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    Imager
    Imager
    Imager
    Audiobook17 hours

    Imager

    Written by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

    Narrated by William Dufris

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Although Rhennthyl is the son of a leading wool merchant in L'Excelsis, the capital of Solidar, the most powerful nation on Terahnar, he has spent years becoming a journeyman artist and is skilled and diligent enough to be considered for the status of master artisan-in another two years. Then, in a single moment, his entire life is transformed when his master patron is killed in a flash fire, and Rhenn discovers he is an imager-one of the few in the entire world of Terahnar who can visualize things and make them real.

    Rhenn is forced to leave his family and join the Collegium of Imagisle. Because of their abilities (they can do accidental magic even while asleep) and because they are both feared and vulnerable, imagers must live separately from the rest of society. In this new life, Rhenn discovers that all too many of the "truths" he knew were nothing of the sort. Every day brings a new threat to his life. He makes a powerful enemy while righting a wrong, and he begins to learn to do magic in secret. Imager is the innovative and enchanting opening of an involving new fantasy story.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 13, 2009
    ISBN9781400181803
    Imager
    Author

    L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

    L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the bestselling author of the fantasy series The Saga of Recluce, Corean Chronicles, and the Imager Portfolio. His science fiction includes Adiamante, the Ecolitan novels, the Forever Hero Trilogy, and Archform: Beauty. Besides a writer, Modesitt has been a U.S. Navy pilot, a director of research for a political campaign, legislative assistant and staff director for a U.S. Congressman, Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues, and a college lecturer. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.

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    Reviews for Imager

    4/5

    216 ratings18 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Modesitt's writing is like clockwork: predictable, dependable, unexciting. He creates boring, detailed fantasy worlds and peoples them with walking shadows. The “characters” aren’t even caricatures—that would require Modesitt to give them some sort of personality. The main character, Rhen, exists in this book only to lecture and be lectured about government, and to eat very detailed meals. I do not need to know what fictional wine each and every character has each and every meal, and yet Modesitt seems to think that sort of detail is far more important than, say, a plot.

