A review by qalminator
The Door Into Shadow by Diane Duane

2.0

At first, I was enjoying this much more than Book 1, as the writing was tense and tight, and it didn't have the lackadaisical meandering that annoyed me in the first book. But the further I got, the less I wanted to keep reading, and I'm rather relieved to be finished. The first book focused on Herewiss and his struggle to become the first male in a century to be able to use "Fire" (the strongest form of magic). This book focuses on Segnbora, who, despite being very strong in the Fire, has never managed to focus it. So, naturally, this book is largely about her journey to do just that, and ... um. Very overused trope (see spoiler for more), and I'm sad to see a female author using it. Then she compounds it symbolically with a horribly disgusting mental sequence. I can think of ways of accomplishing the same inner mental growth without THAT.

Spoiler

So, Segnbora was blocked because she'd been raped as a child by a male relative. While that's horrible, it's worse that it completely defines her character for most of the first two books. That's the reason she's blocked. That's the reason she has intimacy issues. Etc, etc, etc. Then at the end, she has to mentally forgive her rapist (by symbolically kissing and embracing his image in her mind) in order to move on. Really? Seriously? WTF.

Observations: I keep seeing parallels between this series and Wheel of Time. The gender-differentiated magic system. The strong character blocked from using her power. The Dark One. Pretty sure Jordan must have read this series and been inspired by it.