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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a very interesting and creative story very true to Orson Scott Card's writing style.
Love this story! It feels a little bit like reading Neil Gaiman. Apparently, the book and its characters and components were over thirty years in the making, which might explain why I thought the writing was juvenile in some places. Or it could just be that he was trying to help us enter the mind of the teenage protagonist and he did a really good job of it. Looking forward to the other books in the series.
This was my first experience with OSC fantasy. I thought it was a unique concept and an enjoyable story. It definitely dragged at parts and should've been trimmed more neatly, but Card is a gifted writer and I liked the book.
I have been a fan of Orson Scott Card since I first read Ender's Shadow in high school. Then I proceeded to read almost every Ender book available to me - and still, to this day, will pick up a new one whenever it comes out. I love the fullness of the world that Card is able to create with his novels. Sure, there are about a billion Ender books at this point, and that makes it easier to create a world. But when I look back to the first time I read Ender's Shadow (and the parallel - and theoretically the first in the series - Ender's Game) I was so infatuated by the world in that one book that I'm sure it's just something about how Card writes. He's able to create a world that could exist within out own, even though it's an amazing work of science fiction.
Card does the same thing with The Lost Gate - the first book in his newest series called The Mither Mages. In this book the main character, Danny North, knows that the world he lives in with his family is different from the world around him. More than that, he knows that he is different from the rest of his family. Their home is in the isolated mountains in West Virginia far away from any other people and things like schools or stores.
While Danny's cousins are busy perfecting their outself - a projection of their being - Danny cannot do even the most basic of magic. Danny was worried that he would never show any talent for magic, and therefore be an outcast among his family. He read and learned the books in their family library - written in a large number of foreign and ancient languages - as well as all the other practices of the family.
However, Danny eventually learns that he has the power of a Gate Mage - the highest and most fearsome power of all the mages. In ancient times Loki, the great trickster and greatest Gate Mage, sealed off access to the other worlds so that access to magic would be cut off and the magic on earth would diminish. Because of this any Gate Mage born is sentenced to death as soon as his powers are revealed. Danny, once his powers are revealed, is therefore forced to flee his former life and go on the run from his family and all that he has known. Forced to fend for himself in the normal world, Danny comes into his own and gathers a small group of friends and people he trusts.
Read The Whole Review On My Blog, Chaos Theory
Card does the same thing with The Lost Gate - the first book in his newest series called The Mither Mages. In this book the main character, Danny North, knows that the world he lives in with his family is different from the world around him. More than that, he knows that he is different from the rest of his family. Their home is in the isolated mountains in West Virginia far away from any other people and things like schools or stores.
While Danny's cousins are busy perfecting their outself - a projection of their being - Danny cannot do even the most basic of magic. Danny was worried that he would never show any talent for magic, and therefore be an outcast among his family. He read and learned the books in their family library - written in a large number of foreign and ancient languages - as well as all the other practices of the family.
However, Danny eventually learns that he has the power of a Gate Mage - the highest and most fearsome power of all the mages. In ancient times Loki, the great trickster and greatest Gate Mage, sealed off access to the other worlds so that access to magic would be cut off and the magic on earth would diminish. Because of this any Gate Mage born is sentenced to death as soon as his powers are revealed. Danny, once his powers are revealed, is therefore forced to flee his former life and go on the run from his family and all that he has known. Forced to fend for himself in the normal world, Danny comes into his own and gathers a small group of friends and people he trusts.
Read The Whole Review On My Blog, Chaos Theory
I listened to four of ten discs and couldn't stand to listen to the others. In fact, I turned off the audio in the middle of the fourth disc, sick of listening to the main character's whiny changeable thoughts. I picked this up because I was intrigued by the premise: the gods are alive and well and living on Earth, stuck there by Loki who closed the gate between Middlegard and Westell. The first section was promising, discussing Danny (the main character) and his life seemingly without magic, surrounded by his family, all of whom have magic. When he realizes that he has powers beyond any he imagined, he is told he has to escape. And that's where the book starts to suck. He is whiny and irrational and makes bad choices. Card seems to relish in describing the disgusting in great deal, especially the disgusting that has NOTHING to do with the plot. Overall, extremely disappointed.
another idea about how ancient mythology fits into modern society. fun little book. I liked it enough to finish the series.
