Madness in Solidar by L.E. Modesitt

 Once again, the story jumps time periods by four centuries, to a time when the Collegium is in decline, a Rex who is considered to be mad rules Solidar, and the passing of the old Maitre has left his replacement, Alastar, blindly attempting to figure out the political scene so that he can create order from chaos.

Did you ever notice how some actors, no matter what role they are playing, end up playing themselves, over and over again? Hugh Grant, the prototypical bumbling, oblivious, yet well-meaning Englishman, comes immediately to mind. It seems to me recently that all of Modesitt's leading men in the Imager series have begun to sound alike, and their lady love foils, who all seem to be highly intelligent, strong-willed, and with personalities that anchor or reign in the protagonists, Rhen, Quaeryt, and Alastar, begin to blend together into one archetype, as well.

The Rex wants to raise tariffs. The High Holders and factors oppose him. The army supports him against the High Holders and wants to see the power of the Collegium eliminated. There may also be a coup or two in the wings.

Modesitt is such a good writer that he can make the tale enjoyable and entertaining, despite the fact that nothing really all that new happens here.

Rex Regis by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Rex Regis appears to be the final installment in the Imager Portfolio, which is a little sad, as I was truly enjoying the series. I'd hoped, however, that it would go back to the future, and continue where Imager's Intrigue left off. In this book, Modesitt goes about methodically wrapping up loose ends in the war with Bovaria, so that Bhayar's rule over the combined realm of Solidar can proceed smoothly, and so that Quaeryt can become the first maître of the Collegium.

Quaeryt and Vaelora leave Antiago behind and ride slowly north back to Variana, stopping along the way to meet with high holders and factors and to impress on them the importance of being loyal to their new ruler, Bhayar. Once they arrive, Quaeryt and his imagers begin the constructive (rather than destructive) work of building and repairing roads and structures in the new capital of the empire, and also constructing the new home for the Collegium on the Isle of Piers. Bhayar appoints the couple as his chief administrators, with the power to get the business affairs of the new country on a firm footing.

The only fly in the ointment seems to be a couple of Bhayar's senior commanders who have ideas of their own about how things should go now that Rex Kharst has been eliminated. All the other minor plotters can be dealt with quickly, but Quaeryt eventually has to be dispatched to make sure the plot is real and to defuse it if he can.

Not a lot of action or tension in this book; it's just a wrap up and deals with mundane issues that Modesitt needed to get off his chest.

It will be interesting to see what series he tackles next.

Antiagon Fire by L.E. Modesitt

 As soon as Quaeryt has recovered from his latest escapades - eliminating the entire leadership of Bovaria in one mighty ice storm - his job well done is rewarded with another job. He and Vaelora are sent as her brother's personal representatives to Khel, to attempt to convince the High Council there to join the rapidly unifying kingdom. Someone had a joke once about reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy that went, "...walking, walking, walking..." and I felt a bit like that with this book, wherein far too much time was spent on the journey through the countryside on the way to Khel, meeting with factors, meeting with townsfolk, rescuing fair maidens, bringing high holders to their knees, and fighting a series of minor skirmishes.

When they finally do get to Khel, the High Council there won't meet with them unless they pass a trial by combat sort of ritual, which seems to me to go far too quickly and smoothly; Quaeryt doesn't even break a sweat. Despite his success, the council decides to delay joining Bhayar's allies at this point, as they are not convinced that they cannot get a better deal later on, despite it being pointed out to them that it is highly likely that their position will be far more precarious later.

Returning from Khel to the borders of Bovaria, Quaeryt and his favorite commander, Skarpa, decide to run an end around play and go ahead and launch a surprise attack into Antiago, which will, if it succeeds, bring down another of Bhayar's enemies and bring Khel to the point of being the last holdout much more rapidly. This campaign takes place in the last fifty or so pages of the book, and it seemed to me that Modesitt really rushed through things here. The book is, after all, called Antiagon Fire, and it seemed like the majority of it should have dealt with that part of the campaign to me. Maybe that's why they don't let me write these things, eh?

