Showing results by author "L.E. Modesitt Jr." in All Categories

In Contrarian, protests against unemployment and poor harvests have become armed riots as the people sink deeper into poverty. They look to a government struggling to emerge from corruption and conspiracy. Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths—but not the recent bombing of the Council Office Building by insurrectionists.

Four centuries after its founding, Solidar's Collegium of Imagers is in decline, the exploits of its founder, the legendary Quaeryt, largely forgotten. The Collegium is so lacking in leadership that the dying Maitre must summon Alastar, an obscure but talented senior imager who has little knowledge of politics in the capital, as his successor.

Alastar has settled into his role as the Maitre of the Collegium. Now married with a daughter, he would like nothing better than to focus his efforts on improving Imager Isle and making it more self-sufficient. However, the rise in fortune of the merchant classes in Solidar over the years does not sit well with the High Holders, who see the erosion of their long-enjoyed privileges. Bad harvests and worse weather spark acts of violence and murder.

Major Jimjoy Earle Wright, secret agent of the Empire, is intelligent and highly trained. But he succeeds all too well in overthrowing a military dictatorship - and the result is a new government inimical to the Empire and disgrace for Jimjoy. After surviving two assassination attempts, Jimjoy realizes that it's his own imperial superiors who want him dead; that, in fact, his worst enemies could become his best friends. He fights his way to safety on the planet Accord, where the Ecolitan Institute wins his loyalty and changes his identity.

Steffan Dekkard is an isolate, one of the small percentage of people who are immune to the projections of empaths. As an isolate, he has been trained as a security specialist, and he and his security partner Avraal Ysella, a highly trained empath, are employed by Axel Obreduur, a senior Craft Minister and the de facto political strategist of his party. When a respected Landor Councilor dies of “heart failure” at a social event, because of his political friendship with Obreduur, Dekkard and Ysella find that not only is their employer a target, but so are they.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. presents Book 25 in the Saga of Recluce series.

Millennia ago, a magical disaster caused the fall of a great worldwide civilization, the end of a golden age. New civilizations have fought their way up from the ancient destruction and chaos, knowing little of the lost world that preceded them or the details of its fall.C orus today is a world of contending countries, of humans, but also of strange animals and supernatural creatures. It is a place of magical powers and of a few people who are talented enough to use them. Alusius, the hero of the story, is one.

The deadly White Wizards of Fairhaven, wielding the forces of chaos, have completed their great highway through the Westhorns and now threatened the ancient matriarchy of Sarronnyn, the last bastion of order in Candar. The ruler of Sarronnyn appeals to the Black order wizards of Recluce for help. Justen - a young Black Engineer in the city of Nylan - joins the relief force.

Alyiakal, overcaptain in the Mirror Lancers of Cyador, has completed his tour of duty as officer-in-charge of a small, remote post. He just wants to finish and see his best friend consorted and assume his next post assignment. If only it were that easy. He discovers corruption in the Merchanter Clans of Cyador, but investigating Mirror Lancer officers end up dead. Before he can go on leave, he has to replace one of these officers, close a post, dodge an attempt on his life, and an investigation from Magi-i.

Nylan is the engineer and builder whose job it is to raise a great tower on the plateau known as the Roof of the World. Here the exiled women warriors will live and survive to fulfill their destiny. Here a revolutionary new society will be born...if Nylan can get the tower built and defenses in place before the rulers of the lowland nations come with their armies to obliterate them all. And if Nylan can learn to control the magical powers that are growing within him.

Exploring the rich depths of the history of Recluce, Magi'i introduced Lorn, a talented boy born into a family of Magi'i. A fastidious student mage who lacked blind devotion, Lorn was made into a lancer officer and shipped off to the frontier. Having survived an extended stint fighting both barbarian raiders and the giant beasts of the Accursed Forest, Lorn has proven himself to be a fine officer - perhaps too fine an officer. As his prowess has grown, so has his number of enemies and rivals.

Rahl was a young apprentice on the island of Recluce who was sent to the mages' training school for testing, then banished to Hamor. His education now continues under dangerous circumstances. In Hamor, his powers have increased but so has the amount of trouble he attracts. The whole society of Hamor is a new culture for L. E. Modesitt, Jr., to explore, one in which magic is a monopoly of the state. Rahl is a mage now, powerful and still just as dangerous to himself and to others.

As the Alector Colonel of Myrmidons, Dainyl is the fourth highest ranking military officer of the Duarchy. Alectors are a race apart from the normal inhabitants of Corus, from another world. But there is a rebellion brewing against them.

Kharl is the best cooper in Brysta, and his life has been as snug and regular as his barrels. But in the course of just a few days, it's all staved in. When a young blackstaffer from Recluce is mysteriously murdered in his cooperage, Kharl is summarily jailed. Then, in a shocking turnaround at the trial, his innocent consort is blamed for the killing and quickly executed. Kharl ends up destitute and on the run, but he does take the slain woman's black staff and the book "The Basis of Order", which explains the principles of its power.

Scarcely a year after the events of Cyador's Heirs, Lerial uses his mastery of Order and Chaos, the competing natural forces that shape his world and define the magic that exists within it, to utterly destroy an Afritan military force crossing into Cigoerne. Five years later, Lerial, now an overcaptain and a field commander of Cigoerne's Mirror Lancers, must lead three companies of troops into Afrit on a mission of mutual interest.

The thrilling follow-up to Scholar - in which, after discovering a coup attempt and preventing a bloody civil war, Quaeryt was appointed princeps of Tilbor - begins a new episode in the young Imager's life. Now second only to the governor, and still hiding his powers as an Imager, Quaeryt is enjoying his new position, as well as his marriage to Lord Bhayar's youngest sister, Vaelora, when a volcanic eruption devastates the old capital of Telaryn. He and his wife are dispatched to Extela, Telaryn's capitol city, to replace the governor killed in the eruption.

Rather than accepting a marriage arranged by his mother, the powerful military matriarch of Westwind, Creslin chooses exile, setting out to find his own identity and developing his magical talents through conflict with the enigmatic white wizards of Candar. What Creslin doesn't know he stands in the way of their plot to subjugate the world.

Who controls reality? And how? Ask the timedivers who ride the paths of time, manipulate cultures, lift and cast down civilizations in their corner of the galaxy. They are the Temporal Guard at Quest, the single city of the Immortals of Query, that hidden planet circling a very ordinary yellow sun in a very ordinary galaxy. This is the story of the timediver Loki, and of the unending war for control of reality in that galaxy.

Decades after the fall of Cyador, its survivors have reestablished themselves in Cigoerne, a fertile country coveted by hostile neighbors in less hospitable lands. Young Lerial, the second son of Duke Kiedron, lives in the shadow of his older brother Lephi, the heir to their father's realm. Lerial's future seems preordained: He will one day command his brother's forces in defense of Cigoerne, serving at his older sibling's pleasure and no more.

Hundreds of years before the time of Imager, the continent of Lydar is fragmented. Years of war have consolidated five nations into three-Bovaria, Telaryn, and Antiago. Quaeryt is a scholar and friend of Bhayar, the young ruler of Telaryn. Worried about his future and the escalating intrigues in Solis, the capital city, Quaeryt persuades Bhayar to send him to Tilbor.