Excellent character study
March 5, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
Excellent character study. I like how details of the plot are revealed bit by bit by jumping from one set of characters to another. The fantasy world of Recluce is believable, likeable, and so interesting! I highly recommend this book. ( )

how the Island of Recluce began. Characters are hard headed and asinine. Seems to be a trait Modesitt enjoys. ( )

This is the book that made me almost give up on Recluce before I started. It's written in present tense, which is true of many of the books in the series, but is particularly jarring here. Creslin's a bit of a cipher, when he's not whining, and Megaera only stops whining to throw a tantrum. The worldbuilding is scanty, and Creslin is so powerful he sucks all of the drama out of the action scenes. There are a couple of nice moments, but on the whole this is my least favorite of all the Recluce novels. ( )

Both this and The Magic of Recluce read very much like first novels—there's potential, but they're not polished. I enjoyed Magic of Recluce, but I wasn't ready to get out of that part of the chronology... though I was grateful for having fewer sound effects.

This book seemed like there was a story that Modesitt wanted to get out, but it didn't happen very well. I didn't feel like the world had been fleshed out enough for a backstory (yet), and I spent most of the book wanting to sock the main characters.

I did not enjoy the florid song lyrics (also, no reliable meter? sigh), nor did I enjoy the sound effects. Both are very distracting. Calling women "bitches" more often than not? C'mon, Modesitt, you're an author. Surely you have better words... or you can at least mix it up once in a while. To be fair, all of these complaints hold for the first book as well.

The story overall I ended up liking more as time went on. Still not as interesting as Magic, but it was a nice mental break. I'm glad to see that the third book draws more on the background provided in this book, so we'll see how the rest of the series plays out. ( )

Good, but the first volume is the best. ( )