The Chaos Balance

9/10

While the self-doubt and whining of Nylan is tiresome, this is a solid installment in the Recluce series. We learn more of the early history of Westwind and the Black and White Orders. And we learn, as do the characters, there is a price to power and cost to change.

I really want to like this more than I do. The characters are fine - a couple with a kid, for a change - and the adventuring is reasonably epic, but it really never comes together for me. I'd be much more interested in what happens immediately after this (which we get, to some extent, in Arms-Commander, but the real founding of Naclos is the part that's missing here.)

It is interesting to see the degenerate descendants of Cyador, given that those books are among my very favorites, but they're reduced to cackling villains a little too much to be really compelling. And everyone else is just doomed.

This book felt a bit strained, as if the author needed to tell this story, but really didn't know what to do with it. The characters go to a lot of trouble that seems like it could have been avoided somehow. This one follows the now familiar pattern of a Black Wizard that develops unbeatable powers, but only after taking a beating learning.

continues the story of Nylan. He, his lover and a son leave Westwind. He ends up battling Cyador, which is the remnants of a Rationalist empire founded long ago. Destroys Cyador by letting loose the forest of Daclos and he and Arylin become the first druids. A lot less whining. I think perhaps Modesitt realized it was overused? I don't know, we'll see how it is in future books.