Imager’s Intrigue by L.E. Modesitt – review

Imager’s Intrigue is the third and, for now, at least, final book in the Imager Portfolio (per Modesitt’s website the next imager book he’s planning is set in a different time than this trilogy).  It does not pick up directly where the second book left off, but rather five years later, which makes this story almost a coda to the first two, as they were more closely linked—the second directly followed the first in timeline and dealt with the consequences that stemmed from the first book’s action.  I appreciated that it was not an immediate sequel, that life had time to roll along mostly unimpeded for a few years before another world-threatening crisis came up.

At the end of the second book Rhenn had been assigned to become the Civic Patrol Captain of the Third District; five years later he has exceeded everyone’s expectations for the job except his own.  He and Seliora have been married for most of these five years and now have a toddler; life is good.  Until problems slowly start mounting across the city, coincidences and repeated patterns that Rhenn is convinced relate to one another, somehow…but how?  All he has are his suspicions, his instincts, and his abilities as the most powerful imager in decades—but they’re not enough to stop a deadly plot that has been literally years in the making.  Rhenn is working against a clock to solve the mystery and derail the saboteurs before they’ve remade the face of his city and his society…but in the process he just might remake them himself.

So this book was right in line with the other two in pretty much all ways:  writing, pacing, characterization, and how much I loved it.  The story unfolds on a slow burn, as we spend the first 150-200 pages following Rhenn’s daily duties as a watch Captain and seeing with him all the strange new problems plaguing Solidar.  The turning point into decisive action comes a bit earlier in this book than the others, but the revelation of the intricacies of the intrigue is held until near the end, so that the last 75 or so pages are pretty much impossible to put down until you see how it all plays out and what, in fact, “it all” actually consists of.

Rhenn remains a fabulous hero.  He is more confident in his abilities and his decisions after 5 years running the Third District, now that he has a better context for what most imagers can and can’t do and what most imagers will or will not do (which might actually be the more important knowledge).  Yet he retains his sense of caution as he consciously tries to balance his pride in his accomplishments and his faith in his own reasoning and imaging abilities with the practical and modest outlook he was raised with.  As one of the characters suggests, Seliora in effect holds the fate of their society in her hands by being the one person Rhenn can turn to for honesty, criticism, support, or humbling when he needs it. 

It’s hilarious to think of the unassuming Rhenn from book 1 becoming “the most dangerous man in Solidar, maybe the world,” but yet by the end of this book he clearly has.  In part simply because, unlike all the politicians on the Council and unlike all the other imagers in recent history who have held high positions as imagers, Rhenn will act.  He’s too pragmatic to play games unless they directly meet his ends, and he is surprisingly ruthless—but yet that, too, extends from his earlier experiences.  I enjoy that Modesitt is not at all peacenik or into politicking; I found it refreshing to have a hero who didn’t wring his hands about the morality of what he was doing, but at the same time didn’t discount the severity of it.

The only criticism I could find—and this is, on reflection, not my experience reading, just something that occurred to me when I was analyzing the plot afterward—is that it’s not an emotional book despite the tragedies and near-tragedies that happen throughout it.  There aren’t very many moments of pain or regret that are dwelt on, despite there being plenty of room for both.  Which is not to say that I didn’t feel any emotions reading, because I did (frustration with the Council and others, relief when Rhenn escapes yet another assassination attempt, pride in Rhenn’s abilities, bone-crushing gratitude when he survives almost certain death to see his family again); but it’s not really an emotion-driven book. 

If you liked either of the first two books in this trilogy, definitely check this final volume out.  Even more so than the second book, it leaves Rhenn in a place where we’re comfortable never seeing him again; we have a pretty good idea of where his life will go and how he’ll steer it.  And if Modesitt decides to shake things up for him five or ten or twenty years down the road, you can bet I’ll be right there to read that one, too!