Colors of Chaos by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very solid book in the Saga of Recluce series. I found myself sympathizing more and more about Fairhaven and the White Wizards in general, and especially about the regular people on the wrong side of the Order/Chaos conflict.

Of course, when we're dealing with Chaos mages, the one thing we've learned over and over again is that there is ALWAYS a balance, and as we follow the young Ceryl on his rise in the ranks as his cohorts die horrible deaths or as he sees his nation decline through bad policies or reliance on a power that STILL needs to be balanced in the end, it is, in effect, a tragedy.

An old civilization overcome by greed and mismanagement, overtaken by a simple magical correction. Ceryl, of course, tries to mitigate the disaster, and I admit I enjoyed almost all of it.

Other than that, it was really fun to see one of the previous novels from an expansive and detailed opposite point of view. We've always been treated to the order side of things, sometimes mixed with a judicious amount of chaos. This time, we have chaos mixed with a judicious amount of order. Nothing could be more precious than this.

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