This is grown up fantasy – where notions of tolerance versus enlightened dictatorship, colliding religious views, and the consequences of power and its abuse can all be examined. Modesitt’s strength is establishing textured, believable worlds where his characters can discuss and critique their experiences of different forms of governance. I’ve read grumbles about the relatively slow pacing of the storyline – however I didn’t find this a problem.

As Rhenn learns more during his highly specialised training, he discovers that Solidar’s supremacy comes at a very high price… Politically, Solidar is powerful but isolated by its religious belief that Naming a deity is well on the way to blasphemy – but the dealbreaker is Solidar’s tolerance of imagers. This is an intriguing, layered world that closely resembles the Renaissance period in its technology and cut-throat attitude to other states and religions. He makes a powerful enemy while righting a wrong and begins to learn to live a life doing magic in secret. In this new life, Rhenn discovers that all too many of the ‘truths’ he knew were nothing of the sort and that every day brings a new threat to his life. Now he must leave his family and join the Collegium of Imagisle, where because of their powers (including the ability to do accidental magic even while asleep) and because they are both feared and vulnerable, imagers live separately from the rest of society.

In a single moment, Rhenn’s entire life is transformed when his master patron is killed in a flash fire and Rhenn discovers he is an imager – one of the few in the entire world of Terahnar who possess the power to visualize things and make them real. He is skilled and diligent enough to be considered for the status of master artisan – in another two years. After all, anything written by this experienced and prolific author is always worth checking out – and this one is certainly worth the effort.Īlthough Rhennthyl is the son of a leading wool merchant in L’Excelsis, the capital of Solidar and the most powerful nation on Terahnar, he has spent years becoming a journeyman artist. When I came across this relatively new fantasy series by Modesitt, I decided to hunt down the first book.

Imager le modesitt