Clephas

:L(last four numbers of thread)-(last four numbers of receiving thread) Example: :L000A-0001 This performs the same function as the thread-linking in ITH.

Drifters Seiken Tsukai no World Break Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Overlord

I'll say this first off... this game actually needed locked paths or a true ending. Like most Windmill games, the character interactions are pretty heavily reliant on easygoing manzai humor and running character personality and behavior jokes (in fact, most VN humor is based on that). This game has a cast of four writers (one amateur, one h-scene specialist, and two established names), including Imashina Rio (Gin'iro Haruka and Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai) and Kagami Yuu (ef, Eden*, and Mirai Nostalgia). Unfortunately, the styles of the two main writers are extremely different, and it is rather blatant when things shift... sometimes in the middle of scenes (this can be jarring and disturbs the flow at times). Understand, I started out liking this game... I like non-city settings (for some reason, city locales always end up being multi-date ichaicha fests even for heroines who wouldn't be interested in that kind of thing), and the interactions with the heroines and side-characters were amusing. I even still liked how things were going early in my first heroine path (Serina), but after I headed into a second path, it became apparent they were abusing the 'osananajimi is scared of friend group falling apart' trope. Oh, the way they abused it is different in each path, but the abuse is so rampant that I had to wince. Worse, the characters have these pretty much useless powers that only work on each other. All the paths have the powers as part of the central conflict, but, considering how little the characters seemed to care about their powers in the common route (one way or the other) it felt unnatural how they became central in the actual heroine routes. Understand, I'm a fantasy freak, so characters having powers is (of course) fine with me... what bothered me was the artificial-feeling limitations and the way the characters so blithely accepted a revelation midway through the path that would have turned most games a bit gloomy. Again, what's worse is that this was seemingly only utilized conveniently to explain why the other girls (all of whom are latently in love with the protagonist) stop pursuing him once you get on a particular heroine path. I will say the way they did it was mildly funny (the pseudo-yuri in Himari's path was lol-worthy for instance), but it felt very, very forced to me. Another issue is that Rinka is rather blatantly the main heroine (the scene I mentioned above makes that very clear). As a result, all the other paths proceed without resolving the issue of just why that certain event and the issues it brought to the surface came into being. Of course, as a result, Rinka's path is a very obvious 'true path' and blows away all the others in terms of quality (and length), drawing on elements from the other paths that hinted around the edges about what is revealed in Rinka's path. Anyone who plays this game should either only play Rinka's path or play the other paths first (like I did). While the paths other than Rinka's have some serious issues (the biggest one being choppy pacing and poor use of the setting elements and plot devices), Rinka's path and the common route are definitely worth playing. Sadly, I can't recommend this one for VN of the Month, but if you want a mildly funny plot-centric charage (yes, they coexist at times), this is a decent choice.

I just used regular ITH on it... but aren't the furigana words in a separate thread?

First, I should apologize for taking so long (for me) to get around to finishing this game. Despite the fact that Kazuki Fumi games are always high-priority for me, for some reason I stalled after finishing the first arc and two of the paths in the second arc. The main reason is probably because the first arc pretty much satisfied me, and I didn't feel like the game needed much of a second arc or the third arc that comes after. As indicated above, this game has three arcs. The first arc is a dark and emotional story that focuses on the protagonist, an android programmer and mechanic, the people around him, and a legless abuse victim named Hatsune that is left on his doorstep. The whole thing is emotionally powerful, has a Sharin no Kuni/G-senjou no Maou style battle of wits, and it generally left me completely satisfied with how things turned out.... Then came along the second arc (which will hereafter be named the romance arc). The romance arc shows off the style Kazuki Fumi has put together in the last few years (to varied reactions from otakus, for whom his approach to romance tends to be hit and miss). The romantic formation is abnormal, the romance is strange, and the end result is generally not what you would expect. Is this a good thing? If there hadn't been a third arc, it probably would have been. Now, let's get down to the third arc. First, the third arc is a dramatic conclusion to the aftermath of the events that occurred in the first arc. This was actually the biggest mistake made in this game's structure and the reason I expelled it from the running for VN of the Month. The first thing you are asked to do upon starting this arc is pick which of the heroines you romanced in the second arc, which essentially just changes one or two scenes and the ending scene. The arc's story as a whole doesn't change at all, and it is short enough that I was able to finish it all in under an hour. Now, why is this a problem? The reason is fairly simple. It completely screws up the pacing of the game. For better or worse, the second arc's 'endings' feel like a conclusion, even though I knew from the walkthrough that they weren't. They weren't a great conclusion, but if they'd been followed up with individual after-stories or completely customized versions of the third arc, this might have become a solid VN of the Year candidate. Unfortunately, the third arc is what amounts to a 'one size fits all' affair that makes the whole romantic mess of the second arc feel mostly irrelevant. Coming from someone who generally doesn't express a fondness for romance, I know this will sound strange... but this was a horrible way to handle things. This game isn't a kusoge, but I honestly can't recommend it with the current conclusion (hope for a story FD to smooth things out, maybe). In conclusion, this is a game that shows signs of greatness throughout the first arc, falls back on romance in the second arc, and stumbles in the third arc. It has great characters, a good story and theme... and falls far short of what I've grown to expect from this writer after Nanairo Reincarnation.

