Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/28

Here we go again with the Monday thing. As a possible distraction, I post every week about whatever new books I've gotten, in the hopes other people will want them as well. (This isn't quite as self-centered as it sounds, since those books tend to be sent to me unexpectedly by their publishers.)

This week I have one book to mention: the twentieth "Saga of Reculse" fantasy novel by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., The Mongrel Mage. I've only met Modesitt once or twice in passing, and read one book in this series more years ago than I remember, so I'm not going to pretend to a deep knowledge of the man or his work. But he's been writing smart fantasy for more than twenty years (plus some SF as well), across a number of series, which should be celebrated.

Mongrel Mage is a Tor hardcover, officially going on sale tomorrow in all of the North American places you can buy books imprinted on paper or electrons.

Recluse is a world where there are two distinct kinds of magic -- white Chaos and black Order -- but the main character of this book, Beltar, can use both of them, in ways no one has seen for hundreds of years. And that, of course, makes him a target, as new capabilities and powers always are. I don't know if this volume completes Beltar's stories, but Modesitt has generally let each Recluse book stand as a novel rather than stringing out plots endlessly.

So: interesting fantasy, relatively standing alone though in a world that a reader can explore further, available immediately. Sounds like a winning combination.