Imager's Intrigue
Written by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Narrated by William Dufris
4/5
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About this audiobook
By Imager's Challenge, Rhenn has become a liaison to the local law forces. He finds himself in direct conflict with both authorities and national politics as he tries to uphold the law and do his best by the people of his home city.
Now, in Imager's Intrigue, Rhenn has come into his own. He has a wife and a young child, and a solid career as an imager. But he has made more than one enemy during his journey from apprentice painter to master imager, and even his great powers won't allow him to escape his past.
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's Intrigue
138 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solid entry, takes a while and is a bit to hero focused on rheen and it's not the imaging that solves the problem seems a little far fetched that he has changed so much from when his focus was just drawing
Now he's the smartest guy around.
Still nice easy listen very well read - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the third volume in the ‘Imager Portfolio’, our hero, Rhennthyl, is involved in everything from street level drug crime to international warfare. In the slums of L’Excelsis, Rhenn’s home city, there is a new form of elveweed hitting the streets, so strong it kills the user. As a captain in the Civic Patrol, he has to stop or at least try to stop it. Alas, as in our world, tackling the drug trade is no easy matter.
International affairs are also getting complicated for Solidar, Rhenn’s country. The Ferrans are about to invade and conquer the Jarriolans and gain control of their coal fields. The Ferrans want to conquer the world and make it all a part of their mercantilist empire based on trade and business. The Ferrans believe in ruthless commercial competition, while the society of Solidar is hampered in this by guilds, artisans, factors and High Holders, who like to do things as they always have. This cosy attitude means that the enemy is now building battleships that are far superior to those of Solidar.
The efforts of some factors to change matters and build better ships causes more trouble in L’Excelsis for Rhenn. There is much treachery and double-dealing as the ruling council is split on the issue. Most, unfortunately, don’t favour modern ships as they will cost more and that will mean raising taxes. No citizen likes to pay more taxes, especially the rich. This is a theme of the ‘Imager Portfolio’ and an issue frequently thought about by Rhenn: most people want things but are not prepared to pay the necessary price.
As usual with Modesitt, there is plenty to think about. His realistic fantasies are used, I think, to consider real world issues of economics, politics and society. At one point, a High Holder mentions to Rhenn that he lost a few thousand golds in some venture and shrugs it off. Rhenn is a high-ranking Imager and gets paid about three golds a month. He is taken aback by the inequality. Such un-American attitudes or the ‘Politics Of Envy’ as our British Tories call it, might have landed the author in trouble a few decades ago. On the whole, mind you, he evinces the traditional values of hard work, discipline, law-abiding citizenship and very tasty apple pie. High taxes spent on defence is the right policy when a nation is threatened, even though this gives rise to profiteering by the arms manufacturers, an issue which, to be fair, is raised.
Rhenn’s covert operations are pretty ruthless at times and kind of bring to mind black ops by an intelligence agency of the central kind. The bad guys are evil and deserve what they get as far as he’s concerned. There’s no soppy liberal stuff about giving them a fair trial. As they frequently try to assassinate him, this is perhaps understandable but some people might prefer a more scrupulous ‘hero’.
A good read overall. I enjoyed the start and, for the last third of the book, I almost couldn’t put it down, keen to see how the various conspiracies worked out. Modesitt does the suspense thing very well at times. There was a dull patch in the middle where I lost interest a bit and found it quite easy to put down. A casual reader might. One advantage of being an honest reviewer is that you have to press on and finish the tome at hand and in this case, it was well worth it. I advise the casual reader to persist. To be fair it’s a long book and in any extended work there are bound to be slow bits.
Modesitt is a very political writer and my politics don’t match his, so I can’t give him my unconditional approval. I can say that he has interesting ideas and writes readable and entertaining novels, including this one. Recommended, as usual. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I've read a lot of Modesitt's books and that is the problem with this one - it is just like most of his books. Even though the Imager series is shorter and not set in his predominant world, it feels exactly like one of the Recluse novels. Like all of his books, this one features a mage/Imager who just happens to be the best of his generation, maybe of all time, who can 'Image' things that other imagers can't and despite a growing list of enemies, his power keeps him alive. It also helps him clear through bureaucracy, defeat foreign invaders, save his family and climb to the top ranks of the imagers, all while the other Imagers have much lesser, undefined powers. If it sounds like I'm tired of the same old thing from Modesitt, I am. Book after book of his Recluse series is the same thing - a new mage arises who's the best/most unique/most powerful of the age and that one person sets about fixing things all by himself. It just doesn't work any more, not to mention that his heroes are all men and the ladies are all just window dressing. The characters and world aren't interesting enough to carry the same old thing plot.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It was rather refreshing to have the third book in a series skip forward over five years of the main character's life. And then having finished it, to wonder where the plot in the subsequent eight books will lead.
