The Order War

The Order War is the 4th volume in the Recluse Saga and I think that they are getting better with each one. I very much like the everyday niceness of the interactions among some character relationships. It makes the buildup to the climax that much more interesting in the sense of the Recluse heroes are everyday people placed into extraordinary circumstances and they have to muddle their way through. Just like most of us do with our own everyday lives. What makes these ordinary folks heroes in this saga is that they make the tough choices required to accomplish what needs to be done. I like that sense of the real everyday in a fantasy novel.

One of the earlier and better Recluce novels. The whole order vs. chaos thing instead of good vs. evil, is well done and the world is well developed. At this point in the series, this is still original and interesting.

Doing a re-read of these in the publication order as I've acquired some hardback editions.
This is second of two books focusing on Justen, and are really the first two that are as strong as my childhood memories recall. The initial books in the series have much weaker writing than I remembered. So The Magic Engineer plus The Order War are nice turning points.
Also, there's some neat stuff here that seems pretty topical in that it relates to the mutual/community aid movement today as well as the permaculture practices that are starting to get a new day in the sun.

The Order War is one that I always forget that I do kinda like. Justen is totally a forgettable main character - although he's a great secondary character in later books - but the adventure theme is great, and the working-out of consequences from The Magic Engineer as well as foreshadowing the "modern" books is really interesting. It's not the greatest, but it's pretty solid (and it's also where Modesitt's style starts to settle down a little and get more readable.)

9/10
An excellent installment in the Recluce series. Romance, magic, subterfuge, war, characters that were not quite as stubbornly naive or dense as in some of the other books.

I like Modesitt. I hooked into this series with the Magic Engineer, which my brother, an engineer, had laying around. The abstraction on which the fantasy series is based is accessable to my tastes.

This fantasy world has magic. The magic system is based on the idea of order and chaos. Gender roles are reversed, with female being dominant in the culture, and male being subordinate. Modesitt also does other reverses, such as the color black being associated with good, and white with evil. At times the culture reversals Modesitt does are thought provoking and entertaining.

The main characters tend to eventually have a moment of wisdom, where they realize that their fate is impacted by the forces of chaos and destruction. This particular show more book carried that on, with the actions of the main characters viewable as side effects of the natural magical flows of that world.

I found the forest of the druids to be ungripping, and the whole druid part and romance leaving me unaffected. Something seemed off there. The druid forest developed the idea of absolute "justice" and 'grey magic" and balance. However, the druid land and the druid people seemed to not match the grey idea vividly to me.

I thought he could have better pulled it into the rest of the plot, showing more how the mechanism of order/chaos balance is like the absolute justice of the forest. The forest 'magic' just seemed unintegrated, though I knew the druid forest trial was the pivot of the book.

The trial was similar to Shea activating the Sword of Truth in the Sword of Shannara.

Once Modesitt got back to his usual mode, the book rolled along nicely. An example of the abstraction in the book is the depiction of a radioactive element through the order/chaos viewpoint of the main character, which was interesting.

Modesitt tends to add in occasional descriptions of random unplot-related character actions, which lends a sense of realism to the character scenes. He takes the time to occasionally describe the actions of a random character in the book as observed by a main character, which also adds to the involved realism.

His books are deeply compassionate.

The final scene in this book was a whopper as well. It didn't flow as well as other of Modesitt's books, which is why, along with the druid part, I only gave it four stars. Maybe I need reminding too much, but I kept looking for a marker in the flow of action all through the final climax to pull it more into the ideas of "grey magic" and balance as done in the forest. Maybe I'd drunk too much. It was vividly shown.

I did get the tears rolling at the death of a side character in the climax. Modesitt can grip the emotions. I read the book through quick.

Modesitt is good reading, wish I had more on hand tonight. show less

Introduces Justen the Grey, who we met in The Magic of Recluce". I really like how Modesitt started things off with "MoR" and then all the following novels have been the history leading up to it. This novel introduces the involvement of the druids, who serve a deeper balance than either just Order or Chaos. Good stuff!"