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

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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.

Inflation and Memory
November 29, 2024

I recently read a reader’s comment about Overcaptain, a statement that he wasn’t about to pay trade paperback prices for an ebook. And yes, the initial publication ebook price is $15.00, but the trade paperback price in roughly eight months will likely be around $21.00, if not more, since the U.S. is the largest importer of paper in the world and most of that comes from Canada. Now that Trump has declared he’s going to impose a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico for all imports, I suspect any such tariff will increase the price of printed books.

Inflation is hard on everyone, and it prompts recollections of the past. I can certainly remember when eight-ounce bottles of Coke were a dime and you could get a hamburger and fries at McDonalds for a quarter. But back then, the minimum wage was seventy-five cents an hour.

In the real and present world, inflation isn’t going away. So long as Americans insist on not paying enough taxes to cover the costs of what we want (collectively) while complaining about the government “stuff” the other guys and gals want and bitching about who is and who isn’t paying enough taxes, and wanting someone else to pay for it, we’re going to have inflation.

Also, just because something costs more doesn’t mean that those who provide it are getting rich. What too many readers don’t understand is that publishing is a low profit industry. Legal secretaries in New York can make 30-40% more than a senior fiction editor. One long-time very senior and successful F&SF editor (with a Ph.D. in comparative medieval literature) I knew used his expertise to find undervalued rare books and resell them in order to make ends meet. Most authors can’t make a living off their writing. I worked long hours in D.C. for nearly 20 years after first getting published (while writing on the side and selling every novel I wrote) before I could live off what I made as a writer… and I’m one of the fortunate few who’s managed to do so for an extended period of time.

So, while I can reminisce about inexpensive Cokes and hamburgers, I can also remember classmates wearing braces from polio, acquaintances with vision damaged by measles, a swimmer I knew dying from an automobile accident before seatbelts were required, and a whole host of other recollections far less pleasant, most of which kinds of unpleasantness no longer occur because of government regulations.

But nostalgia about the past, anger about the rising costs of inflation, and blaming the rest of the world and imposing tariffs on ourselves are so much easier than actually dealing with the causes of that inflation.

The Copy Culture
November 21, 2024

One of the skills my wife the professor and her colleagues attempt to develop in her voice students is the ability to learn how to sing from sheet music. It’s not easy. It requires piano skills, the ability to sight-read music, the ability to pronounce foreign words (which they’re theoretically required to develop by using the international phonetic alphabet), working out the timing and breathing to fit their own voice, and a great deal of hard work. Most students resist doing the work. Instead, they find a UTube video of the piece and sing along until they think they’ve learned the piece.

Except… they haven’t. Many of them won’t even study the lyrics, even when the words are in English, at least until prompted, because they don’t even consider how they’re going to convey emotion, particularly in a foreign language, if they don’t understand the full meaning of the words.

That’s just the beginning. Even if they find a video sung by a truly great singer, it doesn’t that mean that particular version suits the student’s voice, especially if the student is young and the recorded singer is fully mature. It also doesn’t take into account that even good singers make mistakes, or the fact that even accurate copies are less vital and accurate than the original. Add to that that “copying” a range of singers will keep the student from truly developing their own voice.

And, of course, there’s the “small” problem that the student can’t learn music that someone else hasn’t already recorded, not to mention that not all recordings, especially off UTube, aren’t that good.

But “copying” is so much easier.

Unhappily, this tendency isn’t confined to would-be classical singers. All one has to do is listen to current pop singers. Until about twenty-five or thirty years ago, listeners could identify singers within a few bars. Now, the majority all sound the same.

The “copy culture” isn’t limited to music, either. There’s rough “copying” in writing as well. The advent of the computer, combined with the internet, has spawned widespread and persistent plagiarism. At the same time, I’m seeing more and more grammatical and technical errors in commercial and semi-commercial material appearing on the internet, suggesting a lack of basic technique.

One of the reasons why I wrote the first Recluce novel [The Magic of Recluce] was because all too many fantasy novels at that time were set in pseudo-medieval cultures and the magic systems were largely based on spells or tradition folk magic, and I didn’t feel like “copying.” That’s also why each of my fantasy series has a unique magic system.

But because the “copy culture” is far cheaper than good solid originality, it’s growing and invading everywhere. And what does that say about society?

Reading and Precision
November 18, 2024

Last week, when I was watching a news story on the results of the election, a particular news item caught my attention – that a number of ballots cast by young people in Nevada were being scrutinized because the signatures on the ballot didn’t match the signatures on file.

Fraud, you might ask. Apparently not.

The signature on the mail-in ballot or in some states on the voting register has to match the signature on file, and that is noted on the ballot, and the signature on file has to match the name on whatever legal document was used to register.

That’s true here in Utah as well, so while my friends know me as Lee Modesitt, and I write under L.E. Modesitt, Jr., the signature on my mail-in ballot has to be my full legal name – Leland Exton Modesitt, Jr. Otherwise, the ballot will be questioned, and possibly thrown out, or I might have to prove to the County Clerk that I’m the one who cast the ballot.

This is spelled out clearly, but the ballots of more than a few ballots of young voters in Nevada were being scrutinized for inadequate signature matches, according to the news.

I’m hardly surprised. Too many of my wife’s college students don’t read the syllabus (and often don’t listen to the same information imparted orally), and then protest that they didn’t know an assignment was due or that a test was scheduled for a given date. So it’s not exactly shocking that some young voters didn’t read the ballot instructions, either.