      Speaking of plots, there really isn’t one. I forced my way through this book, but at some point put it down and just couldn’t bear to pick it up again, even though I was only ~50 pages from the end. Because I just didn’t care about the thin veneer of intrigue that Modesitt periodically remembered to include, and I found the main character so incredibly despicable (not in an authorially intended way, alas) that I hoped the “mysterious assassin” killed him. This is a terrible book. I recommend it to no one.
    • 5/5
      Another great series! Everyone I listen to gets better and better!
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. The story was interesting and well thought out. The characters were believable and the concept of an imager is creative. The mystery and the character progression was engaging. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
    • 3/5
      Decent fantasy novel. In general, Modesitt is a good world builder. The society is as strong a character in this novel as the main character and the evolving story of them both is engaging. He also does a good job with balanced male and female characters.
    • 3/5
      This is not my normal preference in fantasy but I can see why enthusiasts would like the combination of meticulous detail and a magic-using character who is presented as a sober professional. If I have a particular concern it's that for the amount of violence in the book the reactions of the characters often seem too matter of fact, even for individuals who are essentially security and intelligence officers.
    • 1/5
      Having heard Modesitt speak on Writing Excuses a few times, I thought it time I checked out one of his books.Maybe it would have been better to not.At one third of a book, I'm done. This first third has been a combo of info dump and character study, but no discernible plot to speak of. And because it came in the form of "instruction" to the main POV character, it's done in a preachy manner. UGH! Perhaps the plot is starting to form now, but this is moving slower than a glacier in winter. Any good editor should have hacked much of this first section off, or at the very least condensed the unnecessary details.The audio narrator isn't that great for the book. He uses the same voice for almost every male, varied just enough to denote age, but nothing much beyond that. At first I thought the reader might be John Billingsley, but looking again, I found it was the guy who does the voice of Bob the Builder. Can't decide how I feel about his horrible work.As I read this book, it felt like an "everyone else has a magic school book, so should I" type writing. Maybe another case of the editor seeing text, checking it off, and moving on. After this attempt, I'm not sure I want to try another by this author. However, I do always try to give an author two books to completely lose me...
    • 5/5
      This is the first book in a new series and a delight to read--I couldn't wait to read on. Rhennthyl, the son of a wool factor who expects him to follow in his footsteps, proves himself an adept artist instead. He begins to suspect an unusual talent--imaging--only to have it backfire and kill his master in a studio fire. He begins his training on Imagisle and excells in his newfound craft.
    • 2/5
      The main character is arrogant and unlikable. I am told he just gets more arrogant as the series goes on.
    • 4/5
      Imager begins the journey of Rhennthyl on the path first of an artist and later as a Imager, a practitioner of mental magic, in the first of a trilogy as well as a whole series of books by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. The flowing narrative slowly built up the city of L'Excelsis, the culture of the country of Solidar, the Solidar view of the world, religious system, and the practice of mental magic from Rhennthyl's personal experience giving the reader an enjoyable read throughout the book.Rhennthyl, or Rhenn for short, is the eldest son of a wool merchant who decidedly does not like business and instead becomes an artist's apprentice, but while still a journeyman his art career ends with the death of his master when his talent for mental magic sends him to the Imagers on Imagisle. The path of Rhenn's discovery of how to use his magical talent and the sudden danger he soon finds himself is written through his own experience thus allowing the reader to learn along with Rhenn not only the magical system but the mystery of why assassins are after him. Throughout the book Rhenn most not only focus on his magical training and the dangerous situations he finds himself in, but also his family and personal relationships that many times conflict.There are many enjoyable things about this book, as mentioned before the reader learns along with Rhenn about the magical system and it's uses as well as the greater world. The interesting small details are very well written to add to the depth of the world, but this detailing also hurts it as well. While Modesitt gives details in fashion and food, he neglects to give meaning to particular names that everyone in Solidar knows but readers do not like for instant who are Pharsi, tuadins, and the like that seem to be ethnicities or regional titles of individuals. While it could be said that the seemingly formulaic aspect of the book is a negative, if well written it doesn't matter. The amount of assassination attempts on Rhenn and the suddenly plot resolution, or seeming resolution, does hurt the overall story but not enough to make me want to see more.Overall, I enjoyed this my first reading of a L.E. Modesitt book. Even with the gripes I had, it doesn't mean I'm not interested in seeing what twists and turns Rhenn's life and career take in the next two books of the trilogy following his life as an Imager.
    • 4/5
      This is the start of a new series and a new setting for Modessit. In this setting, the world is roughly comparable to mid-1800's Earth. However, a small class of people can 'Image' things into existence on a small scale. Most of these imagers live and train in a facility in the capital city of Solidar. The book follows one particular person, Rhennthyl and his family. Rhennthyl does not want to go into the family business, instead he wants to be a portrait painter. Spoiler alert - its no surprise at all that he turns out to be a very good imager, and most of the book follows his training and first year as an imager. I enjoyed this book and the setting, though so far only the capital city of L'Excelsis is detailed. The very French feel of L'Excelsis seemed a bit odd, but like most of his books his world is well developed, as are his characters. I enjoyed it.
    • 3/5
      3.5 stars

      I enjoyed the evolution of Modesitt's writing style in this new series. Yes, the story is quite similar to what he used in the past with the Recluce saga. The lack of onomatopoeia helped limit disruptions to the narrative.

