The White Order

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The prolific and popular fantasy author adds to his Recluce series (The Chaos Balance, etc.), with this entry tracing the rise of an orphan, Cerryl, to powerful magicianship. That's a venerable concept, but Modesitt keeps it fresh with crisp characters and a consistent, well-detailed setting. The magical system employed here features white chaos magic, somehow connected to the colors of light, and the magic of order, which is black and associated with cold iron. The background is medieval Europeanlargely preliterate, with guilds and apprenticeshipsbut Modesitt uses historical details to create a vivid, realistic culture instead of a stereotyped fantasy world. Cerryl's apprenticeships in a wood mill and, later, to a scrivener lend depth to his ensuing, more magical, adventures. Like many fantasy heroes, Cerryl is virtuous but has unusual magical potential, leading to opportunities but also to problems, especially from jealous apprentices or mages of the White Order. The theme of power, including its uses and misuses, and its various forms, magical, political and sexual, runs throughout the book. As the novel widens its focus from Cerryl's education to his involvement with war, intrigue and assassination, it becomes more colorful but less original. Still, Modesitt provides the requisite adventure and wizardry, plus people and places that are as true as they are magical. Author tour. (June)

VOYA - Marsha Valance

In The White Order, Modesitt makes a totally new departure in his ongoing Saga of the Recluce, where Order and Chaos continually struggle for dominance. This time the story centers on the white magicians, descendants of refugees stranded on this world centuries ago after a starship crash. The white magicians used ordered energies to terraform the world by force, so as to provide a power source from the resulting imbalance for the use of their children's children. Cerryl, orphaned by the white magicians who executed his Talented father, is recruited as a mage candidate because of his own potential for understanding the forces of order. A survivor, Cerryl avoids the jealous traps set by other white magicians, determined both to survive and protect others from injustice. As in previous books in the Recluce series, Modesitt skillfully combines credible characters, an exceptionally well-realized alien world, plenty of action, and as usual, philosophical discussions of power and the consequences of its misuse, into the fast-moving plot. By focusing for the first time on a protagonist of Order, he deepens our understanding of both Recluce's underlying magical structure and of the almost feudal relationship between the White Order and the inhabitants of the lands they control. The reader learns along with Cerryl, who is studying the background of his own society in the Order's school. The White Order strengthens the reader's understanding of Recluce through the presentation of the Order's world view, as in all the previous volumes the protagonists were from the side of Chaos. In the character of Cerryl, Modesitt gives the reader a hero who must conform to survive, but does so without surrendering his own individual values. As always, Modesitt's newest chapter in the Recluce saga is a worthwhile addition to any YA collection. [Please note: when reading this book for review I noticed that the endpaper map did not agree with the geography of the novel. I contacted Tor and learned that due to an error, The White Order received the endpaper map for The Spellsong War (Tor, 1998/reviewed in this issue) which is not set in Recluce. Anyone who purchases The White Order is entitled to a free poster map of Recluce from Tor. Send your request to: Tor Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, (212) 388-0100, http://www.tor.com.]. VOYA Codes: 5Q 4P S (Hard to imagine it being any better written, Broad general YA appeal, Senior High-defined as grades 10 to 12).

Library Journal

As an apprentice scrivener, Cerryl discovers his inherent talent for chaos magic, inherited from his father, a fugitive white mage. Taken to study with the mages of the White Order of Fairhaven, Cerryl learns to harness magic from his teachersone of whom is bent on his destruction. Set in the same time period as The Magic Engineer (LJ 3/15/94), Modesitt's ninth novel in his popular "Recluce" series continues the epic history of a world where chaos and order vie for ultimate control. The author's low-key approach to high fantasy results in an intimate, thoughtful tale that belongs in most fantasy collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/98.]

Kirkus Reviews

Another episodeþthe eighth so farþin Modesitt's continuing battle between White (Chaos) magic and Dark (Order) magic (most recently, The Chaos Balance, 1997). Young orphan Cerryl discovers that he has a talent for glimpsing distant places and people in odd fragments of mirror; and in a mostly illiterate society, he has a hunger to learn how to read. Apprenticed to a kindly miller, whose daughter teaches him his letters, young Cerryl learns the truth about his magic-touched father, and resolves someday to travel to the city Fairhaven, stronghold of the most powerful Chaos magicians, and there discover his destiny. A quality series that's settled into a pleasantly understated, modestly involving groove.