L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio, continues the Grand Illusion, a gaslamp political fantasy series the Grand Illusion (Isolate, Councilor, Contrarian).Fifty years after the establishment of the Imperium, and 450 years before the events of Isolate, Dominic Mikail Ysella—ancestor of Arval Ysella—is the grandson of the last king of Aloor. Stripped of most of their land, Dominic, as the third son, must support himself.Dominic becomes a legalist and is elected to the Imperial Council quietly working as an isolate, someone unreadable by government telepaths.Amid a time of a crumbling imperial line, Dominic must build a coalition within the Council and quietly draft a new constitution to save the Imperium from itself. Uncovering rampant corruption, graft, and potential to be arrested for treason, Ysella discovers any number of ways that simple legal specialist in water rights could get himself killed.The Grand IllusionIsolateCouncilorContrarianLegalistOther Series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.The Imager PortfolioThe Corean ChroniclesThe Spellsong CycleThe Ghost BooksThe Ecolitan Matter

Protests against unemployment and poor harvests have become armed riots as the people sink deeper into poverty. They look to a government struggling to emerge from corruption and conspiracy.Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths - but not the recent bombing of the Council Office Building by insurrectionists.His patron, the Premier of the Council, has been assassinated, leaving Dekkard with little first-hand political experience and few political allies.Not only must Dekkard handle political infighting, and continued assassination attempts, but it appears that someone high up in the government and corporations has supplied arms and explosives to insurrectionists.Insurrectionists who have succeeded in taking over a naval cruiser that no one can seem to find.

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio, continues the Grand Illusion, a gaslamp political fantasy series the Grand Illusion (Isolate, Councilor, Contrarian).Fifty years after the establishment of the Imperium, and 450 years before the events of Isolate, Dominic Mikail Ysella—ancestor of Arval Ysella—is the grandson of the last king of Aloor. Stripped of most of their land, Dominic, as the third son, must support himself.Dominic becomes a legalist and is elected to the Imperial Council quietly working as an isolate, someone unreadable by government telepaths.Amid a time of a crumbling imperial line, Dominic must build a coalition within the Council and quietly draft a new constitution to save the Imperium from itself. Uncovering rampant corruption, graft, and potential to be arrested for treason, Ysella discovers any number of ways that simple legal specialist in water rights could get himself killed.The Grand IllusionIsolateCouncilorContrarianLegalistOther Series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.The Imager PortfolioThe Corean ChroniclesThe Spellsong CycleThe Ghost BooksThe Ecolitan Matter

Protests against unemployment and poor harvests have become armed riots as the people sink deeper into poverty. They look to a government struggling to emerge from corruption and conspiracy.Recently elected to the Council of Sixty-Six, Steffan Dekkard is the first Councilor who is an Isolate, a man invulnerable to the emotional manipulations and emotional surveillance of empaths - but not the recent bombing of the Council Office Building by insurrectionists.His patron, the Premier of the Council, has been assassinated, leaving Dekkard with little first-hand political experience and few political allies.Not only must Dekkard handle political infighting, and continued assassination attempts, but it appears that someone high up in the government and corporations has supplied arms and explosives to insurrectionists.Insurrectionists who have succeeded in taking over a naval cruiser that no one can seem to find.