Treachery’s Tools by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
It’s always a surprise when a fantasy novel can carry real meaning in depicting modern issues. Things like pride, avarice and jealousy that can be pervasive in certain segments of the social structure of a modern world can be so powerfully demonstrated when people use swords and magic to actually kill each. L.E. Modesitt Jr.’s Treachery’s Tools was able to provoke those comparisons for me.
When last we left Alastar he had successfully stood off a revolt by High Holders against the Rex of Solidar and the attempted obliteration of the Imager’s Collegium. While many of the participants in this violent confrontation paid with their lives, some managed to avoid paying the ultimate price and slunk into exile. One might have hoped that Alastar and his beloved Alyna would have been able to live out the rest of their life in relative peace.
Fast forward a few years and Alastar is older, a father to a precocious daughter and happily married to Alyna. While coping with the burgeoning imaging skills of their daughter may try their patience and creativity, these are challenges that both embrace. As is to be expected there is trouble afoot and Alastar and his fellow Imagers are once again targeted as a force to be eliminated.
The Rex of Solidar has not grown into the kind of decisive, insightful ruler that one might have hoped. For Alastar this mean sifting through some almost temper tantrums when problems arise in order to figure out what is really going on. When information is withheld and Alastar is assigned the task of reconciling the High Holders, who are being stirred up to seek a return of historical prerogatives, and the Factors Guild, who long for the status of being a High Holder as their financial/economic status begins to outstrips the same. The motivations behind the High Holders designs seem so blatantly ridiculous at a first glance, but may deserve greater investigation as one considers cultural mores that fall outside those of the western Judeo-Christian foundation that I live in. Are there not cultures in the world today where legacy power structures would fight, kill and destroy in order to see their heritage maintained? Have wars not been fought between a ruling aristocracy and a rising middle class? In a sense, this is not that foreign a concept, nor is the motivation of the wealthy rising middle class to have greater control and equal treatment as the nobility?
Alastar, as a good many of Modesitt’s characters are, is very slow in anticipating just how powerful the motivation of greed and jealousy can be for others. Simply put, because he doesn’t share those motivations, he is slow to recognize them and at times underestimates the impact. It’s important to see Alastar as a powerful, but flawed individual and those flaws can be frustrating as lives are lost and events spiral out of control.
In the end, Treachery’s Tools is a solid addition to the IMAGER PORTFOLIO and offers another link between different segments of the history of the Imagers of Solidar. The plot and characters are often very similar to things we have seen over and over again, but with the added depth of the impact of those nasty traits of jealous and lust for power it was entirely satisfying for a fan of the series.
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