Again, Quaeryt nearly single-handedly destroys the entire capital city, its ruler and all of the nobles by creating a massive earthquake. One problem with this whole subset of the series is that the imagers of Quaeryt's band, including himself, are far too powerful, destroying and creating massive structures near effortlessly. In the first batch of the Imager Portfolio stories, which take place at a future time, imagers are far more limited in their powers, so it makes one wonder how things got from here to there, so to speak. Also, it brings up the problem that I often see in paranormal novels with characters who come into great power too quickly, it just leaves so little room for growth and discovering new, interesting powers. With the amount of power Quaeryt has, there doesn't seem to be any reason why Bhayar doesn't just detail a large enough squad of men to protect him, then send him to any capital city that refuses his entreaties and ...Boom!

I think Modesitt may be growing as bored with this series as I. Unfortunate, as I really loved where it seemed to be headed in the first couple of books. Thanks be that I'm not buying any of them, they show up rapidly at the public library.

Imager's Battalion by L.E. Modesitt

So, the thing this book reminds me of greatly is grinding out levels in MMOs. Quaeryt is now a subcommander in King  Bhayar's army, on the move towards the heart of Bovaria, where they will attempt to defeat the Kharst's forces. He continues to try to improve the skills of his small band of imagers along the way, and they fight in small skirmishes against ambushing forces, for the most part, until near the end of the campaign, when Quaryt and his band may be required to sacrifice everything for the sake of Telaryn.

Quaeryt's marriage to Bhayar's sister, Vaelora, continues happily along, despite their separation. She must remain behind in the capital city, Solis, with Bhayar's wife, Aelina, to keep the High Holders and Bhayar's ministers from building their own empires while the king is in the field with his armies. He and Vaelora keep in touch by letter, discussing obliquely all matters political, and not so obliquely their love for one another. The political gamesmanship goes on in the field as well, when the field marshall in charge of the army and his cronies try to put Quaeryt's battalion in harm's way as much as possible, hoping to rid themselves of one who has so much influence with Bhayar.

Not the most inspired novel in the series, but a necessary novel to get Quaeryt where Modesitt wants him, I suppose.

Princeps by L.E. Modesitt

Princeps returns us to the story of Quaeryt, who has thwarted the plots in Tilbor, and been rewarded for his efforts by being made Princeps of the area, and being wed to the lovely Vaelora, sister of Lord Bhayar. Quaeryt may be the perfect match for the strong-willed and intellectual woman, and as the story begins they are settling well into domesticity and he is doing an admirable job of keeping the place running smoothly.

Unfortunately, this idyl cannot last, and Bhayar soon needs Quaeryt to uproot his life once again to travel to Extela, where a volcanic eruption has devastated the old capital of Telaryn, to assume temporarily the post of Governor. Quaeryt and a regiment of troops make the long journey, with his wife by his side, and try to restore the city to some semblance of order. The previous governor and many of the city officials were  corrupt, and so Quaeryt faces some special challenges in establishing the only kind of rule he can - a just and orderly one. He has some difficulties with various High Holder and merchant factors, but seems to be succeeding despite this, when Bhayar has a new job for him.

He is to leave the city to a replacement governor and join Bhayar's troops on the border, where he will train a squad of imagers in the unfamiliar task of sabotaging the war plans of the Bovarians, who are determined to invade Telaryn.

The book moves steadily through Quaeyt's personal growth, and begins to lay the foundation for the future of imagers that we saw in the first few books of the portfolio. A wry and pleasant, yet philosophical, tale.

Scholar by L. E. Modesitt

It's occasionally frustrating for me when I'm following a series that I truly enjoy, such as Modesitt's Imager Portfolio, and the author suddenly shifts focus to tell stories about an entirely different protagonist, perhaps in an entirely different time period, still within the arc of the world created by that author. I don't know if Modesitt has simply said all he has to say about Rhenn, about whom the latest installment was Imager's Intrigue, but the new hero of these tales is Quaeryt, a young scholar from what appears to be hundreds of years earlier in the Portfolio timeline.

Quaeryt, orphaned early and raised by scholars, has somehow risen to the position of semi-trusted advisor to the ruler of Telaryn, Bhayar. When Bhayar asks Quaeryt's advice on what to do about the restive province of Tilbor, he admits he doesn't know enough about the area to offer a course of action (rare quality in a political advisor), and so Lord Bhayar sends him off to Tilbor with credentials allowing him to investigate matters.

