The Imager Portfolio
Imager
Although Rhennthyl is the son of a leading woll merchant in L'Excelsis, the capital of Solidar and the most powerful nation on Terahnar, he has spent years becomming a journeyman artist. He is skilled and diligent enough to be considered for the status of marter artisan—in another two years. In a single moment, Rhenn's entire life is transfortmed when his master patron is killed in a flash fire and Rhenn discovers he is an imager#8212;one of the few in the entire world of Terahnar who possesses the power to visualize things and make them real.
Now he must leave his family and join the Collegium of Imagisle, where because of their powers (including the ability to do accidental magic even while asleep) and beacuse they are both feared and vulnerable, imagers live separately from the rest of society. In this new life, Rhenn discovers that all toio many of the "truths" he knew were nothing of the sort and that every day brings a new threat to his life. He makes a powerful enemy while righting a wrong and begins to learn to live a life doing magic in secret.
Imager is an innovative and enchanting opening to an involving new fantasy story.
Read a free excerpt on the Macmillan Web site.
From the Tor/Forge April 2009 Newsletter
A combination of steampunk, political, semi-thriller, and romantic fantasy? That's about as close a one-line description as is possible to the books of the Imager Portfolio, which opens with Imager . Rhenn is a journeyman portraiturist on his way to becoming a master painter who discovers, with fatal consequences, that he is one of the few imagers in the city of L'Excelsis, capital of the continent nation of Solidar. Imagers are feared, valued, and vulnerable, and must live separately on the river isle in the middle of the river that divides the capital city, while providing services and skills to the ruling Council.
As a late-developing imager, Rhenn finds himself under the tutelage of one of the most powerful imagers-who forces the equivalent of a university education on Rhenn in months, before dispatching him to serve as a security assistant to the Council. Along the way, Rhenn makes enemies he shouldn't, falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a family with connections in the underworld, and becomes a target for both the enemies of Solidar and a powerful High Holder.
One of the challenges of writing the Imager Portfolio was to realistically depict a different and sophisticated culture of a capital city. In my own experience of close to twenty years in politics, most of it in Washington, D.C., I found that there was a minimal amount of actual violence, but an enormous amount of pressure and indifference, great superficial charm, and continual indirect jockeying for power, with very little real concern for people as people. I've attempted to convey some of those dynamics, as they are expressed in a steam-and-coal-powered society that has the added benefit of some "imaging" magic. One of the key elements that illustrates the difference of this fantasy-steampunk culture is the religion. Because the deity cannot be named, there's an underlying cultural skepticism and worry about emphasis on the importance of names, memorials, and the like, as well as a distrust of other cultures that exalt names and fame.
Because Rhenn has come to the Collegium Imago in his early twenties, having just begun to achieve a certain recognition as a portrait painter, he's neither a youth learning the ropes nor a person of fully defined talents. Instead, he is essentially an adult faced with a mandatory career change, and one that could be fatal if he fails to make the transition from portraiturist to imager.
Audio versions
Imager has also been released in audio form, narrated by William Dufris, as unabridged on 14 CDs on the Playaway platform and as a download from Audible.com.