The first 30 pages were interesting. The whole premise of Danny's family's history and what their 'talents' are, it was cool stuff. I liked it.
However, sometimes Card goes a little overboard in describing how the magic (or science) in his fiction works--at least for me. And that is what happened here. WAY too much of Danny figuring out what he can and can't do and how he does it and why it works. That is so BORING to me. I want plot, action, growth. I don't need to know how it works, I just want to see it work.
I kept slogging through only because I got the book from Goodreads in exchange for a review and I felt like I should finish before reviewing it. I was not liking what plot there was, or even Danny for that matter, for most of the book. Which was very disappointing.
However, it did get better. On page 206. Before this page Danny goes through this phase of being a thief and it was SO BORING AND POINTLESS. Once he ditched Eric (a thief who was Danny's teacher in all things illegal) and grew some brain cells, the plot picked up and things finally happened.
But really the best part of the book was the story of Wad. After every few Danny chapters we got a chapter about Wad. He had nothing to do with Danny, he lived somewhere else and did his own thing. His chapters were short and super interesting and such a nice break from Danny. I liked Wad! One of the reasons I liked his chapters was that I didn't get long (boring) magic lessons. He just did what he did--the plot moved! It was his story that kept me engaged while Danny was being a 13-year-old idiot.
The ending was really fascinating. It made me rethink how I felt about the rest of the book because it was so cool. How things come together, the hint of what's to come. Though I was sad how Wad's story ends. It is a series, so maybe happy things will happen later. Though I wont find out for myself. As fascinating as the ending was, I wont be picking it up.
It is an interesting premise and cool magical world Card created, so if you don't mind 13 year old boys who aren't all that likeable and long described discoveries into magic, pick it up.
However, sometimes Card goes a little overboard in describing how the magic (or science) in his fiction works--at least for me. And that is what happened here. WAY too much of Danny figuring out what he can and can't do and how he does it and why it works. That is so BORING to me. I want plot, action, growth. I don't need to know how it works, I just want to see it work.
I kept slogging through only because I got the book from Goodreads in exchange for a review and I felt like I should finish before reviewing it. I was not liking what plot there was, or even Danny for that matter, for most of the book. Which was very disappointing.
However, it did get better. On page 206. Before this page Danny goes through this phase of being a thief and it was SO BORING AND POINTLESS. Once he ditched Eric (a thief who was Danny's teacher in all things illegal) and grew some brain cells, the plot picked up and things finally happened.
But really the best part of the book was the story of Wad. After every few Danny chapters we got a chapter about Wad. He had nothing to do with Danny, he lived somewhere else and did his own thing. His chapters were short and super interesting and such a nice break from Danny. I liked Wad! One of the reasons I liked his chapters was that I didn't get long (boring) magic lessons. He just did what he did--the plot moved! It was his story that kept me engaged while Danny was being a 13-year-old idiot.
The ending was really fascinating. It made me rethink how I felt about the rest of the book because it was so cool. How things come together, the hint of what's to come. Though I was sad how Wad's story ends. It is a series, so maybe happy things will happen later. Though I wont find out for myself. As fascinating as the ending was, I wont be picking it up.
It is an interesting premise and cool magical world Card created, so if you don't mind 13 year old boys who aren't all that likeable and long described discoveries into magic, pick it up.
Although Card is a little more preoccupied with teenage hormones than I prefer (perhaps to develop character), I enjoyed the book and will finish the trilogy and prequels. Card is a great story teller.
No stars for you, homophobic douche.
In 2008, Card made a bunch of idiot statements about gay people. I disliked his stuff before that, going back to ENDER'S GAME many years ago; but reading his work and insulting it became a mission in 2013. That was the Year of the Deletions, when Goodreads committed a horrendous breach of trust by simply deleting reviews flagged by a group of idiot users as "not community friendly" or some such crap.
