/lit/ - Literature

>>19723974
Imager, Imager Portfolio #1 - L.E. Modesitt (2009)

This is a social science fantasy magic school spy thriller. That isn't entirely accurate, though it's close enough to get a general idea. Modesitt has a contentious writing style and there are many valid criticisms about what he does with his books and series, but I don't have any interest in arguing the matter. This is the sort of book, as his are in general, where you read it for how it makes you feel. If that doesn't work for you, then I advise against reading his works. There isn't really much of a plot, yet it isn't literary in any way. Imager is written in first person, but there's minimal inner life explored and emotional experiences are put aside for a cool, reasoned, rationality. The characters are exemplified by a couple personal traits at best. So what is there then? The first 15% covers the protagonist's life from 12-24 years old. The other 85% covers his daily life over a relatively small span of time.

The setting is something like a Florentine Republic government with French cultural references that has early Victorian Era technology set on an Australia-like continent, at least in terms of size. They have steam powered trains, various sorts of guns, warships, but not automobiles or electricity. For the most part terms are altered as to not be the same as their real world counterparts, which depending on your preferences regarding neologisms, may be annoying, but I didn't mind. Each chapter starts with an epigraph, usually a sentence long. I found them to generally be moderately amusing. There's a romance subplot, but it doesn't progress beyond kissing, of which there's a lot. She doesn't state that pre-marital sex is unacceptable, but it's very close to that. The school has a lot of lecturing about various subjects, which range from comparative religion and government, to economics, sociology, medicine, philosophy, and much else.

The magic system is inherent, compensatory, not quite equivalent exchange, and at will. The imagers imagine stuff and it happens, within the limitations of their personal power and the vague rules that govern reality. By the end of the book it remains relatively limited in practice, but its theoretical usage is almost unlimited. The briefly mentioned stories of the past, which are apparently covered by later books in this series, note its previous genocidal and unrestrained usage. It's stated that a full third of the imagers die during the course of their training. The more talented they are, the more likely they're to die early. Imagination can be a very dangerous power in the wrong minds. This is all treated rather matter-of-factly. The institution itself is like a cross between an university, an intelligence agency, and a government official protection service.

Does this book deserve its rating?
I don't know and I don't care.
Overly questioning it may ruin my enjoyment.
I'd rather not do that.
Rating: 4/5

>>19999763
Imager's Challenge, Imager Portfolio #2 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2009)

I was surprised by how this book went, for better and worse. Most of what happened in the first book is relegated to the background. This book is almost entirely focused from beginning to end on the justice system of the same city as the first book. The 25 year old protagonist is tasked with experiencing first hand how justice is carried out from beginning to end. For a majority of the book that means the protagonist is patrolling as a beat cop in the slums, which is not what I expected to be reading at all.

Even so, I enjoyed myself and put my misgivings aside. I would've preferred a more expansive setting than the city alone. I also would've liked more to have been done with the magic, though there is some experimentation with it in this one as well. This is a slow book, aside from the protagonist's personal advancement, that focuses on the details. I found a lot about how their society is ran to be disagreeable, though still interesting. As I wrote about the previous book, this isn't something I would expect the average reader to do if this doesn't seem like something the reader would enjoy.

I was intrigued the book seemed to tease that this could be an anti-villain origin story. The protagonist doesn't really mind that much to murder those personally inconvenient to him and collateral damage is acceptable. He also has a lot of concerns about the structure of society and his role in them. However, there are constant assassination attempts on him and those he cares about, and the powers that be would prefer he voluntarily tie his own hands. Some warnings are given about a potentially ruinous future as well, but by the end, it seemed like it was all just a tease, but I could be proven wrong yet by the third book. The System does do co-opting very well.

Overall, I simply enjoyed reading it and that's what matters most to me, though I can certainly understand why others wouldn't like it at all. I definitely prefer the first book to this one, though I'm giving it the same rating because each rating encompasses a lot.

