Fall Of Angels by L.E. Modesitt, Jr

Another doorstop entry (560 pages) to the Recluce saga. This guy NEVER writes small books.

Credit where credit's due though, what appeared at first glance to be a cliched fantasy story turns out to be something rather different. There's an intriguing blend of high-tech and low-tech and a satisfyingly complex political situation.

Buy Fall of Angels

Unlike your standard fantasy blockbuster, L.E. Modesitt likes to ponder a few questions over the course of his story. In this case its a return to his old favourite the "war of the sexes". Here it most definately is a war.

Most importantly perhaps, he resists the temptation to give pat answers, and by the end of the book we are left with the sad irony that in building her small country where women will be the equal of men, what she has actually done is treat some men as badly as other men were treating women and brings about the death of a leader who did consider women his equal.

For those who have read the other Recluce books, this fills in some interesting gaps in the history, not to mention twisting things in a way that I'd bet no one expected.

Its not perfect though. L.E. Modesitt is a somewhat heavy handed writer. Every time we see one particularly character we get descriptions of her sewing which become rather tedious. Similarly character traits are sometimes repeated to us endlessly rather than being demonstrated.

I suspect editing this down to around 400 pages would have noticeably improved it.