SOARER'S CHOICE L. E. Modesitt, Jr. (Corean Chronicles) [Mass Market Paperback]

Soarer's Choice is an acceptable but not great finale to the Corean Chronicles. Modesitt weaves an interesting tale of political intrigues with his characters but doesn't do a particularly satisfying job of tying that to the world he's created, meaning plot development and resolution leaves something to be desired. I take a star off for the overall plot and a half star for shunting one of his lead protagonists to a secondary role, but I'll round it up to 4 stars as the intrigues were interesting enough the first read through to keep me up past my bedtime.

The basic problem of writing a prequel is that the reader already knows the ending, which means if you're not careful as a writer you end up spending the majority of your plot on things that either don't matter or just seem contrived to get you to the beginning of the next book. (Think the Star Wars prequels: you suffer 8 hours of hell to finally get to the great last 30 minutes, and even then parts of it feel contrived.) Modesitt's actually been both very good (the first few Recluce books) and very bad (the Cyador novels) at walking this line.

Soarer's Choice falls somewhere in between. In this case, the prequel's problem is that at the start of the book we know that something was done to the life-sucking, planet-invading alectors by the ancients, but we're not sure about who, how, when, and what resulted, just that those questions have to be answered by the end of the book. (The why at least is nicely answered over the last couple of books.) The resolution of all these questions would have made a very meaty, intriguing plot.

Instead, we get a political drama surrounding the commander of the alector military forces, Dainyl, and a less-satisfying series of military battles with his native counterpart, Mykel. While Dainyl's ultimate moves are predictable for a Modesitt protagonist - when those above you don't get the problem (in this case keeping the alectors from killing the planet off for selfish personal gain), fix it yourself! - it's still one of Modesitt's better one-man-against-the-world stories in a while and worth the read. On the other hand, Mykel gets shunted off to a series of military battles that may be important to setting up the world of the sequels but have almost nothing to do with the impending ancient vs. alector struggle we know is coming. As a result, his plot line seems largely irrelevant. With character development stunted, even with vastly reduced stage time every time he shows up it feels like he's taking away from the main plot, not adding to it. The two plotlines barely interact, a shame given the effort Modesitt made in developing Mykel in the first two books.

The bigger problem, though, is that while we get answers to the what resulted and when questions we really don't get much of an answer to who and how. Dainyl's struggles end up being a very interesting story that is largely marginal to the bigger overall plot resolution, and Mykel's struggles add almost nothing. This would have been a far better book had both characters been a couple of the main answers to who, the plot focused on how, and Modesitt doing his normal great job with the moral questions that raises for both. Instead, the plot more or less just finishes and we're set up for the original three books.

Still, the Dainyl story is a good read and this is more worth buying than most fantasy books. With a different plot line, though, this could have been one of Modesitt's best, and that's a bit of a let down.

Soarer's Choice completes the trilogy of "Choice" books, set in the Corean world of Corus. The two protagonists are Dainyl, an enlightened member of the allegorically-vampiric race of "ubermen" who inhabit the planet only to test whether it would make a good launching point for their dying civilization; and Mykel, an enlightened human, who has powers akin to the supermen from elsewhere but tries to keep them concealed.

This book would be almost meaningless without having read the prior two. Indeed, reading the first three Corean Chronicles books is probably best.

Specific to Soarer's Choice, I found this one of Modesitt's best efforts. One thing he usually does in his writing that was blissfully absent here was a sense of building and foreboding and plodding plots until the last or second-to-last chapter, where in a cathartic menagerie of plot revelation, there is a tremendous battle that ends all the conflict in the story. Every single Recluse novel is like that; and most of these Corean books as well. However, here, that wasn't the case at all. Interesting, useful plot movement and exciting, dangerous encounters proliferate the book. So I loved the pacing.

As to the series in general being concluded here, I echo another reviewer who complained about the lack of continuity between the two protagonists, who had interaction in both prior books but are both singled out in this one. It was very strange. I can only guess why Modesitt would build this relationship between these two characters who seem bound by fate together, and then leave them silently separate for the final book of the series. Disappointing.

On another note, however, personally I like the lack of "sexual charge" in his books. Contrary to other reviewers, I think Modesitt knows how to write a man-woman relationship fine. What he doesn't know how to do - or choose to do - is write a scene from the O.C., where 18 years olds are having promiscuous immediate sex with graphic detail. If that's your cup of tea, go read Terry Goodkind pornography (otherwise known as the Sword of Truth series). Modesitt focuses on more monogomous and mature relationships that will ring more true probably with people who have been married 10-20 years than raging hormone high schoolers.

In sum, though, I thought this book had good pacing, with the occassional preaching about the gray areas of justice in medival marketplace economies slowing it down; I thought the plot was great, the end poignant if abrupt, and this one is worth reading the first two for (also decent books).

I found this book fascinating (as I always do with this author), the way the story unfolds, understanding the rules beneath the rules, always a great read.
I especially loved chapters 28 and 30, where Dainyl lets Khelaryt and Samist know about the scepter and the repo cushions of the shadow-match being removed and reducing their talent strength. The realization of this as I was reading it was absolutely fantastic, the mis-information, redirections that led Dainyl to first mention it to Khelaryt was great.
Starting to read the next now