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Colors Of Chaos (2000)

Colors of Chaos (2000)

Book Info

Genre
Rating
4.06 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0812570936 (ISBN13: 9780812570939)
Language
English
Publisher
tor fantasy

About book Colors Of Chaos (2000)

This book concludes a sorta-trilogy of Recluse novels. The first one the White Order follows the story of Cerryl a white mage (turning grey) as he grows up and joins the White Order. The second, the Magic Engineer, follows the story of Dorrin a very black mage who is exiled from Recluse and goes through tribulations before returning to Recluse and being granted a small part of the island where he founds a new city. The Colors of Chaos, returns to follow the story of Cerryl and covers almost exactly the same time period as The Magic Engineer. This is my major problem with the book. It felt like I had already read this book just from another point of view. If I had read this without the Magic Engineer in-between I would have likely rated it much higher than only two stars. In addition to my emotional reaction to feeling like I'm rereading what I just read, I also think that the first two thirds of this book is just paced to slowly. We already know that Jesslic and Anya are bad guys. Having to spend so much more time reestablishing their bad credentials just bogged the story down. The final third was enjoyable as it moved back into more action and less belly gazing as well as filled in some details that were never covered in the previous book. I was disappointed by two things, that this would have been a perfect book to wrap up from the pervious ones. 1) Did someone ever help Dorrins horse after he escaped on his new boat headed to Recluse. I don't even like horses but I felt bad for that one and wanted to know that someone helped it back to shore and didn't leave it to drown in the ocean. 2) What happened to the little amulet or badge that Cerryl hid inside his room when he was a scriveners apprentice. That was never retrieved or dealt with in any way, not even when Cerryl went back t o meet with the scrivener. I did enjoy the foreshadowing of what happens in the future to Fairhaiven and to Recluse, and will continue to read the stories in internal chronological order. The next one takes place after about a 300 year gap so I expect I won't have similar complaints about that one.

This is a very interesting addition to the Recluce Saga, revisting the time period already covered in The Magic Engineer from the point of view of the most sympathetic White Wizard, Cerryl. Very good job presenting the viewpoint and philosophy of the White Guild of Fairhaven, who were definitely the villains of The Magic Engineer, and their side of the argument against Recluce. The book changes your understanding of many of the events and characters from the previous novel. Especially the character of Cerryl, which was my only real (though very, very minor) complaint. Upon reflection this complaint fades further and further as Cerryl started as such a minor character that your original impressions of him are based on pitifully incomplete information. If anything, I suppose I'm glad that we got to find out what was REALLY going on amongst the White Order at the time.I was on the fence about giving this one 4 stars until it occurred to me that I was up until 2 in the morning finishing this one, so I guess that should get it an extra star. I read this one in under 24 hours, which should tell anyone reading this something. Definitely recommended, especially for fans of Recluce and readers of The Magic Engineer.

Do You like book Colors Of Chaos (2000)?

I like Colors of Chaos only marginally less than The White Order (although I do like it less.) It's much broader in scope, as the coming-of-age story turns into a more traditional clawing-up-the-heirarchy story. Modesitt does politics and intrigue tolerably well, although his villains are always a little nihilistic for me, and this is one of his better efforts in that direction.The real interest in this book is that it's a direct companion to The Magic Engineer - same timeframe, same events, told from the perspective of the villains, more or less. While it doesn't exactly flip any of the main moral assumptions - the horrible acts are still horrible, even when their motivations are clearer, and the earlier book made just as much of the ends-or-means quandary the "good guys" are in - it does provide a much broader perspective than the earlier book, which was told from a person with basically a household-level view. Cerryl, the main character of this one, is at a senior officer/regional governor level, and his broader perspective adds quite a bit.I'm not entirely satisfied, in the end, with the degree of moral relativism - I think making Cerryl "grey" sort of undercut the whole theory that the two sides are pretty equal - and I am always a little disturbed by the rather casual attitude towards human life a lot of the Recluce lead characters have, but this is a strong finish to an interesting exercise.
—Jeremy Preacher

The continuing story of Cerryl has gotten alot more interesting, and indepth. Following his beginning not nearly as interesting as it got with when he started having more power and choices at his disposal. Plus seeing the other side of the story from Dorrin was pretty cool. Still don't like the White side of chaos because of the way most of them twist things, and not to mention fairhaven is nothing but ordered and structured yet they just ignore that aspect of the city lol. Anyways a good continuation of the series but not enough to make it 5 stars for me
—Gordon

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