Madness in Solidar

Imager Portfolio, Book 9

By: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Narrated by: William Dufris

Four centuries after its founding, Solidar's Collegium of Imagers is in decline, the exploits of its founder, the legendary Quaeryt, largely forgotten. The Collegium is so lacking in leadership that the dying Maitre must summon Alastar, an obscure but talented senior imager who has little knowledge of politics in the capital, as his successor.

When Alastar arrives in L'Excelsis and becomes the new Maitre, he finds disarray and lack of discipline within the Collegium, and the ruler of Solidar is so hated by the High Holders that they openly refer to him as being mad. To make matters worse, neither Rex Ryen nor the High Holders have any respect for the Collegium.

Soon Alastar finds himself in the middle of a power struggle, with Ryen demanding that the Collegium remove the strongest High Holders and the military leadership in turn plotting to topple Ryen and destroy the Collegium. At the same time, Ryen is demanding that the High Holders pay a massive increase in taxes while he initiates a grandiose building project. And all that, Alastar discovers, is only a fraction of the problems he and the Collegium face.

©2015 L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Modesitt once again delivers an engrossing power struggle negotiated by a virtuous and talented man committed to achieving the greater good by way of the least harm." ( Kirkus)

Another amazing book...can't wait for the next!

I would have thought by now this series would have become mundane and boring but much to my delight it's another great read/listen.

Wonderful Addition

This was a surprising and fantastically adventurous addition to the Imager Portfolio. I’ve been reading this series and enjoying every moment for decades and I cannot say enough about LEM’s skill and imagination.

Thank you for another fantastic story!
Lucent

nothing new BUT GREAT NEW STORYLINE

I love the whole series this is the new story set between the first story & the second story. How the process to current story happened. Just read it.

Formalaic but written well

Apparently the storylines of these characters are unnervingly similar. However I find them enjoyable and the stories still contain elements of suspense and intrigue. The narrator does an excellent job of presenting both male and female characters. I'm going to listen to a novel by another favorite author that has the same narrator if only to see if he uses the same inflections and accents as he does in this one. I've enjoyed this series and look forward to listening to the end of it. I really wish the author would add volumes to it.

A little slow start but good in the end

A thought the plot was slow to take off but once we got to 40,000 feet it got better.

Well done

Good continuation of the imager world storyline if you liked the prior books. Performance is well done and adds to the story.

Pointless

Compared to the rest of the imager series this book lacked direction. It almost felt like when a long running TV show hacks together a bunch old clips and calls the montage a show. It even failed at that. I repeatedly found myself saying "this is really slow I don't care about toast or the color of lager" I have read a large number of modesitt's books and he usually comes in at an entertaining 4 starts. He missed the mark on this one.

It’s all right

This installment in the imager series is not nearly as engaging to me as the prior books. Just lost the recipe on this one for me