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Summary: The discription and art is the only magic here
Review: It was the cover art that first caught my eye, it was beautiful. This book is very descriptive but at the same time it can also be very boring. This is not the stories fault no, not by any means the story itself is in depth and descriptive. I loved the story when I finally found the time to finish it. My main complant is about the main character "Lerris" I found him to be an annoying dork. This again is not his fault I probably would be as boring as Lerris had I grown up in a land as self righteous as Recluce. It seemed to me like whenever the story threatened to pick up speed or become interesting such as the conflict between the White wizards and the Grey Wizards Lerris would start whining about how bored he was with everything. We have to endure 300 pages of him listening impatiently to his teachers. I mean if he can do it better then everyone else why doesn't he shut up and movie the story along. My Impression-The story is good and other books in this serise are indeed excellent(I started I reverse order) but if I have to deal with "Lerris" for another book I think I will skip "towers at sunset". The Villians were fleshed out and all charecter were taken as far as they could go. It was refeshing to see a practical approach to magic
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Summary: For those with eyes to see.
Review: Okay,this could be one of Modesitt's most captivating and thoughtful works since "The Ecolitan Operation". I don't usually pick up books with castles, horses and swordsmen on the cover, but this one correctly uses those archetypes as the vehicle for exploring the realm of mental potential; even today, in the third millenium. Not much swashbuckling there for those who have no eyes to see with yet, but the work is an absolute relief and a chilling wake-up call for those who have real questions. ;o) A handbook for operating the mind. Sort of reminds me of Roger Zelazny's lessons with his Hell-Rides through chaos, although more detailed, this ride is real. Fine job, Order-Master Modesitt. I've sent for "The Towers of Sunset".
Rating: 
Summary: Slow start, marvelous finish
Review: First off, let me just say that it took me 3 tries to finish this book all because of the really slow beginning. The first 100 pages or so is a lot of background info on the setting and main characters of the novel. But once you get through this part and understand how the world of Recluce revolves around black and white magic, the action begins and the book turns into a very interesting read. Lots of action and suspense. It kind of reminds me of how you feel when you're playing a really good rpg game. Overall a good adventure for those who are patient with the slow beginning.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring is as boring does
Review: ...However a well read fantasy loving friend pressed this book, and the next five in the series, into my hand saying that I must read this as soon as possible. Works like fantastic, incredible and glorious were tossed around rather freely while my friend sang the books praises. I am happy to say that I finished "The Magic of Recluse" though it was difficult. Two sensations followed me as I read; bewilderment and boredom. In the first three chapters we met Lerris and his family and their well ordered country. Unfortunately I couldn't tell any of his relatives apart, the family members were at best two-dimensional and none of them seemed to have anything resembling a personality. Lerris follows his family in this fashion. Mr. Modesitt fails to create any compelling characters, they all lack any sort of depth and any sort of motivation. As a side note I would like to say that I am sick to death of characters "destined for greatness" naturally it was not long before Lerris discovers the he is destined for greatness as an Order Master. I'm not sure what qualifies one to be on Order Master, however whining seems to be a prime requisite. Lerris seems to spend most of his free time complaining. I clearly remember reading somewhere around page 25 and Lerris was complaining (yet again) about how bored he was, I put the book down at that point because I was bored as well. Only commitment to my friend and the idea that there must be something worthwhile in this novel brought me back to it. I had a brief hope that once Lerris left his boring homeland island something interesting would happen. That hope died rather quickly. There is an anticlimactic fight which according to the character simply had to happen though for the life of me I am at a loss to discover any reason at all as to why it had to happen. Many people insist that the book does get better as it goes along but that does not make up for or excuse the first half of this book. Many people have called the concepts Mr. Modesitt uses unique though I would be hard pressed to understand why. From what I read I doubt the author had a grasp of just how his magic system would work. It is a cumbersome system of magic but I do not think that being cumbersome qualifies it as unique. I won't go into Mr. Modesitt's attempts to provide sound effects in place of descriptive prose, other reviewers have made their feelings on this clear and I can add nothing no beyond my complaint that they are annoying and distracting. I recognize that first novels are often a little rough around the edges and I am willing to forgive an awful lot of clumsy prose and plotting blunders in exchange for a good story. Mr. Modesitt fails to provide even a mediocre story and that fact just magnifies his poor technique. Structurally there are significant problems, Mr. Modesitt has the unfortunate habit of switching from past to present tense and from first to third person seemingly at random. However the technical problems of his writing pale when compared to the lack of depth, mood and emotion Mr. Modesitt conveys in his writing. The book as a whole reads like a poorly plotted first draft. I am amazed the editors at TOR published this at all.
Rating:
Summary: Facinating...