My top Ten VN Routes (regardless of heroine quality). This list is not in any particular order. 1. Evolimit Shizuku Route- With three great endings, heroism and redemption in spades, and villainy on a universal scale... it just doesn't get better than this. I cried, I cheered, I rejoiced, and I was satisfied. 2. Reminiscence Aki's Route- Best imouto route ever. The twisted relationship between the protagonist and Aki and the hidden feelings involved... 3. Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa, Eiri's route- Probably one of the single deepest, most powerful charage routes I've ever encountered, with the single best charage ending I've ever read. 4. Akeiro Kaikitan, Velvet's ending- Velvet is an individual who has suffered more than most people can comprehend, and she wants nothing more than to be able to die. I loved how this path played out, and though the ending is bittersweet, the sweet part is so good that I couldn't help but name this one of my top VN routes. 5. Konata yori Kanata Made, Christel's path (good or normal ending) - Konata yori Kanata Made is considered to be one of the top utsuge of all time, and Christel's path is the one that defines the game, for better or worse. The sense of deep sadness and resignation that defines much of this VN is obvious in this path, and I can still cry just remembering it. 6. Dies Irae, Marie's or Rea's path- I had to say it. 7. Vermilion Bind of Blood, Sheryl's path- It was a fight between this one and Ariya's path... but most people who read this VN will probably find this path to be fascinating. The protagonist is perhaps the most himself in this path and the Grand route (and I have mixed feelings about the ending of the Grand Route, despite how exhilarating it was). It is also nice and bloody, and it is the only route where Sheryl faces her personal demons... and big ones they are. 8. Semiramis no Tenbin, Ami's route- Just describing Ami, you would normally find it hard to empathize with her. She is manipulative, controlling, and vindictive. She doesn't trust rules or authority figures, and she absolutely loathes situations where she isn't in control. However, she is also a powerful character whose route is equally powerful. 9. Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no Tonoko's route- This route is a rather beautiful progression through the process of an emotionally-scarred pair building trust between one another, progressing from a teacher-student relationship, to that of a father and a daughter, to that of lovers. It is beautifully paced, emotionally powerful, and a path I remember vividly whenever I start to lose faith in VNs. 10. Silverio Trinity, Grand Route- Honestly, though I loved Vendetta's route in Silverio Vendetta, this route felt like me to be a stronger climax in some ways. It was either this one or Vendetta's route in this spot, and I honestly had to think about it.

Anything with a good story except mysteries and psychedelic types. I prefer chuunige and stories with action of some sort. I like serious stories but I do like comedy and solid interrelationships between characters. I also intensely dislike any game where the protagonist is a nobody with no personality of his own, and I prefer games where the protagonist is capable, intelligent, and strong-willed. I like games with strong emotions involved, but I don't like rapegames. I prefer exceptional and non-human heroines for romance and I dislike normal girls like tsundere, osananajimis and the girl next door, lol.

Silverio Trinity, Tsukikage, Loveriche, Fuyu Uso, Haruoto Alice Gram, Haruru Minamo ni, Apeiria, Aoi tori, Kizuna Kirameku, and Shin Koihime... those were worthy. For a particular type of person, so was Chrono Box. The rest is kusoge. Naming Ouka Sabaki as the winner for gameplay was... particularly bad.

