I greatly enjoyed Legalist, and wanted to express my appreciation for how frequently we readers get to enjoy your new novels! My question is about the setting in the Grand Illusion series. I know you have said that series tend to sell better than standalone novels. How did you decide to write a “fantasy” series that is so light on magic, almost more of an alternate history? Is the Grand Illusion somewhat of a compromise between more typical sci-fi and fantasy settings, or was there another inspiration? Again, thank you!

I’ve never focused on whether a book was “light” or “heavy” on fantasy. I’ve been more interested in how the magic or fantasy elements affect the society I’m writing about and its history. Politics always involves a combination of persuasion and power, and in The Grand Illusion books, I wanted to explore what might occur when one aspect of persuasion was also directly linked to power.

I ordered the Legalist from Amazon.co.uk about six months ago. Yesterday they cancelled the order saying they cannot obtain the book. Has TOR reduced the numbers published? Just thought you should know as I have the full Recluse series to date and a lot of the others a pity to have to search elsewhere to get them.

Thank you for letting me know. It appears someone screwed up when a pre-order can’t be filled. I’ve asked Tor to look into the matter. Whether that will do any good is another question.

When writing your books, how much of the interlude manuals/texts/books do you write? Do you have a complete Book of Ayrlyn or Cyad Personnel Manual written somewhere?

I’m afraid not. In some cases, I wrote larger “excerpts” and pared them down.

We know Lephi decreed that non-Healer Cyadoran women should be chained in their homes, but in Arms-Commander there’s a ruined building in Lornth with a ring that the Lornians remember as being used by the Cyadorans to chain women. Given it’s location, the cottage must be from much earlier than Lephi’s reign. Have the Lornians mis-remembered or did it happen more than once?

Lephi wouldn’t have been able to mandate chaining if there hadn’t been previous popular support for the practice, and such practices would have gone unremarked in outlying lands of the Empire.

I’ve read The White Order/Colors of Chaos/Magic Engineer several times, and I think the way the conflict is depicted from two viewpoints is brilliant (and sad and all too realistic). I’ve thought a lot about whether Cerryl is a bad guy (propping up a questionable regime) or a good guy (mitigating the harms caused by the White Order). I would love to know what you think. (and yes, I know you might say it doesn’t matter what you think, it matters what I think. I’ve thought long and hard for years and I suppose I would say Cerryl did the best he could with limited options – at least until he gained a lot of power. But still – I would dearly what you think, and why. And if you reject the premise of my question, why. Thanks much! and great work!

Actually, I think Cerryl is, on the whole, a “good guy” doing the best he can to survive and to reform the White Order, for at least the time while he holds power. Given the make-up of the White Order, there’s effectively no way to make such reforms without more force and ruthlessness than would be ideal… but that, too, is the nature of many circumstances in life.

For your older books, would you rather people buy new, or from a used bookstore? I want to make sure I’m supporting authors, but if you receive basically nothing from the sale of a new copy of an older book, then the higher cost of a new book might not be worth it. I have no idea how compensation in the publishing world works, especially on older books. Thanks for the guidance!

If you buy a new copy of an old book from a bookstore like Barnes & Noble or even Amazon (if it’s labeled as new), the author gets royalties. If you buy it used, from whomever, the author doesn’t. Obviously, authors (me included) prefer readers buy new books, but I’m well aware that new books are expensive and that not everyone can afford them, and I’d rather have them read used books of mine than not read my work at all.

Mr. Modesitt, I just wanted to thank you for my father who just passed away 2 weeks ago. He was 83 and a huge fan of your stories. He read three or four of your series and I mean the whole series. Bought all the hardcover books. I read them too and now we are going to donate them tour local city library. Thank you for all the thoughtful entertainment that you brought to him.

Thank you for letting me know about you and your father’s long-standing support. I hope the library will make good use of your donation. I deeply appreciate it, especially now.

The Recluce saga has a rather bleak strain running through it of once-great nations becoming corrupt and venal. This happens to Cyador, Fairhaven, Hamor and even Recluce itself. Is this reflective of your view of human history or do you think it an effect of the interaction between magery and politics?

I’d have to say that, while the eventual decline of the great civilizations of the world of Recluce reflects my view of human history, my view also reflects the pattern of human history fairly accurately, with the possible exception/addition of the fact that there are also societies so corrupt that they never become great. Magery, effectively, has the same impact as technology, in that it amplifies both good and bad and increases the pace of change in a society.

In your books where time is measured in glasses, how do your characters determine which glass is current? And, is a ‘glass’ based on something like a sand hourglass?

The glasses I mention are sand hourglasses. On ships and in military installations, a junior individual was assigned to flip the hourglass and log the time. Often people don’t actually know the precise time, but estimate because they know about long a glass takes to empty.