We enter the final run of three in this set of nine posts! This has been so much fun that today I am taking photos and working out how to continue with frequent posts. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me in this!

Before we dive into The Magic Engineer by L.E. Modesitt Jr which is the third book of The Recluce Saga and one of my favorite books ever written, let’s talk about series and book reviewing! Seriously! As a SciFi and Fantasy fan it gets crazy trying to review (for example) book 7 of a 12 book series because anything you say can be a spoiler! If I write about the plot lines too in-depth it could ruin the overall fun for someone who wants to dive into a great series BUT I would like to talk about what I’m reading and enjoying. There is a fine line and of course the reader must beware possible spoilers, but that is also why most of my reviews try to focus on how a book makes me feel, or responses a book elicits within me, or some aspect of the story that I felt was important to me without taking from the overall series. How does this tie in to The Magic Engineer? Glad you asked!

The Magic Engineer is a standalone Fantasy book set three books in to The Saga Of Recluce. You could read this book by itself and love it. You’ll love it more if you read the first two books of the series, but still you could review this one as if it were the only book in the series. The entire Recluce Saga is like this to a degree. Modesitt tells standalone stories that normally take two books to tell and places them in an overall story that grows with each book. It feels like less of a commitment than say Wheel Of Time even though there are more books in Recluce! To be fair that is also because WOT books tend to run longer but still.

Dorrin is the Magic Engineer this title speaks of and this book further examines the balance between chaos and order that is present in Recluce. Dorrin is an outcast from Recluce, the same as Lerris in The Magic Of Recluce, and he is just trying to find some place where he can build the machines that fascinate him. However neither the forces of chaos or order want him to succeed, so how do you take on the world to pursue your dreams?

As said this book is one of my favorite books ever written. If I created a top five it would be on there. If there is one book from Modesitt that would hook you in on his stories I think this is it. As a standalone you could give it a go, but the reader in me thinks it is so powerful to me because of where it fits in the overall series, and because of how the concepts of the series have been growing to this point.

Tomorrow we will return for one last look into the Godless World!