This is the latest charage from Hearts, a company specializing in 'yurufuwa' charage with nakige elements. This company's works have a tendency to make me want to puke waves of sugar, but, in my experience, this is one of the better 'yurufuwa' companies out there. This game focuses on a kind-hearted young man named Harutoki Narumi as he suddenly (and by accident) summons a high-level spirit named Haruharu, and, as a result, he gets dragged into the world of witches and magic users whose duty is to keep the balance of nature by conversing with such spirits. Narumi is generally your classic 'good guy' protagonist that everyone at least likes, and this VN doesn't have any real confrontations in the sense that you might see in another VN, so he doesn't really have a combative side at all. Haruharu is the spirit Narumi summoned, a generally cheerful and lively young woman who lives in the moment and is driven obsessively to help others. Her spirited and cheery manner generally warms the hearts of those around her, and it is hard even for me not to like her, since she is basically like an embodiment of pure good with no negative elements whatsoever (except a lack of modesty, if you use some standards, lol). Kazane is an iinchou-type who is the head of the Garden Club, which serves as a front for the activities of the school's small community of witches (the heroines and the protagonist, essentially). She is ambitious, in the sense that she wants to be a Grand Witch, but her essential nature is that of a person who can't help but want to help others (seeing a pattern here? hahaha). Mashiro is your classic fushigi-chan genius... the most skilled (versus Haruharu being the most talented) of the heroines in magic, she always has a high-level cat spirit named Bastet riding on her head. Despite her brief period as a seeming kuudere (it ends almost immediately) she is, in fact, just as much as a goodie-goodie as Kazane and Haruharu, and her only really unusual quality is her sense of humor. I'd be tempted to call Mikana a dojikko, in any other VN... but Hearts really hates to include negative personality traits in its heroines, so she just happens to be the least skilled of the heroines. She likes baking and is generally a sweetheart and something of an innocent... and just like all the other heroines, she likes helping people (it is almost amusing that they unified the heroines to this degree, lol). Now, the charage of this VN has a lot of cheap feels and cuteness... and that is pretty much all there is. The girls and Narumi go around solving minor issues (not incidents) while practicing their power to speak to the spirits of the world, and generally you can expect that any event is either going to result in some kind of low-level emotional scene or lots of cuteness. Given the fact that it was well-written and paced enough to affect me, I have to wonder how the people who eat this up will feel playing this. The heroine routes... are all about at the same level. Oh, Haruharu's route is the most emotional by far, but I can honestly say that the routes are basically extensions of what I experienced in the common route... lots of low-level feels and cuteness, with h-scenes added in. I'm not saying this is a bad thing... if anything, this game is pure crack for the lovers of the genre. If you want a low-stress, cute as a fuzzy bunny game, this one is ideal. I will say that you should probably leave Haruharu's route for last... since the feels leading into her ending are the best in the VN. However, I can also say that you could probably play this game just for Haruharu's route and come out feeling quite satisfied if you like the genre. Given my tastes, I'll probably forget this game ever existed by the end of next month, but I felt a need to mark that this game is a rare ideal production for those with a taste for the fuzzy-feely and adorable.

The specific example I'm referring to is Working designs renaming one of the cooler-looking characters in its game localization of Dragon Force for the Saturn Reiner, after the Game Informer reviewer that was set to review it (who always reviewed the jrpgs of the time). It was amusing back then, but it was something of a premonition of what was to come, looking at it in retrospect. Also, keep in mind that 'popularity' just means it is mainstream for the medium. Polls are worse than useless when it comes to judging more niche genres like utsuge or chuunige inside the first year or so. Fanboys of those niches are starved of their favorites, so they'll, quite naturally, rate them higher than they deserve in a lot of cases. It is only years down the road that you can really judge them, sadly.

Natsuiro Recipe Kaminoyu Toppara

This is a given, but in any situation that involves online polls on a site that doesn't require rl identity verification (as in, a one-person, one-account system with a design that makes bot sign-ups difficult) dealing with money-making entertainment... you won't be able to trust the polls completely. While I said Getchu is slightly more accurate than EGS, that doesn't account for a different type of skewing (people who purchase multiple copies across multiple accounts)... though to be fair, that is a relative minority mostly made up of hardcore users who tend to be more honest than the trolls. To give you an example of how things can get skewed... pandering to reviewers is a common problem in the West in regular video games. Naming characters in an rpg after a particular reviewer is one that got used a couple of times before the turn of the century, before online reviews became the mainstream... and financial incentives are the most common one nowadays. *shrugs* In the end, the only advice I can give you is to take popularity polls with a grain of salt, ignore the highest and lowest votes, and then keep in mind that, even if it is rated highly, that doesn't mean you'll like it. The same for if it is rated lowly. I've honestly liked some games that got rated horribly, and, while I could see why, it didn't stop me from liking them, lol.

