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L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s bestselling fantasy novels set in the world of Recluce are among the most popular in contemporary fantasy. Rich in detail, Modesitt's Recluce books are a feast of wonderous marvels. The White Order is the story of Cerryl, a boy orphaned when the powerful white mages killed his father to protect their control of the world's magic. Cerryl, raised by his aunt and uncle, is a curious boy, attracted to mirrors and books, though he is unable to read. When he is old enough, Cerryl is apprenticed to the local miller. The miller's daughter teaches Cerryl to read his father's books, and it seems that the talent for magic has been passed from father to son. When Cerryl witnesses a white mage destroy a renegade magician, the miller realizes the boy will not be safe there, so Cerryl must be sent to the city of Fairhaven to find his destiny.… (more)
User reviews
Cerryl is one of the more sympathetic main characters overall - he comes from an extremely non-privileged background in most ways, and thus spends far, far less of his time whining than most of the other main characters, but he's still aware of and sympathetic to the disadvantages of those he's socially superior to - namely, the women. While Fairhaven, thus far the absolute unsympathetic Evil Empire, is portrayed as being a well-run and more-or-less fair authoritarian society, its big flaw is still its gender relations - which throughout the series more or less differentiates the good guys from the bad guys.
This volume and the next are halves of a story, and don't entirely stand alone, but The White Order is probably the peak of the series for me.