Born in 1943 in
Denver, Colorado,
L. E. Modesitt, Jr. has, like many authors, skated through many professions, including
Navy pilot,
Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the
EPA, and a
college lecturer. A graduate of
Williams College, his first published story appeared in 1973, while a
resident of
Washington, D.C.. He moved to
Cedar City, UT via
New Hampshire, picked up a wife (a
lyric soprano) and eight
children.
He can be reached at LModesitt@aol.com, and a very comprehensive fansite is at http://www.webpan.com/msauers/modesitt/
His principal characters tend to be ultra-powerful heros in a sci fi or fantasy universe operating by rules that they don't quite understand. His novels tend to preach various alternative socio-philosophies, with an emphasis on the idea that every action has a cost. His sensory focus is frequently on sound and many a battle sequence will be punctuated by some sound effect.
...whsst...
These sound cues help paint a broader picture of the chaos and subtlety in his worlds. His visual cues for people are almost entirely oriented on hair color and eye color, often to the exclusion of all else.
Anthology:
- The Saga of Recluse
- The story of a world in which the predominant opposing forces are Order and Chaos, held in Balance. Mages of order and chaos are descended from marooned space travelers. Currently 11 books:
- The Magic of Recluse
- Introduction to Recluse.
- The Towers of the Sunset
- Early Prehistory; the founding of Recluse
- The Magic Engineer
-
- The Order War
-
- The Death of Chaos
-
- Fall of Angels
- Earliest Prehistory, detailing the coming of the "angels"
- The Chaos Balance
-
- The White Order
- View from the side of Chaos. Overlaps with The Magic Engineer
- Colors of Chaos
- View from the side of Chaos. Overlaps with The Order War.
- Magi'i of Cyador
-
- Scion of Cyador
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- The Spellsong Cycle
- Follows a soprano who is transported from earth to an alternate world where magic is created from music. Two forms of magic exist - Darksong, which can affect organic matter (and is often used to cloud men's minds; and Clearsong, which can effect changes in inorganics.
- The Soprano Sorceress
- The Spellsong War
- Darksong Rising
- The Shadow Sorceress
- The Ecolitan Matter
- A far future world, in which the Ecolitan Institute maintains peace and balance by pre-emptive retributive strikes.
- The Ecologic Envoy
- The Ecolitan Operation
- The Ecologic Secession
- The Ecolitan Enigma
- Empire and Ecolitan
- The Forever Hero
- A post-apocalyptic view of Earth (in a galactic Federation), and how one man's immortality allows him to plan for the future of his people.
- Dawn for a Distant Earth
- The Silent Warrior
- In Endless Twilight
- Timegod's World
- An application of Norse mythology to a world whose people can teleport in time and space.
- The Fires of Paratime
- Timediver's Dawn
- The Timegod
- Ghosts
- A series studying the alternate history of a world in which ghosts are real, and the effect on war and technology.
- Of Tangible Ghosts
- The Ghost of the Revelator
- Ghost of the White Nights
- The Green Progression
- The Parafaith War
- The Hammer of Darkness
- Adiamante
- Gravity Dreams
- The Octagonal Raven