7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic!, February 22, 2006
This is one of the small handfull of books which I have kept for years (decades?) and read repeatedly. It hovers just below THE LORD OF THE RINGS on the scale of great sci-fi/fantasy. Nobody who has read this book on my recommendation has been anything less than 100% pleased. Including my Mom.
Though this is the first of a series, it stands well on its own -- perfection just as it is. A real classic which can be read by people who don't usually read or like sci-fi. Loan it to your own Mom after you are finished and you will see.
The "heroine" is a traveler through space and time named Morgaine. But the entire tale is from the point of view of Vanye, a youth from a primitive and superstitious warrior culture who regards Morgaine as a witch. He is forced by a sacred oath to serve her, even though he believes that serving a witch will cost him his soul -- a LITERAL "Damned-If-I-Do and Damned-If-I-Don't" situation.
The book is science fiction, but reads like sword and sorcery, because that is how Vanye sees the world. He is a wonderful character, probably one of the BEST CHARACTERS EVER CREATED, imho. Cherryh's gift for realisticly portraying the psychology of a superstitious, obsessive, highly traumatized, warrior-caste teenager is so spot-on it is almost creepy. Morgaine isn't too shabby either.
Give it a try. I tell people to read the first three pages of Chapter One. That is all it takes to get them hooked.
Oh, and don't be misled by the the cover art. This isn't remotely cheese-cakey. The heroine wears clothes and everything.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
TENSION ... that makes you beg for more, January 2, 1997
By A Customer
This whole series, consisting of "Gate of Ivrel", "Well of Shiuan", "Fires of Azeroth", and "Exile's Gate", is my favorite of any author's, and I've read A LOT.
Cherryh's style is clean and dry, but at the same time very intense and passionate. Instead of using flowery words and melodrama to spoon-feed emotion to the reader, she uses common words and short, almost aggressive phrasing. The tension and passion and danger are drawn with a sharpness and clarity that is almost painful. A deceptively simple word or glance between these characters, whether friends or enemies, will at times bring that tension to a breathless peak, but without the expected release afterwards.
This is not an easy, exciting Harlequin-esque roller-coaster of peaks and valleys. This is a sharp ridge on a bare mountain with an occasional rock slide.
This is not a graceful Puccini aria that makes you want to weep and feel melancholy. This is avant-garde jazz where a single painfully high note is drawn out in the background for so long that you find yourself begging for a release that you fear may never come but then again do you really want it to?
It's exhausting, but in the best sense.
And about the 4th time I read the series, I found that it was funny too! It is, of course, a very dry humor, but it's there. And not a joke or eccentric comedic bit player to be seen.
It's easy to fall in love with these characters. They're very different from each other, but they're both excruciatingly familiar!
Cherryh creates the perfect male characters for a straight female audience. Cherryh's men are the kind many of us would create for ourselves. (Which is very different from the men male writers create.) Cherryh's men are capable of great valor and honor, but also of very deep emotion and affection, and self-reflection.
Also, her men often feel strong love and affection and respect for other men, without there being any sexual element to it. This is not only unique, but very difficult. The ability to create tension between male characters who love each other without it reading like sexual tension or a Sunday night "family drama" is something I rarely see. I appreciate it when I do.
My circle of friends has a shorthand way of expressing our reaction to this exhausting mix of physical danger and emotional tension, just by groaning "AAAAAHHHHGHHHHGHGHHHHHG!!!". If one of us starts off a conversation this way, another might say "Are you dying, or did you just finish a Cherryh?"
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
beginning of one of the finest SF series I've seen, January 22, 2000
_Gate_ is a great beginning to the Morgaine novels. Morgaine is an excellent heroine, breaking a lot of the lame stereotypes that lesser writers have fallen back on when it was too much effort to create a strong, unique female protagonist. If you appreciate a heroine who is all business and only fleetingly vulnerable, Morgaine is the genuine article. Vanye makes the perfect foil to her: fallible, afraid, loyal, and very human.
To give just one example of Cherryh's descriptive talents without spoiling the book, if you close your eyes and visualize when Morgaine draws her primary weapon, a shiver will probably go down your back. Rare indeed is the author who can scare you without resorting to grossness.
You could save time by ordering _Well of Shiuan_, _Fires of Azeroth_, and _Exile's Gate_ at the same time you order this one. If you order this one you are going to want the other three anyway.
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