EGS scores matter for long-term sales. Usually, the top EGS game for any given month will get a boost in sales for the month after and for the year to come, so companies that actually have a decent war chest are willing to invest in fake voting to skew the polls. Getchu's verified purchase rankings are a bit more reliable, though. Edit: Just to add some perspective... there are a ton of charage companies out there. The market in Japan reached saturation point years ago, and as a result, the competition between moege companies is fierce over there. Companies that produce different types of non-nukige have their own niches and use other methods to increase profits, and companies like Saga Planets that have a naturally strong presence don't need to resort to that (because their games usually sell themselves). However, the companies that all pretty much produce games that look, feel, and read the same... inevitably are competing directly against one another.

Bot-voting is really common with moege, as is troll voting. When you see someone whose profile gives nines or tens to every moege released by a big name company, you know those votes are invalid, lol. The same goes for people who give fours or fives to everything.... in the end, most people stay in the 5-8 range, with only the most hated and troll votes going below 5 and 9s and 10s being disproportionately troll votes. It isn't that bad on vndb, though... erogamescape is where the bot voting is completely out of control.

Nanairo Reincarnation Akeiro Kaikitan Hana no No ni Saku Utakata no Otoboku (the first one) Moshimo Ashita ga Hare Naraba

To be blunt, I only started this one first because I don't want to read something written by Kazuki Fumi (the writer of Nanairo Reincarnation) just yet... I'm sleep-deprived, so I wouldn't be able to appreciate it, lol. In any case, it was either this game or the new Windmill release, and, when in doubt, I try to get the new company games out of the way first. This is written by Scokan, a new writer on the VN scene. Judging by what I saw in the common route, he is about of average level for a charage writer or maybe slightly better, with a tendency toward using the wrong kanji for some archaic terms. The characters in this VN all fall into classic VN stereotypes. Kikyou is a somewhat innocent tsukumogami (For the inexperienced: tsukumogami are objects that have, over a long period of time, gained a form of sentience and some spiritual power) who is devoted to her duty but hopeless at doing anything related to that duty (whereas she is abnormally good at cooking and other daily tasks). She is enthusiastic and kind-hearted, but she has a tendency to apologize excessively. Haruka is the classic genki stepsister. She loves her niichan and is virtually attached to him at the hip, despite his protests. She is generally cheerful and tends to want to touch those she likes constantly. Underneath, she is surprisingly vulnerable, though her fundamental baka-ness means that she rarely remains down in the dumps for long. Shiori is your classic kuudere (a type that we don't see that often these days). She seems aloof at first, but, when people try to talk to her, she has a tendency to give them the benefit of the razor edge of her tongue. She also has as much trouble being honest with her feelings as any other tsundere variant. Misaki... is your classic deredere osananajimi miko (yes, this pops up enough in charage that it has become an archetype). She rather obviously is in love with the protagonist from the beginning, and this makes his rather half-hearted and awkward attempts to avoid her rather irritating in the prologue. Moreover, she is extremely pushy and tends to settle into the usual 'fuufu manzai' situation in front of others when it comes to the protagonist. The protagonist, Yuuto, is... a hetare. I'm sorry, but that is how I feel. Oh, the getchu page makes him seem like a shadowed character, but he is just half-heartedly misanthropic... and this part of his character is handled poorly in the common route (he hardly struggles at all against what is happening, despite his supposed misanthropy). I found him immensely irritating a lot of the time, though his interactions with Haruka are frequently amusing (as opposed to his interactions with Misaki being downright annoying). Common Route The common route is mostly classic charage fare. You get lucky sukebe events on a regular basis, the heroines forgive the protagonist quickly, and the protagonist eventually stops resisting the friendship of the heroines (without crossing the line into favoring any particular one). Thankfully, all the routes split off from the same choice, so there is no massive number of meaningless choices to annoy the reader, but I thought that Kikyou's character was poorly developed in the common route, considering that she is the obvious main heroine. A lot of this is that she is a non-presence during most of the school hours, and the writer applies the plot device of the magic power keeping the protagonist from getting too far from her inconsistently. As a result, I exited the common route with a fondness for most of the heroines but a bit irritated/stressed because of the way Kikyou was neglected and the protagonist was such a hetare about some things. Kikyou It was a close race between her and Shiori, but I picked Kikyou first (I have no intention of bothering with the other two heroines, as they are both types that make better side-characters than heroines). As if they were sorry for treating Kikyou like a side-character in the common route, her own route is... emotionally-packed. There is some serious drama in there related to her nature as a tsukumogami and the protagonist's trauma (which is touched on in much more detail here), and it was almost as if an entirely different writer was handling the more serious parts. I cried several times... but this path uses a rather archetypical set of events (if you've played other kamisama-heroine paths, you'll recognize the tropes instantly), and even though it is presented well, the pacing is kind of sloppy toward the end. The ending of this path is... short. I say this in annoyance, because this would be an ideal path for a Hikoukigumo no Mukougawa-style 'to the very end' ending. I want to talk about the ichaicha in this path separately because it is worthy of note that it almost felt like a nukige at times. Kikyou and the protagonist have almost no restraint, and it is made worse by the fact that Kikyou is the type to gladly respond to just about any kind of advance and the protagonist is the type who has self-control issues once he actually has a girlfriend. There is, thankfully, only one date in here and they didn't try to insert something unrealistic like the innocent kamisama wanting to go shopping (which would be out of character for Kikyou but which some writers would have insisted on). Shiori I picked Shiori for a very simple reason... I have a weakness for kuudere heroines who really hate being alone. Shiori's path is, like Kikyou's, fairly emotional, with her asthma playing a role in the path's story along with the protagonist's trauma (once again, and showing off a bit more detail as to what happened leading up to it). By the time I got halfway through this path, I started to recognize a pattern in how this writer is handling the protagonist... at some point, the heroines start to mother the protagonist to one degree or another (the reason why this is part of the relationships makes sense when you've played the common route), and, similar to Kikyou's route, the protagonist is like a dog in heat throughout much of the route after the romantic connection forms (as is the heroine). I feel it necessary to mention this because the 'intensely sexual' phase of most charage routes tends to be a lot less extensive than I saw in this one. This felt much closer to Majikoi levels in some ways, hahaha. The ending is reasonably touching... but again, by my standards, it felt like it wasn't quite enough, as it ended less than a month after the climax (I like 'years later' endings). Conclusion If you want to try a newer (up and coming) charage company, this is a good choice. For this game, they used artists from Studio Ryokucha and Gesen, and it shows in the styles. There are more emotional moments than is the norm for your standard charage, but that is a plus rather than a negative. The only real downsides are a few pacing issues, the briefness of the endings, and the weakness of the common route (lol).

