For those of you that have an eye for epic fantasy this is a very good book to get your year started with. Technically it’s the second book within the Recluse Saga, but really it stands on it’s own story wise. In fact for those of that are sticklers for timeline and history within a fantasy world I would suggest perhaps starting with this one rather than The Magic of Recluse. No matter which you choose to do the stories are independent of each other.

The story behind The Towers of the Sunset works more like a backdrop on the history of the island of Recluse for which the series is named for. Reading this book first might fill in some gaps of the histories of the fantasy world before reading the other books. However, L. E. Modesitt Jr. does have an uncanny way of weaving the history through all of his books making it very easy to jump right in and just read. I believe that makes a huge difference in an epic fantasy series like this one that seems to just keep growing.

As stated in my first post for the year one of my goals is read through all 18 books in the Recluse Saga. Over the years I have read many of the books, but these from the beginning of the series I remember much less of the story than I thought going into this challenge. In some ways it feels like I’m reading them again for the first time. That will be true for the last three that have been published as I have yet to read those. I will enjoy this series all over again and perhaps even pick up things I had not story wise throughout the first 15 books that I have read many years ago.