Imager

Read 80 pages so far. Know way too much about an artist's life and the paints he uses and the food he eats. Wither the plot?? Snoozeville.

For what it is, this book took wayy too long for me to finish. I've been keen on reading this book for a while now but honestly was pretty disappointed. It wasn't overtly offensive in any way, I just found everything really bland and monotonous.

So, a few major issues I had with this book: the pacing was slow, there was a lack of an Overarching Crisis, there was too much and too little exposition at the same time, and the characters were so flat with such similar-sounding names that I couldn't tell most of them apart.

The pacing of the book was just so slow. It often felt like so many chapters passed without a ton of things happening. I could skim through so many of them without really missing much. It was also made even more slow because I couldn't quite figure out what was the crux of the story, that one big question or problem that all the events of the story is leading towards or looking to resolve. Because there wasn't that focal point, everything else happening in front of me just felt pretty pointless and draggy. I had thought at first that it might have been linked to the accident caused by Rhenn at his portraiturist master's place, but then later on it was quickly resolved (or at least the narrative leads us to think so for most of the book with no intimation of anything suspicious). There's some vague war-ish things happening in the background but we really just hear a lot, a lot, so much conversation about it and nothing much else.

That leads me to the other big issue of the book: there's so much info-dumping. There's a world to build and lore to give, but the way this book does it reminds me of dialogue from an RPG when the main character is talking to NPCs. For example:

”What made you decide on me?”“A number of things. I will tell you. That I promise you, but not now. [etc. etc. etc.]”“Is it also that it's safer to have an imager do it?”“That certainly is something that makes it easier, but that's never been an imager trained as a portraiturist, and we're vain enough that we'd like an accurate resemblance.”“I can see that.”“Keep following Master Draffyd's instructions [etc. etc. etc.]”“That's true, sir.”

Almost all the conversations between Rhenn and Master Dichartyn go pretty much like that, sort of this bland back and forth dialogue that made me feel like I was reading a transcript from a game where you can only pick one out of a few statements/questions to ask an NPC. The parts where I went [etc. etc. etc.] are basically Master Dichartyn infodumping things on to Rhenn and therefore us the reader, and it was just so much and so repetitive to read after a while. We only really saw Rhenn either a) dating, b) getting into a Dangerous Situation on the streets, or c) in the classroom. That's pretty much it for the entire book.

The names of the characters were honestly also so similar to each other and all of them felt flat to me that I couldn't for the life of me tell them apart. Yet, there were so many names so I just felt a little overwhelmed and demotivated a lot of the time when there were so many characters being talked about at once. The only characters I really remembered was Rhenn, our protagonist, Master Dichartyn his mentor, and Seliora his love interest. Everyone else is a huge blur.

The writing style is pretty simplistic although that in itself is not a big problem. I was in the mood for a simple writing style when I started this book so to me that was actually a point in its favour. The problem I had with the writing here was more that it was monotonous and didn't quite engage me.

The climax of the book was also... not really much of a climax. Sure, some action happened, but it didn't feel like anything bigger than any of the other action bits in the rest of the book. I didn't know what the stakes were and honestly didn't really care what happened to any of the characters. I was honestly surprised that the book ended on that note, I had hoped for a bigger crisis and resolution to round things up.

Tbh, I'm not likely to continue on this series. I might give Modesitt's other series, Magic of Recluce, a go since I already own a physical copy, but really hope that it engages me more than this one did.

4 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews

The son of a wealthy factor, Rhennthyl resists going into the family business, and instead finds an apprenticeship with a portrait artists. A terrible accident ruins his hopes of life as an artist, and he must decide what to do with limited prospects, and two talents - art, and magic.

I've found L. E. Modesitt to be inconsistent between series, and relentlessly consistent within series. Said, another way, I like some of his series (Recluce) all the way, and don't care much for others. Happily, the Imager Portfolio looks to be one of the good ones, and I now wish I'd bought all the books back when they were on sale.

The world of Terahnar is a bit of a departure for Modesitt. It has a determinedly Terran jumble of aspects, built largely on Romance-language cognates and names (e.g., a weekend day of ‘Samedi'). Given Modesitt's usual rigor, I assume that somewhere down the road, these will coalesce into some kind of logic - perhaps an Amberian source world or similar. If not, I'm at a loss to understand it. In any case, the names do make it easy to follow the story - the country of Ferrium, for example, is an industrial, iron-based culture.

Character-wise, Modesitt produces his usual - a contemplative, capable protagonist who works hard and always does the logical thing, especially if that involves working hard (and being surprised that others think it's unusual). Rhennthyl is strong, smart, attractive and humble. He suffers the world's injustices without complaint, and overcomes them through sheer indomitability and determination. It's a recipe that works remarkably well. While the emotional arc of the story is fairly predictable, and the character seems very, very familiar, he's still interesting to follow.

Rhennthyl is, of course, a man of many talents, one of which is magic, or ‘imaging'. Modesitt likes his magic systems, but he focuses on character studies, not a Brandon Sanderson application of detail. So, imaging is a bit vague, and our hero, logical as he is, doesn't explore it very deeply. Instead, he explores its consequences in society and in personal interaction. Mostly, that works, but I did find myself wishing that Modesitt had applied a little more rigor. Even if we accept imaging's fuzzy outline, Rhennthyl (as with other Modesitt heroes), has a fair number of ‘feelings' (e.g., that someone is watching him) that don't seem to fit the magic system at all. That became a little wearing, in part because it blurred the boundaries between worlds - building the feeling that all Modesitt's worlds have similarities.

One such similarity is the traditional strong man, oppressed woman world. I've noted many times before how tiresome I find this, unless you're using it to make a point. In this first book, Modesitt could have told his core story just as easily in a world of equality, and I wish he had.

I'm not much of a food and clothing guy, but if you are, there's some talk of it here. Modesitt doesn't go overboard, and it's easy to skip, but there's seldom an outfit he doesn't describe in general terms and colors, especially regarding women. Dinner dishes are similarly named, but then set aside. Philosophy is regularly dipped into, though in a shallow enough way that if it's not your thing (and it's usually not mine), you can ignore it and let Rhennthyl worry about it until it comes up again. Morals the same, and if you're familiar with Modesitt, you'll be unsurprised that everything comes in shades of gray.

This first book is somewhat dissatisfying in that it is so clearly the first book in a series. It doesn't end so much as stop - not really in a cliffhanger, but it's clear we've only gotten the first part of a much longer story. The good news is that this introduction is enticing enough to go get the rest.

All in all, a strong fantasy with a very familiar tone, and recommended for fans of Recluce.