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.