Rating: 4/5

Imager's Intrigue, Imager Portfolio #3 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2010)

The first third was meh, the second ok, and the third was fun. The first story arc was unfortunately far too long. The protagonist was in the same position as he was at the end of the second book, but now he had to face his deadly foe yet: a recreational superdrug that seems to be like a combination of weed, cocaine, and heroin. Worse yet, many are dying because not-fentanyl is being mixed into it. This was easily the worst part for me and it made me groan at times. Surely this could've been handled better, regardless of my personal preferences. Eventually it ended and I enjoyed the rest considerably more, despite the abrupt and rapid pace of progression in all ways that followed.

When GRRM asked, "What was Aragorn’s tax policy?" were you at least amused by it? Well, if so, then you're in luck. There were 25 direct uses "tax" as a base word, and not a single one of them meant strenuous. An example:
>considering revising the Solidaran sales tax structure and imposing a one percent value-added tax on both the bulk sale of agricultural produce and of manufactured goods, on the grounds that the sellers of those goods were effectively exempted from the end-use sales taxes.

There was a lot that was similar. There was also discussion about ancillary water rights, land tax, the specific details of their particular form of government, and much else. I enjoyed it.

In what I wrote about the second book, I stated that the protagonist had some villainous tendencies, though I suppose that's only my perspective. The overall tone seemed to be "you should be grateful to those who dirty their mind, body, and soul for you, and may have irrevocably lost their humanity." Which to me, is arguable, though with considerable skepticism. I previously wrote about being co-opted by the system, but that was the wrong sort of statement. It'd would've been better to have asked what happens when someone against the system becomes the system? What then is there to rebel against or blame for failure? Well, there's other systems, parts of your own system, and yourself. It seems rather uncommon that the last of those is chosen.

Thus this trilogy came to an end, though the series continues on at a different time and place with other characters. I was concerned that both the ending and protagonist's character arc would remain unfinished. That feeling lasted until I was most of the way through. Fortunately, the resolution and epilogue provided both. However, I was conflicted about the ending because it was excessive and disproportionate. I understood the rationale and I thought about what I'd think if this was done on my behalf. It's something to publicly condemn, yet to be relieved about in private. It's only human to want to avoid suffering the consequences of our own (in)actions, even if it means that many others must suffer in our stead.

Rating: 3.5/5

>>20275366
Scholar, Imager Portfolio #4 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2011)

Scholar is the first of five books featuring this protagonist and time period. The narrative travels back several centuries to a time before unification of either country or imager. Five states vie for dominance and imagers remain unknown or die. While it would be possible to start here, it would be inadvisable because it seems to assume that the reader has read the previous three to have established everything that matters. There's minimal covering again of anything from the first three books, so a new reader may be confused about certain matters.

Quaeryt, the 29 year old sole POV, is tasked with providing an assessment of whether the former nation that his lord's father conquered still harbors notions of rebellion. The entire novel is Quaeryt's journey there and then taking matters into his own hands. His ambitions are audacious, though concealed. He has few qualms about killing, as long as it's something he can do without there being any evidence. He plays the role of assassin almost as often as that of scholar. As there's no formal training, his imager abilities are developed through trial and error, which are described in text. Some of the side effects of being an imager are either not described or aren't present for whatever reason.

This book continued the trend of focusing on the protagonist's day to day life. The POV is even more closely held than with the previous protagonist and I often felt that almost all the other characters were more background than significant forces than could affect Quaeryt's life, which reflected how closed off he was to others, often by necessity. The various discussions regarding politics, religion, sociology, history, and other subjects are present here as well. This first book compared favorably to the first book of the prior protagonist and I have little doubt that I will comfortably enjoy the rest of my time with him.

Rating: 4/5

>>20284516
Princeps, Imager Portfolio #5 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2012)

The following is filled with structural spoilers to help you understand whether it's something you'd want to read. With this kind of story, the concept and the details thereof seem to matter much more than anything else.

