18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
War Is Hell, Great Book, January 6, 2000
This being the 5th book of my Recluse voyage, I must say that I consider myself a veteran of the series. I have read Fall of Angels and The Chaos Balance, The Magic of Recluse and The Towers of the Sunset. Readers new to the series may wonder where to start. A good site that has the order the books were written in is has the chronological list if you choose to read them that way, suggest reading the books in the order that they were written. In my opinion the Magic Engineer is the best of the 5 that I have read to date and its main character Dorrin, is my favorite.
The Magic Engineer centers around a young healer named Dorrin. Dorrin is more than a healer. He is an inventor, a blacksmith, an engineer, a military engineer, a lover and a wizard of order. The themes of order versus chaos are prevalent as it is in all the Recluce books. Modesitt's Reluse series is after all based on his clever order - chaos (good and evil) paradigm and the effects of the world when the order - chaos balance is disturbed. The primary theme throughout the story is young Dorrin's desire to create machines, which by their nature use chaos. Dorrin, being an order wizard, is promptly exiled until he puts more thought into how his machines will play upon his worlds delicate balance between order and chaos. I cannot do this theme justice in trying to describe it, but Modesitt is brilliant in weaving order and chaos and their underlying principles throughout the story.
The story is more than a seminar on order and chaos though. There is a major and extremely bloody war which Dorrin plays a prominent part in. Dorrin as a healer touched me a lot. There is a love story which has major issues. Through all of my Recluse readings, Modesitt wraps his characters in real world issues experienced by many of us. Yes, the book is fantasy, but Modesitt makes us think about why his characters do what they do. How they feel when they do something. How others perceive their actions and the consequences or benefits derived.
Modesitt is not an author that makes things up as he writes. There is a tremendous amount of thought and creativity put into the Recluse books. Because it is a series and because the books are not written chronologically, Modesitt ensures that everything comes together and his world remains consistent and true. There are no holes. In The Magic of Recluse, we read of young Lerris in the city of Nylan and reading The Basis of Order. In the Magic Engineer, you get to see how Nylan was founded and how The Basis of Order was authored. It is great when an author cares about his readers and that is plainly evident.
The Magic Engineer, like Fall Of Angels, has a blacksmith. Modesitt has substantial knowledge of this and other trades which is demonstrated by his writings. It is fresh to read not just that a character created something, but how it was created. The materials that were needed, the design. The recognition that a mistake may have been made in its creation, that there might be a better way to do it or that someone else may be better off doing it next time.
What really makes this book great is that Dorrin is a good person, he loves animals, he helps people, he is patriotic to his homeland and he works hard. He is also referred to as a monster, selfish and the devil himself. How can this be? Read and find out. I don't think you will be disappointed.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Excellent Combination, September 6, 2002
Like "Armor", this book combines two of my interests. I enjoy fantasy works, and I am interested in engineering of many types.
Admittedly the cover art drew me in as well. I was pleased to find that judging this book by its cover was worth the risk.
Dealing with common themes, such as coming of age, and rebelling against the established society, this epic moves the reader with compelling characters and excellent description of everyday events. After finishing this installment, which can be read as a stand-alone novel, I began purchasing the rest of the series. As far as I'm concerned voting with my wallet outweighs anything else I can say.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I enjoyed reading this., June 19, 2000
Since the first book, Modesitt's writing has been getting better and better. By that, I mean his characters are being developed better and his storytelling was improving. The confusion I felt reading the first book has slowly decreased throughout the series. This book was on the verge of earning four stars.
The character development in this book was better than the first two installments in the Recluce series. I found myself caring for what happened to them. I still think the story gets a little slow in the middle of the book (the same is true for the first two). It's almost as if the author has a hard time developing characters and furthering the plot at the same time. The first third sets up the story and introduces the plot, the middle third is all character development with hardly any plot, and the last third contains most of the plot as well as the climax (in this case, there were two climaxes...I'm still trying to figure out which was the main one) and resolution.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It seemed to get a little slow in the middle, but seeing the characters grow was almost worth it. With the improvement in this book, the next one is that much more enticing. I'm really getting into the story he's trying to tell in the series.
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