The White Order
By L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Tor Books, $24.95
ISBN 0312866453

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When L.E. Modesitt's The Magic of Recluce hit the bookstores in 1991, Gordon R. Dickson praised it as "Fascinating! A big, exciting novel of the battle between good and evil, and the path between." Now, seven years and seven novels later, I'm tempted to say that Dickson woefully understated the case. Modesitt's Recluce series -- set in a parallel earth-like world where magic and technology conspire and conflict in a constant struggle between chaos and order -- is more than a story about the battle between good and evil. The Saga of Recluce is as rich and complex a creation as Tolkien's Middle-Earth.

If you are just tuning in to Modesitt's work, The White Order (eighth volume in the series, with at least one more, Colors of Chaos, upcoming) may pose a bit of a puzzle to you. Its major story line seems painfully simple: Young Cerryl, orphaned when white mages from Fairhaven kill his amateur-magician father, discovers that he has inherited his father's talent. But the powerful White Order of magicians keeps a close watch on those who experiment with the white magic of chaos, and when Cerryl attempts to find out more about his powers, he is apprehended and brought before Sterol, High Wizard of the Guild. Sterol decides that Cerryl deserves training rather than death -- although as Cerryl learns during the course of his studies, training in white magic may well result in death.

However, if you are already familiar with Modesitt's Recluce saga, then The White Order is one more fascinating piece in the jigsaw-time puzzle Modesitt is painstakingly assembling. Up until now, both in flashbacks and flashforwards, the conflict in this parallel world has seemed to be between "good" order and "evil" chaos. With the present novel's focus on Cerryl's training in white magic, Modesitt changes this emphasis. In doing so, a brilliant new facet appears.

I suspect that the Saga of Recluce has many more puzzles to solve -- not least of which is whether, in Modesitt's parallel world, chaos and order will survive in a delicate balance or annihilate each other in one final, agonizing confrontation.

Robert C. Jones is a freelance writer in Warrensburg, Missouri.