The Towers of the Sunset (Recluce series, Book 2)

Reviewers who have derided this book for its 2nd-person point of view should avoid anything else they find written in the 2nd-person. I will continue to love this style because it puts you right in the driver's seat. It gives you a sense of immediacy that, when used properly, contributes to the sense that the book you are reading is a "page turner". Towers Of Sunset is a page turner, in my opinion. Good points: 1) As with all of Modesitt's main characters, he is smart, dangerous, and a good person. And best of all - he doesn't know it. He's a hero, plain and simple. His biggest weaknesses are ignorance and uncertainty. I kind of like this because we the reader discover things with him, and overcome obstacles with him (or that's how it feels at any rate). 2) I'm a sucker for romance in a novel, and he has it in this one. It wasn't perfectly executed, but I don't mind filling in the blanks. 3) This should have been the first point, and if I'd written a review for the first book it would have, but here goes: the whole order/chaos thing is PERFECT. I'm sick of good vs. evil. Its an amazing and amazingly executed concept. I might write a review of the first book and go more into this. 4) I'm sort of a sucker for a story-writing-trick that Modesitt uses (in all his books), which is: he likes to have his main characters overhearing other people going "oooh!" and "ahh!" about him when they think he can't hear. This is how we learn how amazing the character is. That and/or they say to him, "What manner of wizard are you...?" Sure, its a little transparant, but its cool. Creslin CAN throw storms around, after all, so its not entirely unbelievable. 5) Actually, this point should have been put first (heh): the book, and his others too, show incredible detail on the objects with which humans interact. That is, if there's a table in the room, its not just a table - its a "better-than-average white-oak table with an attempt at a design on the top and which has seen some rough use." This goes for people's clothes, saddle-bags, buckets, etc. etc. The first book started this trend - Lerris was a wood-worker as well as a wizard (which was reason enough to buy the first book - totally different take on a fantasy character). Bad points (my policy is to write negative comments on all books, despite how much I loved them): 1) Modesitt is fascinated with matriarchal societies, men vs. women, femenism here, machismo there....and its sometimes distracting. The larger powers in this book - the nations - each have different ideas on a woman's role, a man's role, etc., and I just found it to be a distraction. Not major, but still a distraction. It worked better in his novels of the world of "Corus" for some reason. 2) Sometimes I'm not sure who is talking, who is feeling what, etc., in this book. He just needed to re-work the structure of some of the paragraphs a little, but that's about it. 3) This isn't a bad point so much as a wish list to be fulfilled as I re

In The Towers of the Sunset by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., there was one thing that really leapt out at me from the absolute beginning: the book was written in the present tense. Obviously, my first reaction was one of confusion. It was strange seeing a book written so after I had been so long reading traditional novels in the past tense. It kept throwing me off to be reading it like that for the first twenty-five pages or so. But soon I developed a keen liking for it. I thought that using the present tense made the book much more exciting, putting you in the action instead of making the reader a bored spectator to the book. I truly admire Modesitt for going out on a limb like this. I think that it takes a lot of guts for an author to do something like this, especially in today's overly confined and narrow-minded society. Also, it did a great job of making this book stand out above all others. I read this book a while ago, but it's still vivid in my memory due to its radical and noteworthy style of writing. Chances are that I will remember this book for years to come, both as the absolutely excellent narrative that it was and the exquisite and daring foray into the present tense. Overall, this was a truly excellent book that I would recommend without any hesitation.

The author of the Magic of Recluse books tells his story in a bit of an odd way, he starts you out in the present day, and each successive book in the series takes you further back in time (with a few exceptions where you go back into previously told story lines and see it from the white wizard's point of view.) I think it is a refreshing way to tell a story (not that it hasn't been done before - but it isn't done as often . . .) by starting out in present time and working your way backwards to explain all the heros that are mentioned in the present time, and then the heros of times gone past and so on. The author does a very good job of creating believable characters that have depth that you care about, and also varies the story each time that you don't get bored with it. If you like RPG, Fantasy, Sci-Fi stuff, then you should love this book series.

I consider this to be the best of Modesitt's works. It is not easy to get into--I suggest skipping the first three or so chapters the first time you read it--but once you delve in, you should be trapped by the travails of the protagonist, Creslin.Perhaps the most distracting part of this book is that it's written in present tense. Some people simply cannot handle it, but I managed to disregard it after a couple of pages. It's well worth the effort, I promise.The world here is not your typical fantasy setting. Creslin is a male in a female-dominated society, and in an ironic twist of the willful-princess-tale, flees an arranged marriage and manages to get into trouble on his own. He is wry and earnest, in some ways too young to handle the world--but it's watching him overcome those hurdles that makes this story so remarkable.Modesitt thoroughly explores his characters. They have flaws, like all humans: Creslin can be insensitive; Megaera has a temper. Yet we can understand what they're going through and even though I didn't expect the dramatic acts a perfect hero would give us, what they do manage to accomplish is much more meaningful. Some may believe that a great deal of the story is meaningless wandering, but I was too fascinated by the process rather than the actual resolution. This is not a book you rush: it is a thoughtful piece of work.His system of magic is based on order and chaos, and is eminently logical. These are not simple substitute-in synonyms for "good" and "evil", simplistic alignments which I've always had trouble swallowing. Much of what Creslin learns is the relationship between the two and the need for balance between them.Short chapters might seem to ruin the flow, but instead I found them more helpful because they helped Modesitt cut straight to the meat of the scenes.The writing itself I found quiet and smooth, well-suited for both description and action. I would've re-read it for that alone (but there was also the matter of *finally* understanding the first several chapters). And the end is simply gorgeous. I remained on the last page, letting my eyes scan in that final line over and over. But the beauty of it is that the last line would be meaningless without the entire preceding novel.

I kept being surprised and i didn't care for the dramatic climax because i still believed it to be interesting! = ) I admire the author who wrote this and i just love the whole story.. Black symbolizing good and white symbolizing evil gave the story a whole new twist, and Creslin being a warrior and a wizard was just great! The ending is a little blah blah but it depends on yer taste...All in all, i loved it...(read it 5 times and never got tired of it)