I just picked up The Magic Of Recluce this week by L. E. Medesitt,Jr.  Getting ready to sink my teeth into and wanted some input from any of you that may have read it.  Is it worth getting the sequels or have I chosen a dud?

Debbie

I loved The Magic of Recluse and all the other books in the series.  Just know L. E. Modesitt Jr. is a bit formulaic. Boy pushed from home > travels to new/hostile land > grows in maturity/power > encounters conflict > solves conflict with new maturity/power. Now this might seem a bit boring after awhile, but for myself I've found each book to be completely engaging.

*agrees strongly with Michael*

Some of his later books in the Recluce saga are much less  "eat food, travel, whine, do magic, eat, make horse noises", etc :-)  I really enjoyed all the books I've read so far though.

and his Corean Chronicles are really good too. Better, imo...

I was reading Recluse series the year before I joined PBS.  I kept finishing one and having to drive all over town the next day after work  to find the next one in the series because I couldn't wait when I knew there was another one out there!  Now I just order everything in the set before I even begin so that doesn't happen again.  When I finish one I want to know the next one is just in the other room so I can go get it.

And just so you know, the many books of series take place over time and there are different main characters and settings.  So once you start you'll have some background but a number of the stories are pretty independent of each other, but not all of them. Not like some series with the same characters throughout (like Richard and Kahlan from Goodkind's Sword series or the whole gang from Jordan's Wheel series).  Sometimes that puts me off because I get all caught up in a character and then they don't appear in the next book.  That happened to me when I read Card's Earth series, the fifth one has a whole new set of characters and it just didn't feel the same as the earlier books.  But in the case of the Recluse series, it didn't bother me at all. 

Thanks for all the input.  So far the book hasn't  "grabbed" me but I'm perservering.  It's funny I used to read nothing but fantasy then drifted away from it for quite a while.  Now I'm finding it hard to find a series I love. 

I read the Magic of Recluse this past year, and it didn't really grab me either.  Some interesting ideas, but it seemed kind of pointless and meandering to me.  Kind of disappointing after hearing so many good things about it.