As a book editor, my passion is books: I read them for pleasure, I edit them for my livelihood. I spend more time every day reading books, newspapers, and magazines than most people. I always have at least 1 hardcover and 1 ebook actively being read, and sometimes I add a third or fourth book to the mix. I almost never watch TV, maybe a total of 2 to 3 hours over the course of a year. I much prefer reading.
Most of my reading is nonfiction (see On Today’s Bookshelf for some of the books on my current to-read list), but I do have a few favorite fiction authors whose books I buy as soon as they are available. All my nonfiction is bought in hardcover; most of the fiction I buy is in ebook, the exceptions being my favorite authors whose books I buy in hardcover. Probably 90% of my fiction purchases are in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. To give you an idea of numbers, in 2009 I bought more than 100 hardcover books and more than 125 ebooks. True, I buy more in a year than I can read, but I do keep chipping away at the backlog.
One of my favorite authors is L.E. Modesitt, Jr., particularly the Saga of Recluce series and the new Imager Portfolio Series. With the release of Arms-Commander last week, the Saga of Recluce series is now 16 volumes — and I own every volume in hardcover. I looked forward to reading Arms-Commander, with the hope that the writing and story would return to the glory days of earlier volumes in the Recluce series.
I knew my hope would be stressed when I found, after the first evening’s reading of about 50 pages, that I was thinking of putting the dustjacket back on and simply putting the book in my library, not bothering to finish the book. The previous volume in the series, Mage-Guard of Hamor, was an okay read but not near as interesting or well written as earlier volumes. I had hoped that in Arms-Commander Modesitt would re-find that spark that ran through the early volumes, but, as further days of reading demonstrated, Modesitt didn’t.
In contrast to Modesitt’s two volumes (so far) in the Imager Portfolio series, each of which I read in a few days because I found them interesting and engrossing, the story in Arms-Commander is leaden and confusing and the characters have virtually no depth.
I don’t recall what happened in the very early volumes of the Recluce series and I don’t know if that knowledge is necessary to enjoying and understanding Arms-Commander, but if it is, it is the author’s responsibility to refresh the reader’s memory of the pertinent history and to write in such a fashion that a new-to-the-series reader can follow the story. In this Modesitt has failed.
As noted above, the characters in Arms-Commander have little to no depth. I find I don’t really care about any of them. They are wooden characters with wooden personalities, much less than I expected from Modesitt and a significant contrast to the characters in the first two volumes of the Imager Portfolio Series. Perhaps it is time to say goodbye to Recluce. I certainly wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. Arms-Commander illustrates what happens when there is either poor editing or an author no longer connects with his or her creation.
In contrast to Arms-Commander, I heartily recommend Celina Summers’ ebook fantasy quartet, The Asphodel Cycle. The four books in the quartet are The Reckoning of Asphodel, The Gift of Redemption, The Temptation of Asphodel, and The Apostle of Asphodel. The story is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad with elves, humans, centaurs, immortals, and gods.
Unlike my struggle with Arms-Commander, I found that I didn’t want to stop reading Summers’ books. Whereas I usually spend a few hours each day with each of the books I am currently reading, I became so engrossed with Summers’ characters that I simply read The Asphodel Cycle from volume 1 page 1 until the last page of volume 4.
I enjoy a lot of books but there aren’t many that I read that I can say brought tears to my eyes, caused me to laugh, or caused me to feel choked with emotion. But Summers’ characterizations and dialogue in The Asphodel Cycle did bring all those emotions and more to me, enhancing the pleasure of these books. Don’t get me wrong: These books aren’t perfect. There are flaws, there are places that could have used some tightening, and some of the characters aren’t as well formed as others, but overall The Asphodel Cycle was one of the most enjoyable fiction reads I had in 2009.
An American Editor 