To give you an idea of what they are like... Vermilion Bind of Blood- Vampires in this particular setting are aggressive, arrogant, and often vicious. They are also naturally contemptuous of humans and believe utterly in the caste of vampiric age and bloodlines. Vampires are created by an elder vampire sacrificing what amounts to thirty years of built-up power to change a human. There are hunters, but since vampires have pretty much taken over the politics of any place where they've been a while, they are closer to indiscriminate terrorists than heroes. The protagonist is a former samurai turned vampire with nothing but contempt for his own kind and their illusions of greatness. His catch phrase is 'There are no vampires, there are just humans who believe they are.' He works at keeping order in a fictional American city called Foggy Bottom. This game is highly violent and bloody (yay). You are required to choose the worst of the heroines first, but once you are past her path, you can pick any of the ones other than the Grand Route. Zero Infinity- Reference my review if you want an idea of what this game is like. Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier- Bradyon Veda- Jingai Makyou- Jingai Makyou was one of the first untranslated VNs I played. It is, typical to old-style Nitroplus form, somewhat obscure, violent, and generally dark in nature. To be honest, this game is worth playing even if you only play Kaze no Ushiro ni Ayumu Mono's path.

Vermilion Bind of Blood Zero Infinity Kikan Bakumatsu Ibun Last Cavalier Bradyon Veda Jingai Makyou

Fiction Positive Effects on Brain: Books>LN (caveat: well-written)=>VNs>Manga>Anime. Why? Imagination. Imagining what is going on in a fictional story is the part that expands your brain. LNs and VNs are interchangeable for obvious reasons.