The first 15% or so is Quaeryt becoming accustomed to being the Princeps and newly married. The marriage is awkward throughout the book, but that's to be expected since his lord showed up unannounced one day and presented his teenage (19/20) sister to him (29/30) as his wife. Vaelora, his new wife, agreed to this because her grandmother had a vision and told her as a child that she would.

The next 60% or so is Quaeryt's day to day life working on his next assigned project, rebuilding and setting to order a town partially destroyed by pyroclastic flow from a recent volcanic eruption. It's wasn't quite how I wanted it to be, though I don't know what that would be, but I found it quite nice anyway. He personally fills a surprising number of roles until he can find someone more suited for them. He's the governor, civil patroller (police), justicer (judge), chorister (priest), and whatever other role is required. He really just does everything. There can be no doubt that this is competence porn. Sometimes there are still problems that the law is unable or unwilling to address that need to be resolved. Quaeryt solves all of those thorny issues the only way he seems to know how, assassinations. He briefly wonders whether doing so is sustainable and the ethics of the matter.

The last 25% or is military action where Quaeryt is assigned to quickly train a squad of imagers to cause as much devastation as possible to the enemy forces. Considering how successful he is with that, I have to wonder just how much outright slaughter there will be in the following books.

Rating: 4/5

>>20284522
Imager's Battalion, Imager Portfolio #6 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2013)

The previous books have had war as part of their narrative, but this was a military campaign from start to finish. The war to unite the continent had begun. I think it suffered somewhat for that as the other books had more of a variety to keep them fresh. While the abilities of imagers were primarily used for destructive purposes, they were shown to be constructive as well. I would've liked there to be more variety to use their use, as it's rather limited overall. I guess once you have a highly successful tactic there isn't really much reason to try much else. There were various teases about a past civilization and even further back in the past, but it seems they'll remain only that.

Quaeryt has been changing a lot over the course of his story and that's especially the case here. Maybe it's because he's mostly a military commander now is why his personality has changed so much. It's better for him as to accomplish his goals, though for me it makes for a less enjoyable read. The POV isn't as closely held on him, but that's mostly because he's consistently eavesdropping on conversations which allows for conversation without him being strictly present. That's one of several unfortunate habits. Now that assassins are being used against him and his allies he continues reassess whether casual assassinations were really for the best or not. At the end other end of the scale I have to wonder how much his single-handed atrocities are going to affect him in the next book, if at all really. His body count by the end of this book is the several tens of thousands, though it's all very impersonal and at a distance. Very powerful imagers are like pilots dropping weapons of mass destruction on a target, or as a more modern case may be, like a remotely operated UAV with hellfire missiles.

This was the weakest of the Quaeryt books thus far, though it's looking like the next one may even weaker, which is disappointing, but it should still be sufficiently enjoyable. I understand trying to be realistic about how long wars can take, but I would've preferred it to be less so in that regard about this and possibly not have rest of the series be war. It would be nice to see what comes afterward, though even if it doesn't, which would be disagreeable, it's still worth reading.

Rating: 3.5/5

>>20284524
Antiagon Fire, Imager Portfolio #7 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2013)

Antiagon Fire was the weakest of the series thus far. The vast majority, 70% or so, is Quaeryt being on a pacification campaign. He travels from place to place reminding the local powers that his lord's forces has already won and that they really ought to stop being so recalcitrant, or as it's described by characters, being stiff-necked. That isn't a term I've really seen outside of biblical references. The last 30% is Quaeryt deciding to conquer a nation on basically a whim with whatever little forces he has with with him.

Strangely, several of the characters have arguably become less developed over time and less individuated. Maybe that's a statement on the military causing homogeneity of personality over time, but I don't think that's what was intended. This is also evident in Quaeryt as he becomes ever more monomaniacal. It's a similar character arc to the starting trilogy and I assume it will end in the same way. There's one book left with him and wrap it all up.

I was disappointed with this book, but it still made for a fine read and I assume the last will be as well. Hopefully it's not almost all about conquering the last remaining nation. This probably should have been a trilogy as well rather than a quintet, but I'll reserve my final judgement until after I finished the fifth of the Quaeryt books.

