The Magic of Recluce (Recluce series, Book 1) (original 1991; edition 1992)

Excellent world building and superb magic system with an annoyingly dense but affable young adult protagonist on a quest. Lerris is 'the chosen one' but for all the wrong reasons or completely mysterious hidden reasons until he's painted himself into a corner with his fumbling choices. Lerris isn't burdened with a prophecy, but he resists the status quo of Recluce. Lerris is just your typical young adult with attention deficit disorder (i.e., he's bored and finds everything boring), but Recluce doesn't prescribe Ritalin. Somewhat like extreme Amish, Recluce peacefully forces their misfits to either exile permanently or go on dangergeld (similar to rumspringa but with a quest attached), during which they must decide if they can return to Recluce and succumb to its creed and worldview (seeking perfection in Order). This novel follows Lerris on his journey as a dangergelder until he understands all that Recluce embodies and effects, and reaches his decision.

If you are looking for a story with character growth, Lerris' journey as an exile from Recluce will fit that bill. If you are looking for a new fantasy world with a detailed history, divergent societies, a logical robust magic system, with a different spin on the age-old struggle between angels and demons, good and evil, black and white, order and chaos, then you've come to the right story and series.

Modesitt's Recluce series reminds me of Asimov's robot stories. He sets up a scenario with some basic, seemingly simple rules (for example, Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and Modesitt's Order/Chaos balance system as glimpsed through snippets of The Basis of Order) and proceeds to challenge those rules with his world and its characters. While each novel adds a piece of the broader puzzle, for the most part, like this first one, the books stand alone quite well. ( )

An engaging read that starts out as a coming-of-age fantasy and advances into something...else. It reminds me in places of Robert Jordan, Michael Moorcock, and Steven Erikson, yet has its own voice.

Modesitt gets a high score for his world building. The world of Recluce is wonderful and the surface is only scratched at here. I'm intrigued enough by this to read more in the series at some point. Since all but one of the 15 or so other books out there happen before this one, there's plenty of backstory to add to the world here.

I also enjoyed Modesitt's pace and style. He uses the first person narrative style as the story is revealed by the main character, Lerris. He's a young man learning his powers and his way in the world. He seems to start out as a typical Rand/Frodo/Richard Cypher/Luke Skywalker type but eventually matures into an interesting character in his own right. And he does this mostly by learning things for himself, rather than having a Gandalf figure to tell him what to do.

The magic system of Recluce is excellent. Basically, all of the magic is centered around the forces of order and chaos, and the manipulation or of keeping them up. This is where the Moorcock reminders are. I enjoyed seeing Lerris learn about the system and seeing it in practice from him and others utilizing it. The chaos-masters and order-masters, commanding the white of chaos and black of order fascinated me. I love the switch from typical by having white reprsent evil and black for good, though they're not quite as black and white (forgive the play on words) as that. Chaos leads to evil but isn't evil in and of itself. Same thing with order. The relationships and manipulations of chaos and order are what end up defining good and evil here.

There are some small breaks in the course of the novel where the author switches to a present tense third person and gives us hints as to other happenings away from Lerris. I had mixed feelings about those. While they were interesting and helped set up some of the big picture drama, they were too few and far between to really help the story that much. They were also pretty vague and honestly took away from some of the surprise later. It was a jolt in the narrative whenever one of these came up, both to switch into the third person and then back to Lerris's view. In my opinion, they should have been left out. Or, where there was something useful there, maybe it could have been told to Lerris by someone on the road. As far as giving the reader something that Lerris didn't know, that doesn't make sense in a first person story. There was a LOT going on that he didn't pick up all the details on, and that was fine. It added to the mystery of the world and story.

The other annoying thing wasn't as minor. In fact, it bugged the piss out of me and might have helped keep this book from a 5-star rating. The f**king sound effects! That was a narrative flaw that could very well get a book tossed into the burn pile. If this story wasn't as engaging as it was, that would have had me heading right back to the library to drop this thing in the overnight return.

Here's an example:

"Tharoom...thud...tharoom... Walking the white fir was walking across a massive drum. Antonin's coach must have vied with the real thunder when it rumbled across his bridge...Tharummmm...
Creaaakkkk...The heavy wooden gate, set on massive bronze hinges, eased open even more widely as I watched."

That's annoying. I felt like I was watching one of those old cheesy Batman television episodes. There are ways to describe sound without treating the reader like an idiot or make them feel like they're reading a comic book without pictures. Luckily he didn't really get rolling with this technique too early in the book, and by the time he did I was already hooked by the story. Otherwise it would have been "holy cheesy effects, Batman" and I would have moved on to something else. I was able to live with them eventually, my eyes blurring over and past to the real narrative beyond.

Overall, I give this book high points for the world building, the magic system, the characters, and the writing voice used by Modesitt over the course of most of the novel. I'm definitely interested in reading more books in the Recluce series, I'm just hoping he cuts back on the special effects. ( )

I've read this book, and most of the series, many, many times in the past fifteen or so years. This first book is really not great - the writing is kind of clunky, the main character (whose major motivation is that he's bored) is predictably boring a lot of the time, and the real beauty of the series - the relentlessly logical system of magic and its impact on real-world politics and war - is undeveloped and inconsistent.

It's probably the volume I reread the least (except maybe the immediate followup, which is inexplicably written in the present tense) but it has its moments. I am a sucker for the series's focus on simple craftsmanship - this character is a woodworker, something the author knows rather a lot about, and I find the interlude with Lerris reestablishing a failing furniture shop somewhat inexplicably charming. And his pony is adorable, even though I find Modesitt's use of onomatopoeia rather excessive.

I had to struggle through the book the first time, but it does set up the world effectively, and while I might at this point suggest someone start the series with Magi of Cyador (the earliest in the internal chronology, and a much stronger book on its own) it's worth looking at this one as the seed of the ideas that later turn into such a remarkable accomplishment. ( )

Modesitt's world-building is intriguing, and his fresh take on the potentially cliche-ridden genre of high fantasy would be worth more than a look, if the writing itself were more effective. This book has the distinction of containing one of the worst single sentences I've read: "The hand of summer pressed down upon Fenard like an open stove." Ugh. (Fenard is a city, but knowing that does not help.) ( )

Probably better than 3 stars, but having read it out of order, the story looks too familiar to other of his books. ( )