fairhaven far rounder characters. As it stands, they remain moustache-twirling caricatures, barely worth taking the time to discuss them.I’m beginning to think about the reading order I would recommend for this series. Like the Chronicles of Narnia, we could have some heated debates about this, drag in the spectre of authorial intent and publishing constraints and that pesky thing about time being linear. If one has the inclination, one could read the series in several orders, of course. But I do know that The Order War is really good and The Towers of Sunset is really bad (in relative Recluce terms), so I’d probably advise new readers to skip the latter and read the former either before or after The Magic Engineer (but probably after).Had I read this alone, or as the first book to the series, I might have been less charitable. It does not improve my opinion of Modesitt as a writer by much. Yet considered as part of the larger series, this book contributes a lot to the ongoing mythology, and I actually managed to stay interested for most of it. I’m sure that many of those who share my opinions probably didn’t last past book 3, if that (that is when I gave up on Wheel of Time). That’s a shame, because with The Order War, the Recluce Saga is just beginning to get good.My reviews of the Recluce Saga:← The Magic Engineer | The Death of Chaos → (forthcoming)
What do You think about The Order War (1996)?
I've realized my biggest issue with the series. While this is a large series, each book feels like a standalone episode with only superficial connections to those coming before. I love the emotional investment that I feel towards the characters of longer series, it is what set the Wheel of Time apart from many much more entertaining books or series. I have such strong ties to the characters that any flaws in writing are completely overshadowed. On top of that, there is continuity. Each book doesn't have to introduce every character and situation again. with that, much of the background that is usually more tedious can be skipped. These things aren't present in this series. This is especially important when one considers just how slowly Modestit starts his books. It is always at least 100 pages of background and building before anything really entertaining begins. I simply don't have the patience for this every book for 20 books straight. While it may get better as characters begin to reappear in subsequent installments, I don't see myself finishing this book, let alone progressing further.
—Jared
In this, the fourth book in the Recluce saga, Modesitt finally gets back around to Justen the gray wizard from the first book; frankly, it just didn't interest me. A lot of what goes on in The Order War is repetitious, the Chaotic White Wizards are still building their westward road and steamrolling any kingdom that gets in their way, the Order-bound Black Wizards of Recluce are still well... reclusive, and the protagonist feels like a mash-up of previous characters. Worse, a lot of the book's themes were already touched upon in Magic of Recluce so the theoretical elements aren't any more riveting than the repetitive plot and recycled characters. Don't get me wrong, I like Modesitt's writing, I love his Imager series, I've enjoyed (what I've read) of the Corean books, and I liked the previous Recluce books, but I just couldn't get into The Order War and after starting it, I dropped it multiple times to read other things (including Legacies from his Corean Chronicles) and at the end didn't really care how things would end (especially since Magic of Recluce had already told me). Part of the problem is that Modesitt tries to create a more rounded cast of Chaos Wizards this time around, giving them more humanity, but by doing so he slows the story down and takes away the mystery of wondering what the villains will do next (since they describe their plans in detail). Similarly, the book contains three distinct phases, Justen and the Engineers fighting the Whites in Saronnyn, Justen on the Run and in Naclos, and Justen's return to Recluce. Each of these phases has its own plot arc and characters and none of them flow particularly well into the others. For instance, I enjoyed the initial story but not only did it seem to be a repetition of the events of the Magic Engineer, it also contained a lot of characters who you assume you need to know that either get killed off or disappear for the rest of the book. The Naclos arc is easily the strongest part of the book, as Modesitt shakes off his rut of repetition and actually gets to describe a place that's new and interesting with a twist on his magic system that we haven't seen before and another group of interesting new characters. At that point I began to get legitimately interested in the story and then abruptly we shift back to Recluce, we drop most of the cast of the Naclos arc, and the story slows down into political quarreling and Justen's accelerated course on doomsday machine development before the breakneck bloodshed and chaos of the finale. In short, the Order War had some good moments and it is a useful companion to Magic of Recluce, providing background to that book's events, but it just doesn't stand on its own as well as previous Recluce books and doesn't exactly inspire me to pick up the next in the series, especially when I'm enjoying the Imager and Corean books so much more.
—Daniel Shellenbarger
This one is about balance. All black or all white have equally negative resultsI never put spoilers in my reviews.L. E. Modesitt, Jr. writes epic fantasy with political commentary overtones. His world building is impeccable, taking the familiar and giving it a unique twist.His protagonists are usually underdogs who don't fit into the mold cast for them by others in some way, chronicling their struggles to understand themselves and how to find their place in the world around them.In some reviews I've read people have said some of the themes in the series are repetitive and, as far as it goes, they are right. While the protagonists are unique as are the storylines themselves, these books span eons and, I believe, are highlighting that history does indeed repeat itself because we are human and seldom learn from other's mistakes. Historical accounts usually don't report events as they are and this is part of the issue as well.I like that the books aren't in chronological order and that the author tells the story from all perspectives from book to book, highlighting that we are, underneath it all, the same. That makes some uncomfortable, we like to have clear cut good guys and bad guys even though life is seldom black or white (pun intended.)The only complaint I have is that in his earlier books Mr. Modesitt shows a lack of understanding of the female mindset. In his later books he must have wisely acquired an advisor.Be prepared, his books are long and you won't want to put them down.
—Katy M
