A young punk is exiled from Recluce to Hamor. He turns out to be a natural ordermage", basically someone who can't learn, just can or can't, do things with his power. Interesting and better writing than the early Recluce books." ( )

I didn't enjoy this one as much as I usually enjoy the Recluce novels. This one features a young man, who while living in Recluce gets into trouble with the order powers he really didn't know he had and is forced into exile in Hamor. There he gets in the middle of a conspiracy and ends up losing his memory and sent to the iron foundries as a slave.
The plot is a bit railroad-ish and that gave it a bit of a slow, uninteresting feeling. I still enjoy his character and world building and this one is no exception, but there's a bit less character building in this one. This one also seems to start a trend of having each character's story take 2 books and this is book 1. ( )

A very good addition to the Saga of Recluce. Another page turner. Modesitt has a way of sucking me into his world and the main character(s). ( )

Continuing with my at-random rereading of the Recluse books, Natural Ordermage is an interesting counterpoint to The Magic of Recluse. There are definite similarities - both feature somewhat self-obsessed young men who can't grasp the nature and responsibilities of their power, and get sent into exile to grow as people. But as novels, they're vastly different.

Natural Ordermage is a mature examination of some of the assumptions that underly the original social setup, using a new time period to explore some of the ways a society that values order above all else can go wrong - or right. Hamor, thus far the perpetual terrifying alien enemy, is now the sensibly-run, if far from democratic, society in contrast to the deeply corrupt Recluse.

Rahl (and no, I have no idea if that's a nod to Terry Goodkind's work or not) starts off as a smug, whiny juvenile, and goes through some real transformation. I particularly enjoyed the idea that not everyone approached the system of magic from a highly intellectual place, and that people require pretty different pedagogical strategies in order to learn. (The contrast reminded me of the way people learn karate - some people scour the manual and keep a journal and think everything to death, and some people close their eyes and wave their arms around and eventually it just goes. And both strategies lead to the same place.)

I'm not rating it any more highly than Magic, although the writing is tremendously tighter and the plot of the novel is clearer and much more engaging. It lacks some of the wonder of the first book in a new world, and so they're fairly balanced. But I do like this one better. ( )

The ending is a long time coming and a bit obvious, but still a very good enjoyable read. ( )