      The imaging magic system failed to impress me and seemed more a psi power like telekinesis. The government institutions, religions and philosophies debated and discussed both in a teacher-student setting or as the protagonist's internal dialogue provoked thought and posed questions I pondered long after closing the book.
    • 3/5
      L.E. Modesitt has done much better. At this stage, Recluce may bore him, but that still remains where his best work it. This is just too slow to develop and too many unanswered questions to ask us if we want to go on with such work.Again Modesitt combines the skills of trade and magic to give us a tale, but so much backstory is taken place that there is little action and far too much spent on whys and wherefores that have no relation to the character we are following during the activity of the book, that more than a third should have been cut from the tale.There is world building, but I feel like I was back in school when Modesitt takes pages to talk about the history of the Council, or Kingdom, and it has little use in the rest of the novel. Then there is a mystery, but we end with a cop out to the reason there is a mystery. Further it is not resolved. Our hero is targeted long before he becomes a much of much in the scheme of things and posits that the reason for the mystery being is that if muches like him were involved in the particular mystery, they wouldn't be around for the next book. So that seems to be a paradox.Again, a lot less of the nonsense, because really, I don't need to know what occurs each day every day. Set me up once for his learning to work on magic, or physical fitness. That would be a better book.
    • 2/5
      SummaryPainter Rhenn finds he can image and becomes an imager (magician). Someone tries to kill him and he has to find out who.Story and writing styleUnfortunately, the writing style is a bit stilted and clumsy sometimes, particularly the dialogue: some bits feel as if they were written by a child. The endings of chapters are often irrelevant and abrupt. Overall, the book is repetitive. Lots of descriptions of everybody's clothing, food and wine. Lots of descriptions of every day in Rhenn's life. If you have to write down that nothing much happened, and that Rhenn's day was much the same as the previous ones, perhaps you can skip to one of the days when something does happen. Searching for murderers is also not as exciting as it sounds. It amounts to finding all your old acquaintances and asking them if they have seen something, after which they answer at most that there was a man asking around.On top of that I found the words Modesitt uses for some everyday things contrived. He uses french names for days and months. Why? The society is not french in any way, so it seems to me to be just an artificial way of making the world a bit more exotic. Characters, Character, Robot Characters? I should have said character, because there really is only one, Rhenn, and he is flat and uninspiring. The book is mostly about what he does, hardly about what he feels. He accidentally blows up some people, and although the word guilt is mentioned a few times, it is just a token emotion, it doesn't have any substance. He does worry about what will happen to him because of it, but even that he doesn't do with any intensity. He doesn't have any friends, his relationship with Seliora is insipid, and he is never horrified (when he first has to kill someone in cold blood for instance) or afraid. Perhaps I shouldn't have said character either, I should have said robot. Let me rectify that...As to the other people, none of them are worth knowing. The only one who doesn't feel like she was made from cardboard is Seliora's grandmother. Somehow Modesitt manages to get her character to come across, even though she hardly makes an appearance. So he is capable of it! Would have been nice if he had applied this to everyone else as well...OverallThe book is boring. And I like slow-moving fantasy with descriptions of every day life. The problem is, Imager is taking this WAY too far... A pity, because the book does have potential. It could have been a nice cosy book to curl up with on the couch, if only it hadn't been so BORING! Sigh...
    • 4/5
      As I read this book, I thought that I really shouldn't like this. It seemed a bit slow, not much action and the action that was in there just seemed thrown in as if the author said "We need some action.....right......here". This is the type of book that typically wouldn't hold my interest.However, this was not the case. Oh yes, the pace was kind of slow, this book really appears to be a setup for later books, but it was one I couldn’t put down. I’ve read a lot of complaints on this book that people didn’t enjoy a lot of the political background and yes there are pages of that. For some reason, for me, it was enjoyable. It wasn’t a tough read, not so dense that it was work to grasp it all. Oh sure, Modesitt renamed the days (I’m still not sure if there are seven days of the week and what day corresponds to Lundi) and some other unneeded embellishments that typically make a book harder for me to enjoy, but this one just worked.I’m looking forward to getting into the rest of the series and hope that it is as enjoyable as this first one.
    • 4/5
      I have been avoiding Modesitt's books for some time, since the first novel I picked up of his. I found it to be tedious, so I decided right there and then to not read his work. The long avoidance of Modesitt has come to an end, I found the Imager series to be so unlike the original novel i tried so long ago. I am not sure if his style has changed or if the subject mattter is more to my taste, but I found this work to be captivating to the end.
    • 3/5
      Rhenn the son of a wool factor disappoints his father by rejecting the job. Rhenn then is allowed to become an apprentice to a master artist. This artist keeps Rhenn working for 9 years before he becomes a journeyman. Unable to take his own assignments, he does the unwanted jobs his master gives him. One day angry, Rhenn imagines a fire in his master's house and it occurs and kills the master and others. Unable to get a job he goes to the imagers college and is admitted immediatly. His teacher is really strict, his classes full and difficult but he does well except with some bullies. Great book. Modesitt has a problem with the middle of her books. They drag. Despite that, book is great.
    • 4/5
      New series by Modesitt are always worth a look. Believable world and interesting characters.
    • 4/5
      Good beggining, pulled me right in and kept me until the end where I felt that it slumped a little. I am wanting to read the 2nd book anyway in hopes that it picks up again. A good clean read. Romance but no smut. A nice twist on the magical side of things but not all that different from other magic type books I have read.