Now that I have confirmation from Dergonu that the game he was playing is not VN of the Month quality (he has stalled on it), I will move on to finally announcing VN of the Month for March and April. March March was a decent month, since it had three potential candidates for VN of the Month. Those candidates are: Butterfly Seeker AI Love Unjou no Fairy Tale Now, despite my rating of it, I'm going to go ahead and disqualify AI Love. Why? Because it is essentially a borderline nukige. It made its way onto my Chicken Soup for the Soul list, but, as I've stated in the past, that isn't necessarily an indication of kamige status. Rather, it is an indication of how good the game is at soothing and relieving non-violent stress. So, this comes down to Unjou no Fairy Tale versus Butterfly Seeker. Based purely on my personal tastes, I'd probably go for Unjou no Fairy Tale, since I'm an admitted fantasy addict... but in the end, I had to (reluctantly) admit that Butterfly Seeker was the better VN. The depth of the story, the characters, and even just the details of the important events was such that I couldn't honestly give Unjou no Fairy Tale the victory for VN of the Month, March 2018. My reasons for excluding Etatoto from the final running are... that fun2novel's own review and private comments didn't leave me with the impression of VN of the Month quality. Worth reading for a certain portion of the community? Yes. Worthy of being recommended on a larger scale... no. April Having dropped Taiju for the moment (SofthouseChara's newest SLG), I was left with only one viable candidate for April... Yuusha to Maou, to Majo no Cafe. This is perhaps the weakest VN of the Month candidate I've put up in quite some time, but it still easily won over Kari Gurashi Ren'ai, which is the only other game that hit my baseline standard. Naming it as VN of the Month, April 2018 actually troubles me a bit... given a choice, I wish that Unjou or AI Love had been released in April so I'd have a better candidate. I almost decided not to name one for this month, but I reluctantly decided that it meets standards.

In earlier SOL VNs (those I just termed moege), there was a tendency for heroine/protagonist character development to be minimal. Most of the time, the (rather lazy) writers would use a gobi (an ending like uguu or nyaa) and/or a few obvious moe character traits to define the character from the beginning, and they never really swerved from that original character definition, even after the formation of a lovers' relationship. 'Nakige' began as a sub-genre of moege (primarily under the aegis of Key) where rather obvious situations were used to create cheap catharsis with the promise of a 'happy ending' (or the equivalent of) in the aftermath. As time went on, nakige gradually became distinct from the parent genre, as less moe-focused companies began to produce games that qualified. The key point of a nakige vs an utsuge, incidentally, is that in a nakige the point is to provide catharsis with a happy result, whereas utsuge provides catharsis but doesn't guarantee a happy result (utsuge started appearing about the same time as nakige but had almost no overlap with moege). Charage are an evolution of the original moege genre that retains the moe elements while also going more in-depth with character development (more involved and often showing traits that aren't necessarily designed to create a moe result). Since these turned out to be more popular than their predecessors, 'pure moege' eventually just... vanished (save for a few occasional reboots by companies producing low-budget games). Depending on the year, anywhere from 60% to 80% of the non-nukige VNs produced in a year will be charage since 2008. If you want examples of nakige... Kin'iro Loveriche and Komorebi no Nostalgica are both (relatively speaking) recent examples of this. For an example of a charage, Noble Works, Princess Evangile, or Wagamama High Spec are recent (localized) examples. Note that 'drama' in a charage path is generally mild, resolved quickly, and leaves little in the way of negative after-effects. For an example of 'pure' moege, To Heart 2 or the original translated version of Shuffle (before the extensive rewriting seen in Essence + version) would be decent examples. Edit: Understand, in a broader sense, most non-nukige VNs can be considered 'moege' in the original sense, because most otaku media uses the moe concept in its artwork and character designs. As such, 'moege' as it is currently used, is just an umbrella term for VNs with such elements. A 'pure' moege is one where there is little else but such content.

