The Seventh Gate: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 7 (Death Gate Cycle)
Spectra - Spectra
Release date: 1995-12-01
Paperback
Author: Tracy Hickman
Science fiction, Fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, Fantasy, Fantasy - General, Fiction / Science Fiction / General, Science Fiction - General
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The Seventh Gate: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 7 (Death Gate Cycle)
Date undefinedOne of the great book series available. I am a DL fan, but this series is better and short and sweet with 7 books. All the books were good without other authors to ruin anything like in DL. I read this series about 8 years ago, time to read it again, it is one I will reread every 10 years for sure.
The Seventh Gate: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 7 (Death Gate Cycle)
Date undefinedIn a word: meh. As others have commented, this series starts off great and then just flounders. The original quartet are the best of the bunch, particularly the first and third books. "Dragon Wing" was really great fun with an intriguing anti-hero and "Fire Sea" is compellingly sad. However, the final trilogy is so unfocused and confusing (wait, the Fifth Gate leads where?) that I'm stunned no one forced them to condense it into one book. So, the problem in recommending "Dragon Wing" and "Fire Sea" is that it saddles you with the other five books and I just don't think it's worth it. I found this series to be the beginning of the end for Weis and Hickman, where editors obviously found it difficult to force such celebrated authors to make changes.
The Seventh Gate: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 7 (Death Gate Cycle)
Date undefinedThe whole entire series was really good. And in spite of it being the shorter of all the books, Seventh Gate had actually started fairly good. It was action packed throughout the entire novel, had its moments of intense suspense, and I was eager to finally complete the final book in this complexed tale.
But then the ending came, some things happened, and I was left thinking "That's it?" There should have been more closure. For example, I would have liked to have seen something more of the dragon snakes demise. Even if they cannot be fully defeated, this "higher" power, whether it be Alfred or Zifnab or whoever, should have been able to imprison it in a more confined area than just the labyrinth. And then there is Hugh, who happens to leave the story without so much as a peep; next you know, he's dead in the Labyrinth, supposedly killed off defending the Haplo's people. it would have been nice to have seen the fight, to see him die, to discover if he was finally at peace, or if he had any regrets. And what of Marit's and Haplo's child- Is she alive? Is she dead? Wasn't that one of the reasons Haplo wanted to go back into the Labyrinth? I don't know. Even the Appendix was vague on this.
And then the inconsistencies. As others have stated prior, the Labyrinth just did not have the feel of being a deadly maze. Wait, there really wasn't much of a maze. I mean, there is some terrain, some deadly enemies, and next you know they're fighting to save the Final Gate. It's possible that once the Final Gate is discovered, it's easier to cross the Labyrinth a second time, but by the way Haplo was describing it in the earlier novels, I would have thought it would still take a few years, at least.
And also, what about the dragons? Are they truly bound to the Labyrinth? If the "mensch" can discover space travel to get to the other worlds, why can't the evil dragons fly to the other worlds?
And then the magic of teleportation. It was earlier stated you had to have been to a specific area to transfer to it. Yet, Marit seemed to be able to transfer to people she knew all the same, regardless if she had been in a specific area before or not. If it were that simple, and people were being attacked in the Labyrinth, why couldn't they teleport themselves away from the enemy, even if it did take them back to where they started? Marit made the comment that she could transport to the Final Gate, but couldn't take Alfred or Hugh. Did this mean she couldn't use her magic to take them? That doesn't add up since Haplo used his transfer magic to resuce Jarre and earlier Alfred was able to transport Hugh to the ship. Did this mean that Marit didn't want Alfred and Hugh to come along, in case of an uproar from her people? That doesn't add up either because then she would have prevented them from going to the Final Gate on the back of the good dragons of Pryan.
Oh well, as I said, good story, certainly not great, and by the time I was finished I was just glad it was over.
