The White Order (Recluce) Book

In this author's popular Recluce fantasies--beginning with The Magic of Recluce, 1991--the classic theme of youngsters growing to adult power and responsibility is repeatedly retold in terms of magic skill. Past books focused on the apparent good guys--"black" magicians who use order-magic (cooling, healing, strengthening) and constantly oppose the White Order of chaos wizards whose talent is fire and dissolution. Young hero Cerryl has a natural bent for chaos, and for him the Whites offer the only game in town. Painfully he learns about balance: order-magic can be deviously used for destruction, chaos can cleanse and anyway requires order-control if it's not to destroy the user. This moves interestingly away from simplistic "black is good, white is bad" magical colour-coding ... but although Cerryl is a decent, ethical white wizard the Order remains unpleasantly tyrannical--e.g., instant life sentence of slave labour for the equivalent of an outdated road-tax disc. The magic training is interesting if repetitive (apprentices practice firebolts by zapping blockages in the public sewers), but Modesitt's real story is waiting for Cerryl to become a full mage of the Order and perhaps confront its injustices in the massive forthcoming sequel, Colours of Chaos. --David LangfordRead More