The Order War [Hardcover]

L.E., Jr. Modesitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1995

Appealing to the Black order Wizards of Recluce and a young engineer named Justin, the ruler of Sarronnyn hopes to preserve an ancient matriarchy that is threatened by the White Wizards of Fairhaven. By the author of The Magic Engineer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this fourth tale set in Modesitt's universe, where good and evil, chaos and order, are in perpetual conflict, a young wizard reluctantly finds that his destiny is to strike a balance, but at considerable personal cost. Sometime well after the events in The Magic Engineer and before The Magic of Recluce, order engineer Justen, a junior in his guild, volunteers for a force sent by Recluce to aid the matriarchy of Sarronnyn, under attack by the White Wizards of Fairhaven in their move to extend the rule of chaos. The vastly outnumbered armies of order nearly succeed in holding back the conquerors, mostly due to Justen's development of chaos-destroying weapons and the efforts of his brother Gunnar, a powerful Air Wizard who marshals the weather as a formidable weapon and unleashes flash floods. But treason fells the defenders, and Justen is separated from his cohorts and ends up wandering in the deserts of Candar. Rescued by the druid Dayala, he is taken to her people in Naclos, where he learns about living in perfect harmony with nature, and about his fearsome destiny to curtail the savage war between order and chaos. Although at times his villains seem a touch unsophisticated and even simpleminded for the evil they perpetrate, Modesitt creates a deeper and more intricate world with each volume.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When the White Wizards of Fairhaven unleash their chaos-borne powers against the forces of order while laying siege to the land of Sarronyn, the order-bound Black Wizards of Recluce enter the battle on the side of the defenders. Justen, a young Black Engineer, discovers that the only sure road to victory over chaos involves breaching the gap between chaos and order-an action both forbidden and dangerous. In this latest addition to the Recluce saga, Modesitt (The Magic Engineer, LJ 3/15/94) fills another gap in this history of a world's ongoing struggle to balance opposing forces. The author's ability to concentrate on the personal lives of the characters as well as their involvement in world-shaking decisions gives depth and believability to a unique fantasy environment. A strong choice for most fantasy collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 479 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (January 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312855699
• ISBN-13: 978-0312855697
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,081,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After spending years writing poetry, political speeches and analyses, as well as economic and technical reports on extraordinarily detailed and often boring subjects, I finally got around to writing my first short story, which was published in 1973. I kept submitting and occasionally having published stories until an editor indicated he'd refuse to buy any more until I wrote a novel. So I did, and it was published in 1982, and I've been writing novels -- along with a few short stories -- ever since.

If you want to know more, you can visit my website at www.lemodesittjr.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much better!, August 4, 2000

By 

Christopher Ware (Fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

This, the fourth book in the series (after THE MAGIC OF RECLUCE, TOWERS OF THE SUNSET, and THE MAGIC ENGINEER), is a vast improvement over the others. The pacing in this book was so much better. The other three had large sections in the middle where nothing really happened, at least in terms of plot progression. This book has slow areas, but they were the slow areas of mostly any other good book out there. They were used for character development rather than for philosophy, as in the first three books. In addition to the better pacing, Modesitt has cut down on the utterly confusing leaps of intuition that were a glaring mark throughout the first three books.

Modesitt's characterizations continue to be very strong here. All of the characters in his books are believable and the villains are not just some two dimensional cardboard cutout. I think the characterizations are the strongest part of Modesitt's writing. Since there's not always a lot of action, the growth of the characters is what keeps my attention in these books.

Modesitt continues to build a vivid, interesting world. I can't wait to find out what this "Legend" he keeps talking about really is. The only real shortcoming of this book is the lack of maps so I can figure out where the heck the characters are in relation to places they've been!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ultimately Delivers, But ...., January 20, 2000

By 

sysgen - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Order War (Recluce series, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

In my opinion, a step down in the quality of the series thus far. Though fantasy, Modesitt asks his Order War readers to accept a lot. At times he justifies his main characters actions which says to me that either the story has some holes which he needs to fill quickly or the plot and his character (in this case Justen) are not developed enough to make the story unfold. I found my self thinking while I read that this doesn't quite make sense. I understand it is fantasy, but I have come to expect a certain quality from Modesitt's Recluce, as the author to this point in the series has set. I cannot elaborate further without giving away the book. With that much said, I did finish the last half of the book in a day, and as usual Modesitt delivers in the end. I found the ending to Order War excellent and up to par with the rest of the series.

Order War is about Justen, the first gray wizard. Recluce veterans will remember Justen from the first written Recluce book, "The Magic of Recluce". Order War takes place chronologically before MOR and here we get to see how Justen becomes a gray wizard. All in all a decent read for series veterans.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good book, but a step down from the previous two, October 22, 2003

By 

C. T. Hunter "chips_books" (Gainesville, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Order War (Hardcover)

This book brings the Rucluce Saga full circle with the introduction of Justen the Gray and the destruction of Fairhaven. I was really excited about this story because I thought that those two topics could be really great. However, I was somewhat dissapointed in many aspects of this book. I don't really know what it was, but I just wasn't able to get into this book as much as I did the last couple. Much of the book seemed to drag on with very little being accomplished, and while the action was thrilling (with Justen and Gunnar whipping the Whites, and the Whites whipping innocent people in turn) it was few and far between. I think more could have been done with the druids (I don't feel like the reader really learns much about them) and with the Black Devil (which just supplied transport for Justen to get to Fairhaven) and what was with the metal rods that Justen used to kill those last Whites??

Look, this is a good book that fits nicely into the saga, but it just didn't live up to what I was expecting. I still look forward to the next book, in which the story returns to Lerris.