Rhennthyl and Seliora are very well-developed and relatable characters and I've really enjoyed seeing them take on challenges and grow, as well as eat many meals with very tasty descriptions of the food.
This book is all about change and how different people deal with it. I really enjoy following the intrigue as it builds up and trying to work out where it will all lead.
Another great read in this series. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Again, wow. Such a complex world with complete economies & even a really neat take on religion. I should have mentioned both in earlier reviews, especially the latter. The idea of the Namer being evil due to spreading misconceptions, leading people into fallacy. Very well done.
The mystery is great as are the problems for the hero to solve. The understated power & limits on his power are fantastic. Using it would only destroy what he wants to save in a very real & practical way.
This is the last of the first trilogy that follows Rhenn. Kind of a shame, but Modesitt doesn't like to take his characters into idiocy which I applaud. The man has done enough & while his story obviously continues, it's probably pretty boring to write about. Love it.
On to the next which takes place about 700 years earlier, I believe. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No end of intrigues to solve, and a healthy dose of explosions--which are pretty much trademark of the series (or possibly that's just the author's tendency, but I haven't read any other of his books)...and while this one isn't a serious letdown from the first two, it drags on between main events, and the action scenes by now--explosions, attempted assassinations, deflected bullets--have become rather blase...after several shootings and at least a few explosions are established as merely par for the course by the end of Book 1, simply increasing their number and scale doesn't do all that much. However, stuff does happen, even if the pace seems decreased from the previous two books, and after the awful, all-to-gradual self-destructs I've seen in other series, this is nothing to complain (much) about--it was no better than average, perhaps, but certainly no worse.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This series got better over time, but Modesitt continues to disappoint. The start, as he often does is slow, but this is the third of our trilogy and we shouldn't have to wait so long for the action to begin.Even after all the time our character is developing he is slow to anger and slow to act, now finding himself thrust into the job of spymaster, where previous spymasters have obviously proven themselves completely inept as they have no means of spying.There are things that are terrible with this tale and with the functions of the disfunctional government that Modesitt takes time trying to explain to a reader who does not care.It is good to see that we no longer have to wade through wine pairings of fictitious wines and fictitious foods as we did in the previous books. We still have to struggle with the days of the week, and we have to try and remember who is who since there are many obscure names that are similar to the important characters we are trying to follow.The book though does fail when we find that the Imager, who appear to have some thoughts on the countries enemies, and have spies to see to the countries safety, have few spies. So few that information that would vitally help our hero Rhenn, just is not available and several hundred extra pages are taken up because he is afraid of his own shadow were he to act proactively. You always want to ring Rhenn's neck when he has a confrontation and once more he is passive and you are left without all the information that so many other heroes elsewhere would have had. A decent series that could have been so much better with the dross and excess and slowness cut.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Five years have passed since we last saw Rhenn. He's married and has a daughter now. He's continued to climb the ladder at Image Isle and now resides with his family and a servant in a house on that island.
We see more of the dark side of covert operations in Solidar and how Rhenn responds when thrust into leading and architecting strategies that lead to long term victories and continued prosperity for Solidar and it's Imagers.
All the Imager novels to date have been related in the first person from Rhenn's point of view, which limits my knowledge to what he shares with me. I often feel as if I'm missing much of the story, because what he takes for granted as common knowledge, I do not, and what he focuses on may or may not be relevant to what I desire to know. So, I get frustrated and bored and miss a seemingly unimportant piece that later completes the puzzle.
The ending, or the resolution designed and personally carried out by Rhenn, disturbed me. Perhaps I'm naive and want our world, or any world I immerse myself in, to be more forgiving, more understanding. I firmly believe the only things you can change are yourself; you can't change others no matter how much you want them to change. Rhenn believed change needed to occur now, and only extreme measures, including the use of deadly force, could meet his needs, which he equated with the continued prosperity of Solidar and by extension, imagers. Again, absolute power tempts to corrupt absolutely, for we learn that Rhenn is now the most powerful Imager alive.
This may be the last novel in the Imager Porfolio devoted solely to Rhenn. I got the feeling at the end that the focus of any future books would steer away from Master Rhennythl.