L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website

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Welcome

Like most authors, I want my readers to have as much background information as possible, particularly about recently released books, and books that will be published in the months ahead. But it’s equally important for new readers to learn about the books already out there. Those are some of the purposes of this site.

Another reason for the site is to acquaint you all with the range of my books. Just because you liked one of my fantasies doesn’t mean, unfortunately, that you will like one of my “hard” SF novels. I’d hope that you would, but another point of this site is to give you more information so that you know more about what I’m writing and what I have written.

Thanks again for reading my work, for supporting me, and for keeping the written word alive and well!

—L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

History
December 4, 2023

Despite both George Santayana and Winston Churchill declaring that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them, most people really don’t learn anything from history. They’re more inclined to agree with Henry Ford, who declared, “History is more or less bunk.”

Not only that, but even when they’re faced with great horrors, unless it affects them, most people are inclined to do nothing.

In the time of Hitler, most Germans did nothing to oppose the death camps that killed millions of Jews and others classed as “undesirable” by the Nazis. Neither did most Poles or most French people. Americans, for the most part, ignored the genocide, at least until Germany was defeated.

Few if any Turks did anything to oppose the killing of Armenians, and many Turks still deny that genocide. The list of genocides is long, and most people know about only a small fraction, if that, unless they have personal, familial, or cultural experience.

Hitler’s death camps weren’t the first or only time Jewish people were threatened. Pogroms were common in Russia from the second half of the nineteenth century well into the twentieth century. Some of the bloodiest pogroms took place in England in the late twelfth century, which culminated with Edward I issuing an Edict of Expulsion that removed all Jews from England and forbid their presence until it was effectively revoked in the 1650s.

Given more than two thousand years of attacks and persecution, and given that history shows that almost no one steps up to prevent genocide, although there’s often futile handwringing and a great deal of tears [many of them of the crocodile variety] after the fact, is it any wonder that Israel has reacted as it has?

Exactly what is Israel supposed to do? Be “lenient” and give Hamas yet another chance, when all of Hamas and the majority of Palestinians seek Israel’s total destruction?

Too many of those condemning Israeli tactics have forgotten or never learned that defeating someone who wants to destroy you is anything but bloodless. Among the forgotten or ignored knowledge is the fact that over 600,000 German civilians, including 75,000 children, died from allied bombing in the effort to defeat Hitler, and, back then, Americans certainly weren’t bemoaning German civilian deaths when “American boys” were dying for their country. Or is it somehow different when “Israeli boys and girls” are dying for theirs?

Whatever Happened to Ukraine?
November 30, 2023

A year and a little less than ten months ago, Russia launched a brutal attempt to crush Ukraine. Since then, the Ukrainians have slowly reclaimed some but not all of the territory seized by the Russians.

In late November, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that to date, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed, and more than 18,500 injured, since Russia began the invasion. At least 300 children have died, and that doesn’t include thousands forcibly removed by Russian troops to Russia or Russian-controlled territory.

British military intelligence reports that Russian troop casualties are in the range of 120,000 Russian dead and 180,000 injured, while Ukrainian troops killed or wounded are in the range of 80,000. That doesn’t count the nearly three million displaced people or the scores of towns leveled by the fighting.

Yet, if one follows the U.S. news media, since October 7th, when Hamas attacked Israel, it’s as if the Russia-Ukraine conflict has almost vanished.

To date, in the conflict between Hamas and Israel, Israel has reported 1,400 deaths, the vast majority of which occurred on or from events on October 7th.

The Palestinian Authority’s Government Media Office has reported total deaths of 14,800, including 6,000 children and 4,000 women. This unverified number has been printed everywhere, but is currently likely exaggerated, given the past unreliability of figures coming from Gaza.

So… why has the Russia/Ukraine war almost vanished from the U.S. media.

Partly because it’s a grinding and ongoing war with no end in sight, and the U.S. media consumers are tired of hearing about it, but mostly because the Israel-Gaza conflict is so much more exciting, with hidden tunnels, the surprise that the IDF was caught so unaware, and all the possible deaths – and kidnapping – of children, not to mention the “bombing” of a hospital that wasn’t an Israeli bombing, and the humanitarian crisis that is more easily captured for media.

Of course, there’s a definite similarity, in that Hamas and Putin have both expressed the desire to crush the people they attacked.

But still…won’t what happens in Ukraine have a much greater long-term effect on Europe and the United States than what happens in Gaza?

Or is it that the news media are so narrow-minded or profit-driven that they can only cover one crisis at a time?

The Line Between
November 27, 2023

The other day I read the prequel to a very popular fantasy that I’d enjoyed a year or so ago, but somewhere around halfway through the book I knew exactly how it would end. Well, except for the death of the largely-out-of-view-until-the-last-chapters villain, whose way of death was definitely a surprise, but not quite enough to overshadow the feeling that the “emotional plot” was identical to the first book.

That brought up the question of where one draws the line between a novel set in the same world that, by necessity, shares a certain resemblance to others in a series, and a novel that is far too predictable.

Now, it’s pretty clear that, in books that have the same protagonist, the author isn’t likely to kill that protagonist in book one. I don’t consider that an overly predictable flaw.

Readers being readers, I doubt that few draw that line in the same place. That’s why some readers find some of my books too predictable, because my competent protagonists always find a way, if indirect, or excessively bloody, to obtain their goal, or a different goal that they never considered at the beginning of the book. Perhaps I’m too grounded in reality, but I’ve never seen someone who “lucks” into money or power, or who is strongly flawed, really make much of it in real life – not over their entire life (we’ll see how that works with Trump).

And sometimes, when readers get upset with predictability, it’s for the wrong reason. In a lower-tech world, when a leader first uses a significant innovation in weapons or tactics, each land he or she conquers will use the same old predictable tactics against the attacker – and usually fail – because no one’s seen them before and because, first, communications are slow, and, second, it’s often difficult to describe new tactics and weapons until you’re faced with them, and then it’s a little late. This problem becomes less and less of a difficulty with higher technology and faster and more in-depth communications systems.

In the end, every author has to find a balance between predictability and surprise, because too much surprise can be unbelievable to readers and too little makes the book too predictable. But readers have differing thresholds for determining what’s too unbelievable, even in fantasy, and what’s too predictable… and that’s why what’s too predictable for one reader can be just right for another, and why reader recommendations need to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.