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A New Age Begins

The First Book of the Corean Chronicles

Millennia ago, a magical disaster caused the fall of a great civilization that spanned a continent, and ended a golden age. Corus today is a world of contending countries, of struggling humans, strange animals and elusive supernatural creatures. Though much has been forgotten, it is still a place of magical powers, and of a few people who are Talented enough to use them.

Even as a child, Alucius showed very strong Talent. He was warned never to reveal it, lest others seek to exploit it. But as he grows to young manhood, Alucius must serve in the Militia like his father before him. When his country is invaded by the slave armies of the Matrial, immortal ruler of a nearby land, Alucius is captured and magically enslaved.

A time of changes has come upon all of the world of Corus. If the evil surrounding the Matrial is not ended, those changes will not be happy ones. Alucius and his Talent have a central role to play.

Darknesses, the sequel to Legacies, is the second volume of L. E Modesitt, Jr. 's new fantasy sequence, the Corean Chronicles.

Corus is a world of humans, but also of strange animals and supernatural creatures. It is a world of magical powers and of a few people who are Talented enough to use them. Alucius, the hero of the story, is one such person. In Legacies we saw how he grew from a Talented child on a lonely Nightsheep ranch in the Iron Valleys to a proficient soldier who used his wits and his Talent to become the first to escape military enslavement in the neighboring country of Madrien. Now captain of the Twenty-first Company, the youngest officer of his rank in the Militia, he must face new challenges, both military and magical.

Corus has been fragmented since the collapse of its ancient magic-powered civilization. A would-be conqueror has somehow revived sorcerous creatures of legend to assist in his crusade to reunite the continent under his rule. The Iron Valleys are forced into an alliance with the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona and the Twenty-first is dispatched to stand against the invaders. Neither the officers above him nor the men under him know it, but Alucius's Talent is their only hope for victory, or even survival.

In Darknesses, Alucius learns more about his magical Talent, meets many more supernatural creatures, and discovers the sinister forces vying for power behind the scenes across Corus. This volume resolves many questions raised in the first book, but it is not the end of Corean Chronicles.

The popular creator of Recluce and of the Spellsong world of Liedwahr has built a whole new fantasy world on Corus. With each new volume of the Corean Chronicles we learn more about the magical underpinnings of this fascinating realm as we follow the continuing adventures of his reluctant hero, Alucius. In Legacies he became the first Iron Valley militiaman to escape sorcerous enslavement in Madrien. In Darknesses, he found a way to defeat a would-be conqueror who revived the fearsome creatures and potent weaponry of the legendary past. Now he returns to face the greatest challenges yet to both his courage and his magical Talent.

Alucius is happy back on his nightsheep stead with his beloved wife Wendra, who is expecting their first child. But the country is beset by enemies on all sides. Although the Lord Protector of Lanachrona keeps his promise not to order Alucius back to active duty, Alucius finds his request for help no easier to ignore.

Newly promoted to higher rank, and given command of a combined force of the Northern and Southern Guards, Alucius must first quell a strange religiously-inspired rebellion and then find a way to destroy the powerful weapons of ancient design again being used by the forces of Madrien. Unlike the Lord Protector, Alucius can see that a third, covert, threat must be behind the other two. He will have to confront an alien evil that seeks to enslave the whole world of Corus in the guise of bringing back a lost golden age. Only the timely assistance of the mysterious ancient Soarers and the addition of Wendra's Talent to his own give him any hope of success. Scepters is a stirring climax to the first Corean trilogy.

Alector's Choice takes place several thousand years before the events chronicled in the Legacies Trilogy, at the time when Corus is ruled by the Talent-magic of the Duarchy. The Myrmidons of Justice command the skies riding their fearsome pteridons.

As the Alector Colonel of Myrmidons, Dainyl is the fourth highest ranking military officer of the Duarchy. Alectors are a race apart from the normal inhabitants of Corus, from another world. But there is a rebellion brewing against them.

Captain Mykel is a young officer potentially Talented and unaware that, should he ever discover that Talent, his life is forfeit. For Mykel is not an Alector, and only Alectors are allowed to use Talent.

The rebellion spirals out of control, spurred by treachery, corruption, and greed -- and aided by the re-appearance of the ancient soarers, a fragile humanoid race of flying beings thought to have become extinct. A terrible war is brewing, and one, or both of these men are the only ones who might stand against it.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. returns to the world of Corus to continue the epic trilogy begun in Alector's Choice. It is the story of the fall of a great civilization and the tale of the Alector, Colonel Dainyl, and Captain Mykel, the Corean human with special abilities.

The world Corus has been redesigned to become the new home of a superior race from a distant world whose very life depends on drawing sustenance from the biological life force of a planet. Meanwhile, their plans are supervised by a staff of Alectors, who in effect rule the world. The Alectors alone have access to the huge flying Pteridons they have bred, and the superior weapons that underpin their psychic talents.

The time is now fast approaching for the transfer of the whole population from the old world nearly bled dry of life force to Corus. But neither the Alectors (who will be reduced in status when the real powers arrive) nor the local humans (who seem destined to become no more than cattle, though they know nothing of this) are ready. And the mysterious Ancient Ones, the true natives of Corus and assumed to have died out in eons past, still survive, and they have their own powers. The situation builds toward an explosive climax.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr. returns to the world of Corus and concludes the trilogy of the intertwined stories of Dainyl, the Alector, and Mykel, the native soldier, which began in Alector's Choice and Cadmian's Choice.

The civilization of the Alectors, which has farmed and developed all life on Corus to produce sustaining life force for their vampiric civilization, must move wholesale from one planet to another every few thousand years as it exhausts the life force of another world. This time, two worlds have been prepared, and the time is at hand for the great move. And Corus is the looking like the loser, to be abandoned by the civilizing forces of the government of Alectors, but used as a dumping ground for malcontents and others who don't make the cut to move on to a richer new world. This neither bodes well for the future of human civilization, nor for the honest Alector's such as Dainyl, trying to hold everything together, as all systems are failing. But the mysterious Ancients, the Soarers, are a force to be reckoned with, and they may hold a powerful and destructive trump card.

The Lord-Protector's Daughter is a standalone fantasy novel that takes place in Tempre, the capital city of Lanachrona on Corus, the world of Modesitt's Corean Chronicles.

Mykella, the eldest daughter of the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona, discovers that someone is diverting significant sums of money from her father's treasury. One of the ancient soarers appears to Mykella, telling her that she must go to the antique stone Table in the cellars of the Palace and find her Talent in order to save her land and her world.

From there, matters become more perilous. There are attempts to remove Mykella and her sisters from Tempre by marrying them off to lords in neighboring lands, and fatal and near fatal accidents occur to members of her family and trusted retainers. While Mykella develops a solid idea of who stands behind it all, every attempted solution is used to discredit her. How can she save their father and land?

A new novel of Mykella, the young woman introduced in The Lord-Protector's Daughter.

Though a bloody coup has made Mykella ruler of her land, it has left her and her two sisters bereft of family and uncertain of their friends. Worse, an examination of the nation's accounts reveals that their country is almost destitute. Plus, there are rumblings of war along the borders. With no money and few allies, Mykella is faced with the difficult prospect of rebuilding her nation while trying to hold off a potentially devastating invasion.

Fortunately for Mykella, an old magic has awakened in her; a power that gives her the ability to read the emotions of others and to spy on the movements of her enemies. But the resurgence of this power might herald the return of an ancient enemy, one that Mykella isn't sure how to face. L.E. Modesitt, Jr. returns to the world of "The Corean Chronicles" with a novel filled with politics, adventure, magic, and romance.