Title: Pretty awful fantasy
Product review: First off, I'm very uncritical about fantasy generally. I've even read tons of TSR paperbacks without getting sick. So I think a bad review of a fantasy book from me says quite a bit. Secondly, I greatly enjoyed the first book in this series, The Magic of Recluce, which diverged from typical fantasy in pleasant ways. Unfortunately, this book is typical fantasy...but written badly too boot. You have your sex-hungry, macho, magically gifted future-ruler, your good-looking female lead who can defeat the brawniest swordsman after a few weeks of training and runs from a life of privelege to join the male lead, you have your totally inept bad guys who keep throwing bigger and badder stuff at the leads, only to fail. This formula gets tiresome after a while, but it's pretty bad when it's in such obvious use. Hopefully this is not telling of Modesitt's later books in the series - I will never know because I gave up after this one.
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