story identification - Looking for a book, wormhole, space ship Crash landing

From what I remember of the book:

A spaceship goes through a wormhole (I think) and crash lands on a planet They salvage what they can from the ship and build a castle on a mountain, cutting the stone with the lasers from the crashed ship

The crew develop some sort of powers, the captain (She) seems to develop some sort of Precognition

The planet's inhabitants where men rule and women are second class citizens Some women escape to the crew's castle so they can be equal citizens

After they build the castle the crew fight the inhabitants the that came to attack them

What is the name of this book?

Answer

Fall of Angels, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Fall of Angels Cover

Your memory is pretty good, although you're giving Nylan short shrift - that's okay, because the point of the book is partially that Nylan, as a man, gets shorter shrift than he deserves.

To shamelessly quote the author's web page:

Modesitt moves deep into Recluce’s past to chronicle the founding of the Empire of the Legend, the almost mythological domain ruled by woman warriors on the highland plateau of the continent of Candar. He tells the story from the point of view of Nylan, the engineer and builder whose job it is to raise a great tower on the plateau known as the Roof of the World. Here the exiled women warriors will live and survive to fulfill their destiny. Here a revolutionary new society will be born

. . . if Nylan can get the tower built and defenses in place before the rulers of the lowland nations come with their armies to obliterate them all. And if Nylan can learn to control the magical powers that are growing within him.

It's the 6th book set in Recluce, albeit the earliest chronologically - it's the flashback to the foundational event that sets the stage upon which all the other books play. It's the arrival of Order magic on a world of Chaos magic.

Comments

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