/lit/ - Literature

>>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