Users affected by this weren't given notice of the company's intent to destroy their data. It simply...vanished. At that time, I was a significantly more well-read reviewer than I am now. I left Goodreads out of a sense of outraged solidarity with people who had no backups of the content they created, unpaid and out of love for books, that Goodreads then and now uses as value-added sales material. Not that long after Amazon took over Goodreads, it became obvious that "negative" reviews were in for a flagging and, if that wasn't enough, a trolling.
So many issues got rolled into the outrage and sense of violation that goes with some business entity acting ham-handedly that it became easier and better for my personal mental health (which would snap shortly anyway) to get out of here. I went from the Forbes 25...the 25 most influential reviewers on the site...to a group blog and a lonely little personal blog for new reviews. Naturally enough my supposed sway here diminished and then pretty much vanished as life's vicissitudes finally caught up with me and sent me to the psych ward for a good long stretch.
But before I vanished, I mocked the many 5-stars-or-else thugs who ran (possibly still run, I'm better at ignoring people these days) roughshod over the idea of respectful disagreement with the opinions of others by rating some of their darlings as above. It drove them nuts that I rated books like this one AND had read them, so was immune to accusations of partisanship.
Well, not immune, I was and am a partisan of political, social, economic, and moral Liberalism and liberalism. It shows. I'm happy with that.
I liked the premise of this book when I picked it up. I was bitterly let down by Card's erratic weaving in character development, his protagonist lurching across borders of acceptable and consistent behavior for no apparent reason. It's the "no apparent reason" that gets my dander up.
So rather than review the books at the time I read them, I rated them and waited for the haters to hate. They didn't disappoint me. Three years on, I don't care about the anvil chorus of conform-or-suffer any more. So here it is: I didn't like this book by an author whose politics and personality I don't like.
In 2008, Card made a bunch of idiot statements about gay people. I disliked his stuff before that, going back to ENDER'S GAME many years ago; but reading his work and insulting it became a mission in 2013. That was the Year of the Deletions, when Goodreads committed a horrendous breach of trust by simply deleting reviews flagged by a group of idiot users as "not community friendly" or some such crap.
Users affected by this weren't given notice of the company's intent to destroy their data. It simply...vanished. At that time, I was a significantly more well-read reviewer than I am now. I left Goodreads out of a sense of outraged solidarity with people who had no backups of the content they created, unpaid and out of love for books, that Goodreads then and now uses as value-added sales material. Not that long after Amazon took over Goodreads, it became obvious that "negative" reviews were in for a flagging and, if that wasn't enough, a trolling.
So many issues got rolled into the outrage and sense of violation that goes with some business entity acting ham-handedly that it became easier and better for my personal mental health (which would snap shortly anyway) to get out of here. I went from the Forbes 25...the 25 most influential reviewers on the site...to a group blog and a lonely little personal blog for new reviews. Naturally enough my supposed sway here diminished and then pretty much vanished as life's vicissitudes finally caught up with me and sent me to the psych ward for a good long stretch.
But before I vanished, I mocked the many 5-stars-or-else thugs who ran (possibly still run, I'm better at ignoring people these days) roughshod over the idea of respectful disagreement with the opinions of others by rating some of their darlings as above. It drove them nuts that I rated books like this one AND had read them, so was immune to accusations of partisanship.
Well, not immune, I was and am a partisan of political, social, economic, and moral Liberalism and liberalism. It shows. I'm happy with that.
I liked the premise of this book when I picked it up. I was bitterly let down by Card's erratic weaving in character development, his protagonist lurching across borders of acceptable and consistent behavior for no apparent reason. It's the "no apparent reason" that gets my dander up.
So rather than review the books at the time I read them, I rated them and waited for the haters to hate. They didn't disappoint me. Three years on, I don't care about the anvil chorus of conform-or-suffer any more. So here it is: I didn't like this book by an author whose politics and personality I don't like.