"L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio, continues the Grand Illusion, a gaslamp political fantasy series (Isolate, Councilor, Contrarian) with a prequel, Legalist.
Fifty years after the establishment of the Imperium, and 450 years before the events of Isolate, Dominic Mikail Ysella—ancestor of Avraal Ysella—is the grandson of the last king of Aloor. Stripped of most of their land, Dominic, as the third son, must support himself.
Dominic becomes a legalist and is elected to the Imperial Council quietly working as an isolate, someone unreadable by government telepaths.
Amid a time of a crumbling imperial line, Dominic must build a coalition within the Council and quietly draft a new constitution to save the Imperium from itself. Uncovering rampant corruption, graft, and potential to be arrested for treason, Ysella discovers any number of ways that simple legal specialist in water rights could get himself killed."
"L. E. Modesitt, Jr. continues the Saga of Recluce, the long-running, bestselling epic fantasy series. Overcaptain, the sequel to From the Forest, continues to follow the early life of a man known by many names depending on who you ask—hero, tyrant, emperor.
Alyiakal, overcaptain in the Mirror Lancers of Cyador, has completed his tour of duty as officer-in-charge of a small, remote post. He just wants to finish and see his best friend consorted and assume his next post assignment. If only it were that easy.
He discovers corruption in the Merchanter Clans of Cyador, but investigating Mirror Lancer officers end up dead. Before he can go on leave, he has to replace one of these officers, close a post, dodge an attempt on his life, and an investigation from Magi-i.
At Lhaarat, Alyiakal is assigned as a deputy commander to a post that never had one, and the commander doesn't want one—and that's just the beginning of Alyiakal's problems."
"L. E. Modesitt, Jr. continues the Saga of Recluce, the long-running, bestselling epic fantasy series. In a new story arc, From the Forest follows the early life of a man known by many names depending on who you ask—hero, tyrant, emperor.
Alayiakal, who will one day be known by many names—not all of them flattering—has to climb the ranks of Cyador's Mirror Lancers, fighting against unforeseen weapons and ancient technology.
Alayiakal, however, has secrets of his own to protect: his ties to the Great Forest and his magus abilities. He must silently pretend to be a conventional soldier favored by fate—until that very same fate forces him to choose."
"L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio, continues his gaslamp political fantasy series which began with Isolate and Councilor. Welcome to the Grand Illusion
In Contrarian, protests against unemployment and poor harvests have become armed riots as the people sink deeper into poverty. They look to a government struggling to emerge from corruption and conspiracy.
Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths—but not the recent bombing of the Council Office Building by insurrectionists.
His patron, the Premier of the Council, has been assassinated, leaving Dekkard with little first-hand political experience and few political allies.
Not only must Dekkard handle political infighting, and continued assassination attempts, but it appears that someone high up in the government and corporations has supplied arms and explosives to insurrectionists.
Insurrectionists who have succeeded in taking over a naval cruiser that no one can seem to find."
"In the twenty-fourth century, Earth is vastly changed. Ecological and biological catastrophe have raged across the planet, but for the survivors, it is a world of plenty. Even the poorest live in abundance, and the upper class—the ascendant—command technological marvels.
Ten years ago, rising star in the Marines Jonat deVrai, shocked his superiors by walking away from the Corps after witnessing atrocity and hypocrisy during the reclamation of Guyana. Starting his life over, he established himself as the world's expert on the effectiveness of 'prod'—product placement, the only advertising which viewers will allow through the sophisticated filters they all use against unwanted intrusions on their electronic link networks. Prod, reinforced with sublims and the 'res'—resonant frequencies, a form of sonic branding—is the wave of the future.
Jonat now advises multinational corporations on their prod campaigns. Then his comfortable world is upset when the Centre for Societal Research approaches him to study the effects of res and prod on political campaigns. After a political rally, he is jumped by armed thugs in a parking garage. A day later, a sniper ambushes him. Suspicion and conspiracy race around Jonat. Who wants him dead? With his life on the line, deVrai must sort flash from fact before it's too late."
"Four centuries in the future, the world is rich—nanomachines watch the health of the wealthy and manufacture food and gadgets for everybody—but no utopia, as we see in the lives of five very different people: a singing teacher, a news researcher, a police investigator, a politician, and a ruthless businessman.
Theirs is a society where technology takes care of everyone's basic needs but leaves most people struggling to extract a meaningful life from a world crowded with wonders but empty of commitment and human connection. Alternating the voices and experiences of these five characters in a tour de force of imaginative creation, L. E. Modesitt overlaps, combines, and builds their disparate stories into a brilliant tale of future crime and investigation, esthetic challenge, and personal triumph.
In the same way that he has built fantasy landscapes of surpassing fascination, Modesitt creates a believable future, one imbued with a deep understanding of the way politics work and how people act and react when their sense of themselves, of justice, and truth, is exploited by others for power and control. When there's nothing left to need or want, will beauty live on in people's lives or disappear forever?"
"L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s science fiction novels have been pleasing readers for nearly two decades. Among his earlier novels were three books set in the future universe of the Ecolitan Institute. Now Modesitt returns to that world to tell another story of cultural conflict and interstellar diplomacy. The Ecolitan Enigma is sure to thrill his old fans and win new ones.
Nathaniel Firstborn Whaler is an Ecolitan, both a professor at the Institute and a field agent with extraordinary powers. Sent to a backwater colony planet nominally to determine its economic viability, Whaler evades assassin's bullets only steps from the spaceport. He soon uncovers evidence that the planet will become the flashpoint for interstellar conflict between two empires, with each prepared to blame the Ecolitan Institute should war break out. Whaler must do everything in his power to stop what might become the worst disaster in human history.
And Nathaniel whaler just may have more power than any man in the galaxy."
"A shocking novel of what could happen if the fanatical defense of the environment crossed the line into deadly terror. When environmental consultant Jack McDarvid's boss is killed in a shootout near the Capitol, McDarvid becomes enmeshed in a diabolical plot behind the scenes of the environmental movement."
"Professor Johan Eschbach's lovely wife Llysette du Boise, a refugee from the burning remains of France and a world-famous vocalist, has been invited to provide a command performance for the Russian Imperial household. Johan accompanies her, allowing him to work on the oil concession in Russian Alaska that Columbia so desperately needs and do some spying on the side. Johan's espionage is carried out against the backdrop of the famous white nights of St. Petersburg, the nearly Arctic midsummer when the sun barely dips below the horizon and the sky seems to dissolve in ivory light. But even the oil shortage will fade to insignificance when Johan discovers what new weapons technology the Russians are developing, a threat even more fearsome than the atomic bombs of Austro-Hungary."
"Bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr. begins his Ghost Books series with Of Tangible Ghosts in a strange alternate reality where ghosts are no longer mere superstition, but physical realities.
When two real ghosts and the records of a murdered researcher enter the life of Johan Eschbach, the former spy and present professor finds himself caught with the secret of high-technology de-ghosting, and the whole world, including his former spymasters, try to turn Johan himself into another ghost."
"Professor Johan Eschbach had hoped for a quiet life in retirement from the intelligence service, teaching environmental science and living with his new wife, but an unusual invitation from the Mormon nation of Deseret inexorably drags him back into the spy business, though he isn't quite sure why or for whom. It quickly becomes apparent that he is being used as a pawn in a deadly game of international maneuverings that are leading the world closer to war."