Quaeryt also has some talent at imaging, which he conceals from others at all times, as imagers have always been suspect and persecuted for their abilities. As the story progresses, he tries to figure out ways to use his imaging inconspicuously in combat situations, just to stay alive. Scholars are also not highly respected in most lands, and Quaeryt encounters some authorities in one of the ports where he is stranded briefly who have driven the scholars out of town after one of them taught the mayor's wife how to read, write, and do figures. With such dangerous knowledge, she discovered her husband was cooking the books, and trouble followed. Knowledge is a dangerous thing.

On the next leg of his voyage, Quaeryt is shipwrecked, attacked by reavers, and falls seriously ill for a time (shades of Paul the apostle), then is nursed back to health by a kindly older couple. He eventually arrives in Tilbor, where he first stays with the local scholars and finds that something is not quite kosher about their organization, the Ecoliae, and suspects that they may be closely linked to the northern rebels, providing them with intelligence and support.

After some adventures there, he travels to the Telaryn Palace and joins the staff of the princeps, Straesyr, and the military governor of the province, Rescalyn. He is put on a long leash, and begins to work to find out what is really going on with the area. He accompanies some of the officers and rankers on their patrols, and becomes respected among them for his quick thinking and bravery during ambushes and other attacks.

Eventually, he (and we) figure out what's at the bottom of the troubles in Tilbor, and enacts a sneaky, underhanded solution to the problem.

Quaeryt should be a fun new protagonist in the Imager Portfolio, though I still miss Rhenn. Hopefully, Modesitt will shed some light on the origins of the Collegium (where Imagers study in the earlier books), and some of the other sociopolitical aspects of his world along the way.

Imager's Intrigue by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Modesitt has, over the years, delivered a strong and steady performance with his novels. Up until the Recluce saga got completely out of hand, I kept up with it, but I'm probably a dozen books behind now. In the Imager Portfolio series, he's come up with an interesting blend of a world at the beginning of its industrial revolution, yet still possessed of magic in the agency of the Collegium, a group of people called Imagers. The Imagers are people who can use their minds and the energy of the world around them to visualize and create matter - more or less out of thin air.

The hero of this saga is Rhenn, a young imager who has attained high status due to his ability rather rapidly. Imager's Intrigue, third in the series, takes place about three years after Imager's Challenge. Rhenn and his wife, Seliora, now have a three-year-old daughter, Diestrya whom they both dote on, and both her charm and her challenges are matter of factly laid bare throughout the book. Modesitt (so far) doesn't take the cheap shot of putting Diestrya into danger, and forcing Rhenn to act precipitously, as some other authors might. Rhenn can be precipitous enough just on his own!

Rhenn is serving as a captain of the third district of the city patrollers, as he did in the previous novel, and his area is a bit more peaceful than the rest of the city, due to his unorthodox style of dealing with the gangs, or taudis, in the district. But someone is introducing a stronger strain of an addictive herb called elveweed into the city, and it's causing an increased number of overdoses among its users, so Rhenn begins to investigate things to try and find out who is importing it, and why.

At the same time, there is a sudden outbreak of sabotage and suspicious explosions in the manufacturing facilities and grain storage areas of the city, and Rhenn suspects that the Ferrans, who are in an undeclared war with his country, Solidar, are to blame somehow. When a mortar attack on the Collegium kills the head of the organization and its head of security, Rhenn's mentor, Rhenn is promoted and must take responsibility for finding the killers.

The entire book proceeds slowly, methodically, and in a matter of fact tone from setup to resolution. It's vintage Modesitt, really. One little thing that's irritating, though, is his habit of having Rhenn, in the middle of a conversation, think to himself, "I suddenly understood why it was that...." and then not tell us what he suddenly understood. We have to wait until sometime later in the book, when Rhenn acts on his conclusions, to deduce what he had. Modesitt also likes to just leave some little mysteries unresolved, even when the book is resolved, which is really more in accordance with reality than what passes for mysteries and their solutions these days.

If you haven't read any of this series, get started with Imager, and read them all. You won't be sorry.