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(More customer reviews)Book 10 in the Saga of Recluce
Even though this is the tenth volume in the Saga of Recluce, it is chronologically the first. Long before Creslin founded Recluce, long before the angels fell and Nylan built Westwind, long before all of the recorded history of Recluse there was the Empire of Cyador. Cyador is an Empire built on the power of Chaos mages and Chaos towers (supplying the Chaos energy required for much of the technology of Cyador). The Empire uses the army (Lancers) to hold back the barbarians from Cyador as well as hold the Accursed Forest (the forest that the Druids are later from) back from spreading into Cyador.
Lorn is a son of a Magi family. He is one of the most talented and proficient students in his classes, but he lacks the love of chaos that is necessary to become a Magi. Lorn can do the work better than perhaps anyone and is capable of being a Chaos Master, but he isn't obsessed with it nor does he truly love Chaos. If you have read other Recluce novels, you know this will lead to Lorn's exile from his family and the city of Cyad. This is most similar to Lerris being exiled from Recluse and going on the Dangergeld (The Magic of Recluce). The difference is that Lorn knows why he must leave Cyad, where he is going, and what the risks are. Lorn is made a Lancer undercaptain and must fight on the frontier of Cyad against barbarians. Lancers have a low survival rate, Magi Lancers have an even lower survival rate because they get the most difficult assignments (so that they will be killed. A personal capable of wielding chaos but not a magus is too dangerous to the Empire, or so the higher ups have decided). Lorn knows what he is getting into, but actually becoming a Lancer is the only way that he sees to live.
Lorn is essentially a moral, honest man, but at the same time he is ruthless in protecting himself and his loved ones from threats, both real and perceived. If Lorn sees someone as a threat, he will kill that man but hide the crime in such a way that nobody is sure who committed the murder (and in some cases that a murder even took place). He is a very guarded individual, mostly because he knows that the Magi'i in Cyad do not want him to live, despite his family connections.
The more you read in Recluce you will begin to see that Modesitt is essentially telling the same type of story over and over again. You can see clear comparisons between Lorn, Creslin, Nylan, and Lerris. There is the recurring theme of exile, and the protagonist trying to find his destiny without quite knowing how he will accomplish it. In one sense, if you have read one Recluce novel you pretty much know how the other ones will work out. Magi'i of Cyador is slightly different in that Lorn has more knowledge and intent in his actions, but the book still follows the basic pattern that Modesitt set up in the first Recluce novel. That said, this remains one of my favorite fantasy series because of the depth of development in the created world and in the characters. We get to see what the characters are thinking, why they are planning their actions, and what the repercussions are of those actions. Modesitt is not gentle towards the protagonists, they suffer more than any other character in the books, and maybe that's part of why I like the books so much. My one suggestion is to take breaks between the books or you can get tired of the repetition fairly quickly.
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Magi'i of Cyador (The Saga of Recluce)
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