Where I Lose Enthusiasm

Imager's Intrigue by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like the author, and I mostly have enjoyed the series, but not this one so much. Even though parts of this were great fun, most of it wasn't, and that wore me down. I got tired of it. My emotion on finishing was relief.

I think I won't read the sequels.

I really love the action scenes, which is what keeps me coming back to books in this series as well as the previous Recluce series, but the pace became tedious. The novel runs to 650 pages, but only a fraction of those, maybe 200, or 300 tops, move the plot forward. IMO.

Rhenn and his wife and some of the other characters are interesting and complex, and the setting is well realized, but the unnecessary detail and extraneous exposition--all of which you think might include important information but mostly doesn't--wears on the reader. We know what happens on almost every day, whether it matters or not, as if the book was written on a calendar. Why do we need to know the topic of the sermon every week? Whether he exercised this day or that? Why do we have philosophy class conversations at every meal? Clearly, he worked how the bureaucracy functions to a significant degree, but does the reader need to read about it? Or be told how water rights or banking are managed? A little of that goes a long way; a lot of it makes one start skipping pages.

I never skip pages. I did that here.

And I repeat--I like the author. I've read 8 or 9 books by him and wish him well. He has signed some of these books for me.

Others have liked this book, and I liked it enough to finish, so I dunno. YMMV. Maybe you'll like it. Me, I'm gonna wait for the Readers' Digest version of the rest of his books.

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