Two Stories From a Single Vision: L.E. Modesitt on The One-Eyed Man

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the author of more than 80 novels – primarily science fiction and fantasy, including the long-running, best-selling Saga of Recluce, the Imager Portfolio, and The Grand Illusion, as well as nearly 50 short stories, and numerous technical and economic articles. His novels have included ten national bestsellers and have sold millions of copies in the U.S. and world-wide, and have been translated into German, Polish, Dutch, Czech, Russian, Bulgarian, French, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and Swedish. He has been a delivery boy; a lifeguard; an unpaid radio disc jockey; a U.S. Navy pilot; a market research analyst; a real estate agent; director of research for a political campaign; legislative assistant and staff director for U.S. Congressmen; Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues; a college lecturer and writer in residence; and unpaid treasurer of a civic music arts association. Shortly after his tours as a Navy amphibious officer and then as a search and rescue pilot, he returned to Denver as a market research analyst and economist, which experiences generated the idea for his first published story – “The Great American Economy” – printed in ANALOG in 1973. He then pursued a career in another kind of fantasy by becoming the Legislative Assistant for Congressman Bill Armstrong in Washington, D.C., and later staff director for Congressman Ken Kramer. During his years in Washington, he attempted to regain some hold on reality by writing increasingly more science fiction. Not totally by coincidence, his first novel was published while he was serving as the head of Legislation and Congressional Relations at the U.S. EPA during the Reagan-Burford controversies. There he was responsible for coordinating EPA’s response to Congressional inquiries and hearings and for accepting midnight telephone calls from various individuals terming themselves journalists. This experience led to the writing of The Green Progression, a book almost totally factual and yet termed more fantastic than any of his fantasy novels. Along the way, Mr. Modesitt has weathered eight children, a fondness for three-piece suits [which has deteriorated into a love of vests], a brown Labrador, a white cockapoo, an energetic Shih-tzu, five scheming dachshunds, a capricious spaniel, a sweetly crazy Aussie-Saluki, and various assorted pet rodents. Finally, in 1989, to escape nearly twenty years of occupational captivity in Washington, D.C., he moved to New Hampshire. There he married a lyric soprano, and he and his wife Carol moved to Cedar City, Utah, in 1993, where she directs the voice and opera program at Southern Utah University and he continues to create and manage chaos, largely but not entirely of the fictional type.