Review: The Magic of Recluce is a fascinatingly interesting novel primarily because it does not follow any fantasy cliches. Many people think this tale is boring primarily due to the lack of its cliches, however it is a refreshing and quick paced novel. Lerris is an unforgettable and incredibly entertaining character. His coming of age journey is easy to identify with. This book should be read by any lover of fantasy novels.
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Summary: Worst book in print?
Review: I was marginally interested in the whole chaos-order premise and found his home isle to be interesting for the first 50 pages of 3rd grader narrative description, but I found myself hating every pathetic excuse for a character in the book. Also the horse going Whheeeee....eeeee....eeeee.....eeeee with the noises spelled out is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in print, though I am sure it is not intended to be. Every attempt at characterization is pathetically weak, and I cannot think of a single character with a noticable personality. Also, I am sick and tired of all-powerful characters as this eliminates any suspense. I am cursed in that I never stop reading a book once I pick it up, but at the conclusion of this one I hurled it with great force.
Rating:
Summary: the worst fantasy book i have ever read
Review: This has to be the worst fantasy book i have ever read. The first 100 pages of the book are so boring! Plus you've got all the stupid sentences that have sounds written out like a door going cree......creek.....cree or other stuff like that, things like that get annoying very fast. This book to me was just very boring nothing happened.The characters are incredibly boring too. I would never recomend this book to anyone its horrible.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining overall
Review: This was the first book I've read by LE Modesitt, I keep coming back to it as being one of the better ones, but like all of his books, you have to put effort into reading them. I love the overall story of Lerris finding his way and finding himself. I love the magical system, especially the ironic black being good, white being evil. But I hate that I have to read and re-read bits because it suddenly gets interesting 1/2 way through the book and I've just glazed over the first part and missed important bits. I think for die-hard fantasy readers, this is an awesome series, if you like lord of the rings and other heavy-ish books, this is the series for you. If you like light, quick reads, pick something else. :)
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Summary: I WAS SO BORED
Review: I had picked up this book because I was looking for a new series to spend my time reading... trust me it definitly took up time.
I Hated this book with a passion I have been reading fantasy books for 10 years and have a serious collection going. But until this moment I never had read a fantasy book this bad. The character Lerris was so bored and whinny that just wanted to shoot him with some chaos magic and get it over with. The bad guy Antoinne or something like that didn't have any character development...he was just some guy using chaos magic and commanding things from a distance. The noise effects came out of nowhere every couple of paragraph the stupid horse would whinny "wheee...". It was really dumb. By the end of the book I was skimming pargraphs rather then reading. The only intresting thing was Lerris's love intrests, not the character's themselves but the developing relationship. Unfortunately this wasn't really explored in depth.
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad effort...
Review: Modesitt's main strength in this novel is the ability to closely relate the reader to the main character, Lerris, through good use of narrative, dialogue, and first person perspective. Having said that, I enjoyed the simplicity of the story, and it was nice to get away from the usual "forces of evil out to destroy the world" treatment that is so prevalent in fantasy these days. Unfortunately, Modesitt's weaknesses here bear the mark of the amateur writer, and, frankly, I'm amazed that this story was published in it's current form. The author periodically jaunts into interludes with other characters, switching from first person, past tense, to third person in present tense. The change in tense annoys me, and I feel that it disrupts the flow of the story. I don't believe that narrative written in present tense has a place in fiction, and I found myself skimming or even skipping sections of the interludes. Even had the interludes been written in past tense, I don't think that the additional narrative contributed enough to the novel to make the distraction from the main story worthwhile. Modesitt's second, and much more glaring, stylistic no-no was the constant use of sound effects. Sound effects are fine as part of dialogue; people actually speak that way, but the use of sound effects in narrative is the mark of poor writing, laziness, or both. Well-written metaphors and adjectives can convey the same meaning and provide a clearer image of what's happening without annoying the reader. To the author's credit, the volume of sound effects decreases noticeably as the text progresses. Last and least, Modesitt's descriptions in the first half of the book tend to be sterile, especially the descriptions of places and rooms. The descriptions may provide technical details to the reader (length and width of the room, number of doors, etc), but they fail to convey much feeling about the setting. These sections, too, I frequently skimmed, as I sought where the dialogue picked up again. Just as with the sound effects, however, as the story progressed, the descriptions improved substantially, and by midway through the novel, the author began showing a more polished understanding of how to describe the setting. Overall, Modesitt's easy grasp of dialogue and clear understanding of Lerris's character made the story work, but the author's stylistic choices were questionable at best. "The Magic of Recluce" could have benefitted from another rewrite or two. The novel still interested me enough that I picked up "The Towers Of The Sunset". "The Towers," however, appears to be written entirely in third person, present tense, and seventy pages into the story, I'm having a very hard time relating to any of the characters. I keep reading, wondering, "Where's Lerris, and when is Modesitt going to switch tenses again?" For the first time in years, I'm tempted to put down a book.
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