Rating: 3/5

>>20284530
Rex Regis, Imager Portfolio #8 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2014)

Rex Regis was the final book of the Quaeryt Quintet. There were many ways it could have been better, but then it would have been a different style entirely, for better and worse. Primarily my issue with this and the previous book was that they spent far too much time on activities that I didn't find particularly interesting because they were mostly transitory.

The first half was similar to the previous book, but also had parts that were a bit more more like Princeps and that was what I enjoyed most from this entry. The latter half was information gathering from various sources as they travelled to determine the truth of a matter. After that's resolved, there was a bit about long term plans. I wish much more has been used to detail this part instead of almost not quite half being about the day to day matters of traveling a considerable difference.

While these five books provided an interesting view of daily life, this and the previous spent far too much time on matters that should have been lesser priorities. There are often reasons why stories are structured in certain ways and the more dramatic moments are focused rather than an attempt at realism. These books have been highly informative about what I specifically like and dislike about providing minutiae and having a slice of life slant. Which to say that I prefer it to be the focus rather than presented as a liminal space between plot points. The ending was suitable, though rather curtailed.

Overall it was enjoyable enough and served well in its purpose of basically being the sort of comfort reading that I prefer. It's a shame that it wasn't better than it was, if only because it could've been truly enjoyable if it stuck with how the first two Quaeryt books went. I'll be reading the rest of Imager Portfolio sometime within the next few months, which again will be a whole new cast of characters and a different time period.

Rating: 3.5/5

>>20548489
Madness in Solidar, Imager Portfolio #9 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2015)

Chronologically this is the middle subseries. The second began before the current calendar and ends at roughly 0 A.L. This one began at 398 A.L. The first began in 743 A.L. Once again various historical characters mentioned in the first three books took center stage. I briefly looked back at those books and noticed some discrepancies in them, not so much that the official histories were wrong as it seems some small changes about the history were made in third book versus the first. One, which was entirely trivial, was that a character's name had a single letter changed. Maybe that was simply a transcription error over the centuries.

Unlike the first two subseries which featured a protagonist who developed his powers and personality over the course of the series, this one has a 38 year old Alastar who was already the most powerful contemporary imager and their leader. He was already fully established from the beginning. There wasn't really so much character development as just learning about him. He already knew who he was and did what needed to be done at the proper time without hesitation or concern no matter how drastic he had to be. As with the prior protagonists he also had a powerful love interest, who at 23 is considerably younger than him.

Over the centuries the Imagers had become lax, complacent, and not fulfilling their function as they were supposed to. All external affairs had been neglected and in some ways their organization has slowly changed to have a parasitical relationship with their society. This had caused much resentment in others. The duration of their entire lives would have to be spent to restore equilibrium, if not their reputation, and it would come at grievous cost.

Almost all the immediate problems could be traced back to one thing, tax policy. The fate of the country literally depended on whether the various factions could agree on how much in taxes should be raised, if at all. The government's coffers were always nigh empty. The grossly bloated army which served almost no functional purpose was a significant cause. Another cause for concern was infrastructure, particularly roads and sewers, and a questionable use of eminent domain.

I was amazed by how little overall happened and also how quickly it had when anything did happen. Even more so I was amazed that I didn't mind at all. It was all very smooth comfort reading. Nothing bothered me about it, but there weren't really any high points either. That makes it difficult for me to rate, and I'm not satisfied with a rating, but it'll do.

Rating: 3.5/5

>>20553644
Treachery's Tools, Imager Portfolio #10 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2016)

Thirteen years had passed by and problems that were thought to have been resolved by drastic actions turned out not have to have been. If anything, everything had become worse. Having solely treated a few obvious surface-level symptoms of societal upheaval led to greater fundamental problems later on.

Tax policy was still important, but it wasn't the central issue this time. Instead, the land-rich cash-poor aristocracy wanted to regain the authority they had over four hundred years ago to wipe out the upstart merchant class and anyone else who wouldn't obey them. The merchants were ascendant, what with their shares, futures, exchanges, banks, and general profit-seeking above all else.

