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.
Description:
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.
From Publishers Weekly
While not quite up to the Spellsong saga or the best of the Recluce novels, Modesitt's complex fourth entry in his Corean series (after 2004's Scepters) contains plenty of fine world building and intelligently developed magic. With the life force of the planet Ifryn almost exhausted, its population is about to migrate to Corus, where the eight-foot Alectors, a superior race with psychic powers, are overseeing the biological preparation of this new world. Unfortunately, the migration will reduce the status of the powerful Alectors, while the Corus natives, known as indigens, will move so far down the social ladder as to be barely visible. The many subplots tend to slow the pace, but Modesitt fans, knowing what they're in for, will find reaching the end of this challenging fantasy well worth the effort. Newcomers would do best to start with Legacies (2002), the first of the Corean chronicles. (June 8)
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From Booklist
Instead of resuming the adventures of Alcius, the fourth volume of the Corean Chronicles adopts the points of view of Dainyl, an Alector, and Mykel, one of his talented (and Talented--i.e., psychic) company captains. As previous chronicles (Legacies, 2002; Darknesses, 2003; Scepters, 2004) have imparted, Corus has been developed as a future home for aliens who live by draining one planet's biological life force before moving to another. The development is supervised by Alectors, bigger, stronger, technologically superior to the natives, and all possessed of Talent, which most natives lack. The aliens' transfer to Corus is imminent, but the highest-ranked Alectors are intriguing among themselves, making use of the natives' political and economic aspirations. Dainyl, a just-promoted Alector, is supposed to straighten out a revolt among the steers, as the natives are derisively called. He discovers that higher-up Alectors instigated it, and the rarely seen aboriginal inhabitants of the planet, the Soarers, have gotten involved. Readers of its predecessors may most relish this book, which does, however, stand on its own. Frieda Murray
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