#the death gate cycle

[kriswritesstuff]

I love Haplo writing in his diary at the start of book five going, "I wonder what happened to Alfred. Is he safe? What would he think of the things I've done and discovered." He spends the entire fifth book worried about Alfred (in between the almost dying) and getting the nerve up to go look for him in the worst place known to man TM.

Only to finally find him, halfway through book six, chilling in isolation, having not experienced the Horrors TM.

My guy deserved to flip out about it.

[kriswritesstuff]

Spoilers for Death Gate Cycle

The inconsistencies in the text and the footnotes are starting to bother me. Some of them are clearly just the authors misremembering certain events: footnote in book five saying an event took place in book one vs. book two - footnote in book three misidentifying it as book four.

Others seriously complicate the timeline (which already doesn't make much sense. The time between the Sundering and when the Sartan started to fail is incredibly vague, that's fine. Samah, in Serpent Mage says they've been Sleeping for nearly a thousand years. But, if the Patryns were in the Labyrinth for a thousand years, then it can't have been long after the Sundering when the Council of Seven went to sleep.

However, Alfred's timeline doesn't match up. He doesn't remember the Sundering, which means his people on Arianus had time to have new generations and he was a young adult when they went to sleep.

Now, this can be answered by time differences between dimensions, which is fair, but no one in the text or the appendices implies that is the case and actions taken in one realm appear to affect others simultaneously, eg. Haplo entering Death's Gate in book one activating the tytans on Pryan and they have to travel enormous distances to reach our protagonists in book two.

Of course, the appendices complicate a lot of things. Book five, specifically. Haplo at the beginning of book six concludes that he will not come back to Arianus and the text backs him up with the sealing of the Labyrinth and Death's Gate in book seven. However, the appendix on the Brotherhood says he got his hands on Ciang's document about the Cursed Blade with no explanation HOW. He must have come back, because Hugh didn't give it to him. Alfred's writings imply he went to Pryan during his "years of traveling Death's Gate" however, Alfred only enters the Gate in book three, gets sent to the Vortex in book four, and doesn't resume traveling Death's Gate until book seven, at the end of which he closes the Gate. Note: I may not fully remember the events but seven is next for me and that may clear things up.

Furthermore, books one though five take place over one year - Alfred didn't have time for years of travel in less than one year.

[kriswritesstuff]

The Death Gate Cycle is perfect for fans of Good Omens.

We've got good guys who are excessively controlling and bureaucratic. Bad guys who are the same species as the good guys and practically indistinguishable from them.

We've got hereditary enemies to soulmates.

We've got a creepy ten year old.

There's a dog that's much more than it seems to be.

We've even got footnotes!

There's biblical allusions, the eternal struggle between good and evil which ultimately settled on the side of humanity, and SEVEN whole books about.

There's even the apocalypse.

Please read Death Gate Cycle by Weiss and Hickman.

[kriswritesstuff]

Okay, but the dynamic between Alfred and Haplo is seriously just anxious zoo cheetah & emotional support dog (who is a tsundere)

[kriswritesstuff]

*slaps roof of Death Gate Cycle*

This bad boy can fit so many mass extinction events

[kriswritesstuff]

I love how the main leads, the central characters in the end, of The Death Gate Cycle don't appear until page 100 and 120. And even then, Haplo's barely conscious and Alfred immediately faints.

[sinmightbeonline]

listening to dungeon synth while reading fantasy books is so peakalicious

[maybeasunflower]

The Death Gate cycle

Various thoughts on the The Death Gate Cycle, a series of seven novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, published from 1990 to 1994.

I received the first one for my birthday, and liked it enough to buy the rest. They then took me a year to finish - which is a long time for me. Further thoughts (with spoilers) under the cut.

Flaws:

Bane: oh dear lord, this kid is such a little ****! He's a child - it should be tragic that's he's been corrupted by his (real) father into being conniving, heartless, moral-less villain. But it's not (see also: Anakin Skywalker). When he dies, my reaction was "oh finally". It says a lot that his adoptive parents took out an assassination contract on him. And when they see him die they are like "Welp. Order the guards to keep quiet, and then let's get on with things"

Female characters: For a book written in the early 1990s, the treatment is really bad. There is not a single strong major female character in the series. Lady Iridal has Major Magic Powers, but starts off a wet blanket and then becomes an absolute drip(ping blanket). Yes, she's been manipulated by her husband and does a lot of hand-wringing over her son (fair), but you can do that and have more than one dimension to a character. Jarre is OK as a character, but she's mostly in a supporting role (the narrative seldom is with her). Anne is mostly just an extension of Stephen. Other female characters are minor at best. All the major characters are male, and they didn't have to be.

Zifnab: I felt too much of this was some kind of inside joke I wasn't getting. Yes, have some almost-insane person who remembers Before Times - but often it didn't quite work in a jarring way.

Books 5/6: these generally felt like I was treading water. A lot of stuff happened, without much plot advancement. I don't feel like there was a plan beyond "have more stuff happen".

Book 2 (Elven Star): It's a good book… but the events on Pryan have little effect on the series-wide plot. This and Books 5/6 make me strongly believe this was not plotted out as a series before Book 1 was written.

Positives:

World-building: Four completely different world, plus a hellscape, plus a neutral zone. All four are intriguing and unique, the hellscape is suitably hellish, and the neutral zone reminds me of the start of Myst III (in a good way).

Character motivation: Bane aside, you can generally see why all the major actors are doing what they are doing, even when you know they are wrong.

Race variations between worlds: I love that the relationships between elves, humans and dwarfs is different in each world. It would have been easy to make them the same (after all, they came from the same place). We had a world where they all Got Along, a world where they Tolerated Each Other, and a world where they Did Not Get Along (for racist and non-racist reasons). It's a good illustration of how environment affects people's behaviour.

Stephen and Anne: I love the idea of maintaining a Bitter Feud in public in order to hide that they actually love each other - because it's in the best interest of their kingdom. So long as the unhappy subordinates think the king or queen is on their side and would rather go back to two kingdoms, they won't find a replacement leader. Nice.

The ending: honestly, there was a period where I was reading purely because I wanted to reach the end. Thankfully, Book 7 got it together, moved the plot along, and tied up everything neatly. (Although the end of the narrative on Pryan let slip that there would be a Happily Ever After). Overall, I was impressed with the conclusion.

I'm glad I read them, and I would recommend them to people who like this style of fantasy novel. Probably more of a library book or ebook purchase than a real book purchase if you are on the fence.