Alastar remained relatively static, unless you count being married and having a daughter as character development. His reformation of the collegium was well underway and many practices seen in the first few books were shown to
have started at this critical time.

Various parts of the story were somewhat a rehash of earlier books and there was a quote about history not quite repeating itself. The latter half was battlefield conflict, which was alright but not that particularly interesting or enjoyable.

Rating: 3.5/5

Assassin's Price, Imager Portfolio #11 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2017)

Six more years have passed. For the first time in the series the protagonist isn't an imager. They're still important to the narrative, but this is almost entirely about the dysfunction of the government and how it's reformed. That'll probably be the theme of the final book as well. There are several plot threads that are introduced and developed, but seem they won't have any payoff until the next and final book.

At first I didn't like Charyn, but by the end I came to think that he may be the best protagonist in the series. The love interest in this may have been the best, it was at least the most interesting. That may be because in some ways he has to struggle the most within his limitations and there aren't any easy solutions and almost none that could be solved by brute force.

I felt similarly about the book as a whole by the end, which surprised me. It's definitely one of the best of the series for me and I don't know what to think about that. This one doesn't have any large scale conflict unlike several of the books. It really is just about the government collapsing upon itself and what can be done about that.

I'm surprised the government even functioned at all considering how much corruption, incompetence, malfeasance, and unreasonableness was involved. As noted by the title, there are many assassination attempts, to the point where few want to be involved with anyone who may be the leader because he may well soon be dead.

The four powers are the Rex, who has a rather weak and overall ineffective central government, the Factors' Council which demands the government do everything while wanting to pay nothing, the High Council representing the aristocracy which still resents not being 1,500+ independent fiefdoms, and the Collegium of Imagers which acts as a failsafe. The interactions between the four were quite interesting for me to read.

This is a critical juncture for every aspect of their society, which makes for a rather tumultuous time. Trade becomes every more important and there are a number of scenes involving the commodity exchange. As in the third book of the series, water rights make a return. There's even talk of standard coinage. As always, the seemingly intractable circumstances of taxation must be wrangled with, this time with the introduction of a progressive tax.

The series overall is just fun to read. This is the penultimate book, which after this eleventh book is both relieving and mildly disappointing. I would have liked one more subseries that takes place after the first trilogy, but it doesn't seem that's to be. I would have also preferred the series overall to be more like this book. I didn't enjoy the wars as much as I thought I might, though I did expect to have liked the rest more by comparison.

Rating: 4/5

>>20559004
Endgames, Imager Portfolio #12 - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (2019)

The final book of the series began a couple months later. Charyn was the protagonist once again. I may have been simply oblivious, but the bulk of the protagonist's behavior in this is political. In some ways he's little more than a narrative device than to explore political ideals and aside from a few other matters becomes nearly an entirely political being. That also included his courtship, but she was into that. Maybe I didn't notice as much since I was almost entirely in agreement with what he wanted to do, within the context of the world.

The primary subject this time was labor relations. There was a version of the Luddites, which were a labor movement rather than being anti-technology, despite the latter being the dominant narrative. Religious reformation was a secondary subject and had similarities to Martin Luther's ninety-five theses. There's also more and more about tax policy.

Many topics were discussed, some of which were: price controls, water pollution, consumer protection, anti-dumping duty, minimum wage, auditing, tax evasion, news media, child labor, workweek hours, inequality, exploitation, economic violence, industrialization and steam engines. There's considerably more than that, but the ideas involved in several of these are oft repeated, the repetitiveness of which I noticed more this time. Issues are rarely solved the first time they are discussed though.

I greatly appreciated the epilogue as it was the kind I preferred at the end of a series. Overall this was an enjoyable series, though it certainly had times where I found it lacking. Its primary purpose was to be a fun read, though these last two books changed that somewhat to be very more about exploration of ideas relative to the series of the whole. I would've preferred it if the entire series was more similar to them.

Rating: 4/5