Author: L.E. Modesitt Jr.
Cover Artist: Darrell K. Sweet
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publication Date: 2008
Natural Ordermage is the 14th novel in Modesitt’s best know series, the Recluce Saga. The Recluce Saga is somewhat unusual because it published well out of chronological order, with the first novel The Magic of Recluce being the second to last chronologically. The author insists they are to be read in order of publication and I agree with him. At least until you have read the series once. Another unusual aspect of this series is that is shows both sides of the conflict. Modesitt write from the point of view of both order and chaos wielders, elevating the series above the standard good versus evil story. Natural Ordermage and the immediate sequel Mage-Guard of Hamor are chronologically between Colors of Chaos and The Order War. Even if you do not wish to follow the publication order when reading this series Natural Ordermage is not a good point to enter. You’ll quickly get confused in the history of the world and the conflict between order and chaos.
This conflict is the basic theme for all the Recluce novels. Although the origins of the conflict are shrouded in mystery the story seems to start about a century and a half before the events in Magi’i of Cyador, to date the first book chronologically with the founding of the chaos driven empire of Cyador, later to be balanced/oposed by order based nations such as Westwind and Recluse. Order and chaos are carefully balanced and cancel each other out when the free chaos and free order collide. The magic of Recluce seems to be inspired by a number of physical phenomena, one of the more obvious ones being the duality of light, but don’t quite follow the rules of physics as we know them. Any use, or overuse in order results in more free chaos being available for those who are attuned to that kind of magic and vice versa. The balance ensures that the use of order or chaos must be carefully weighed against the consequences of upsetting the balance. Spectacular uses of either power usually results in an equally spectacular backlash.
Some six centuries have passed since the founding of the state of Recluce, a haven for those who follow order. It has become something of a power in the word, especially after the founding of Nylan as related in The Magical Engineer. A council mages carefully sees to it that those who show chaotic tendencies or who misuse order as exiled. Rahl is a young scrivener’s apprentice who is very aware of the fact he has certain order talents. He is very careful to hide them so as not to attract the attention of the council wizards though. Still, he finds his talents useful in being more successful with the local girls and that is what gets him in trouble. He gets one of the young women he has his eyes on pregnant and her family demands they marry. Events soon start to turn heated and after a fight in which Rahl uses his order abilities to defend himself he finds himself facing the council. The verdict is exile to Nylan. In the port city of Recluce’s engineers they handle order differently. Maybe he’ll fit in there.
Rahl soon finds out that he cannot be taught to master his order abilities satisfactory at Nylan either. He is what the mages call a Natural Ordermage. His talents are intuitive, he can do things that takes other mages years of study to accomplish without really understanding what he is doing. This lack of understanding makes him unpredictable. The mages even consider him a danger to his surroundings. All efforts to teach him seem to be futile and after an incident involving a rather big explosion the rules of Nylan order his exile form the port city. He will be sent to Hamor.The powerful, continent spanning Hamorian empire has quite a different view on order and chaos. But again Rahl manages to get into serious trouble. This time it may cost him his life.
The Recluce series has had it’s ups and downs, there’s a couple of good books in this series and a few I didn’t enjoy so much. After the 12th and 13th book in the series, Ordermaster and Wellspring of Chaos, both dealing with the Ordermage Karl, I thought Modesitt didn’t have much more to add to his overall history of Recluce. He explored some continents we hadn’t visited yet but Karl doesn’t seem to have been involved in one of the defining moments in the history of Recluse. In this book we get a few interesting hints though.The story of Rahl seems to be connected to a comment made by the Ordermage Cassius in The Magic of Recluce (the same Cassius as in the story included in Viewpoints Critical). I’ll have to read the next book to be sure but he appears to be referring to the same rebellion mentioned in Natural Ordermage. There are also some hint of a connection between Hamor and the ancient Cydoran empire toppled by Nylan in The Chaos Balance. Hamor is proving to be much more interesting than Nordla and Austra.
The main character of this book and the next, Modesitt has written a lot of the Recluce books in pairs, is somewhat unusual choice for Modesitt. Most of them are somewhat likeable. Not Rahl though, at the opening of the book he is the type that is too clever to lie but cannot to be trusted anyway. If your teenage daughter brought him home you’d try the cleaning-your-shotgun-while-having-a-nice-chat routine on him. If you let him in at all. Rahl grows throughout the novel though. As I mentioned above Rahl is very difficult to teach. He has to find things out for himself, usually the hard way. It shapes his character. I’m not sure if I like him at the end of Natural Ordermage but he certainly did grow up.
When I read the synopsis of Natural Ordermage a while ago I was a bit disappointed that Modesitt chose to write another Recluse book from the point of view of an Ordermage. Only four of the 15 books in the series are written from the chaos point of view. Which leaves a lot of the history of that side of magic unexplored. Both the founding of the White Order and that of Cyador remain a mystery for instance. I enjoyed the chaos books quite a lot so I had hoped Modesitt would add a chapter to those. That being said Natural Ordermage didn’t disappoint me in the least. Unlike the previous two books, which gave me the impression Modesitt was done with the Recluce books, this book is a solid entry into the series. I can think of a number of Recluce novels I enjoyed more and it certainly doesn’t contain any surprises in style, choice of subject or main character, it does add some interesting things to the overall story and sets us up for what could be a very interesting continuation of Rahl’s story. Mage-Guard of Hamor has been released last month in hardcover. I will try to get it reviewed as soon as I get my hands on it.
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