I'm doing a spotlight on this author for a number of reasons... one is that I'm currently going back through his works on my new Kindle (lol), but another is that I have never really understood until recently just how profound an effect his works have had on my thinking until I had the opportunity go back and marathon some of his series. Modesitt has been writing since 1982 (the year I was born, incidentally) and has a massive number of works to look at (seventy novels across a number of series). He writes primarily sci-fi and fantasy, but he also ventures into poetry, non-fiction, and other areas. For the sake of those, like me, who are only interested in fiction outside of history books, I'm going to focus on his fiction. Modesitt... is probably one of the most subtle writers I've ever encountered. Part of that is that the current trends (straightforward writing with an emphasis on less... roundabout methodologies) hadn't been established when he first began writing. Another part is that he is that he has been writing on the same basic themes for over thirty-five years. Those themes, though it isn't obvious unless you go back with an analytical mind, include environmentalism, gender politics, personal growth, and the costs of poor sociological and practical choices. Perhaps one of the most common statements (whether internal or external) that you'll see in his books and that is probably the most important one for the reader to grab hold of is, 'See the world as it is, rather than as we would have it.' Most of his protagonists are people who either act out this way of looking at the world or eventually grow into it. In the Internet Age, this is a particularly relevant theme, because the sheer amount of information available means that otherwise sane individuals will subconsciously or consciously ignore information that is inconvenient to their preconceptions of what is true and what is not (we have seen a lot of this in America recently, lol). Another thing that you'll see - primarily in his fantasy series - is the tyranny of dominant genders. Generally speaking, in his fantasy realms, there is usually at least one realm, usually embattled by its neighbors, where a matriarchal society exists, at least one where the genders are almost equal (it tilts back and forth based on the era) and many where patriarchal societies are dominant. One thing that is striking about the matriarchal realms he depicts is that men tend to be relegated to roles you'd normally see in females in other societies on the same world (stay at home parent, decorative spouse, etc). Another is that he depicts an approach that is far more balanced in those realms than in the patriarchal ones, where treatment of women can vary between the casual chauvinism that is so prevalent even in the West to the pet-like treatment you see in nations in the Middle East and parts of Africa. The reason I find this interesting is because, while he obviously thinks that a matriarchal society is healthier than a patriarchal one, he still sees the same ills (albeit on a lesser scale) that plague a patriarchal one. He also has a rather obvious contempt for the 'warrior archetype'. Individuals who fight for the sake of fighting, seeking conflict out of vainglory or ambition, his books generally portray dying horribly or in incredibly stupid manners... usually after failing to back down when the protagonist of the books confronts them. The most obvious of these is in the Spellsong Saga, where Anna, the former American music teacher turned song-sorceress, is continually confronted by the stupidity and shortsightedness of men and women who refuse to see that there is no 'honor' in killing for the sake of harmful traditions or ambition. Another theme that pops up, his contempt for those so short-sighted as to believe the world is going to last forever or problems will fix themselves, is generally portrayed in the endless line of antagonists or passive rulers/characters who see that something is wrong but fail to take action to fix it, causing their downfall. These characters generally see that their own lack of action is going to lead to the destruction of what they love, but they often cannot accept this and will ignore it, if it is inconvenient to their peace of mind. This is most glaringly obvious in the Corean Chronicles and the Forever Hero. In the Corean Chronicles, a race of humans called the Alectors or Ifrits, has made a habit of using their magic to escape each world they occupy after they render it worthless. The Alectors have literally drained three worlds of all life in the past, using it to fuel their magic engines, using it to make their clothing nearly indestructible, and using it to control the populations of the worlds they seed and conquer. Their attitudes bear distinctly similar tones to those of modern Westerners, particularly in their stated concern about waste (in this case, of life-force) vs their unwillingness to reign themselves in in any real sense. Considering the end results of this attitude... well, it is rather obvious what Modesitt thinks about this kind of thought-pattern. The Forever Hero Trilogy is... probably the most depressing work by this author I've ever encountered. It portrays a future where Earth was laid to waste by careless over-exploitation to provide the resources for colony ships and contaminated itself beyond natural recovery. The protagonist is a young 'devilkid' (a sub-species of human involved for individual survival above all other things) who is captured and educated by the Empire, the successor to the Earth-based galactic government that preceded it. Having been educated, he sets about the task of resurrecting Earth... only to find that the simple physics of space travel and the economics of the Empire make resurrecting Earth nearly impossible. Fortunately, as a natural immortal (he doesn't age), he has the time... and the intelligence to work it out. He is perhaps the most ruthless and amoral of Modesitt's protagonists, but his cause is enough to grasp the reader and not let them go. This series also deals with the 'dirt and grit' of a far more realistic sci-fi environment than is common in modern science fiction, where the details tend to be sanitized outside of dystopian efforts. I generally recommend this writer to those who like reading sci-fi and fantasy that makes you think, characters that are good at the beginning but grow to be great as their role requires them to, and those who don't mind their comfortable way of looking at the world being jarred on a regular basis.