Customer Reviews

Shadow Gate (Crossroads, Book 2)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I spent Sunday devouring this book. The lawn didn't get mowed. Phone calls didn't get answered. But I didn't care. I was totally engrossed in Shadow Gate. I loved Spirit Gate, the first book in this series and the sequel maintains the high, no, very high standards of the first.

Kate Elliott has always been a top fantasy writer and seems to only get better with time.

If you like thrill a minute action stories look elsewhere. The story is complex and nuanced and focused as much on relationships and world building as anything. The world that Elliott has created is rich with widely different cultures. The bad guy, who is mostly in the background is truly evil. If you enjoy complex characters, excellent plotting and enough action and intrigue to keep you reading at the expense of your regular life, give Shadow Gate a try.

This work is a worthy successor to Spirit Gate. I will admit I had never even heard of the author before I saw the first book in the series in a bargain sale, but since then I have purchased all three of the Crossroads books so far in print.

Where book one introduces and gives the backgrounds of all of the main characters, book two further fleshes out the main characters and even elevates one of the minor characters in the first book into major character status. One of the things I despised about the first book was that the "main" character for the first forty or so pages is killed off. She returns with a vengeance in book two, though still not as much as I would have liked.

The locations in this book are much more static than in the first. This allows the author to concentrate more on the characters than having them tromp from place to place. In addition to further fleshing out the original characters this work also introduces some new chacters that contribute to the plot and character interactions.

One method that I use to determine whether or not I like a work is whether or not the prose becomes visual while reading. Both this book and is precursor do that.

The one aspect that I did not like about this work was its repetitive descriptions of virgin and child rape. Admittedly, Kirit's experience explains much about how she acts, but this could have been accomplished without being so graphic or detailed. The child situations contribute nothing, and should have been left out completely.

I have read Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars Series. I absolutely loved it. I could not put the books down. If you are looking for a page turner with the same magic and spirit that Elliott wove through the Crown Stars series then you may be disappointed. I was.
This book, like its predecessor, is too wordy. The long drawn-out flowery descriptions and repetitive plot recaps are not very conducive to the plot development. In fact, I found myself skipping past them and picking up when I could discern important plot points.At times I felt that Elliott was just trying to meet a page quota set by her editors.
What I disliked even more was the gratuitous rape. Rape of women and especially of children. Maybe Elliott thought it imperative to repeatedly create scenes where women and young children were violently raped and abused. It certainly motivated me to abhor the perpetrators and admire the strength of the survivors. However, after some time it just made me sick. Due to overuse, these scenes had a snuff feeling to them.
I didn't care to finish the book. Which is unfortunate. After reading her previous series I have a lot of faith that Kate Elliott can deliver a wonderful story. I am just not sure I have the patience or the stomach to see it through. It's unfortunate...really.

Unlike in Spirit Gate, the pace is fairly consistent in this second volume; while there are a few slow spots, there was enough tension to keep me going throughout. Structurally, yes, it's a middle book, so not quite as much happens on the macro, political level as in books one and three. But still, partway through this book I fell in love with the trilogy, largely because I'd become so invested in the characters. This one introduces a couple of my favorite characters (Nallo and Marit--well, that's a reintroduction, but a great plotline) and I loved Shai's redemption arc.

A spoiler-free review of the trilogy:

STORYLINE/PACING: Like many an epic fantasy, this could be summarized as "a defensive war against evil." But being a character-driven book, the plot is as much about each character's individual arcs and subplots, and being toward the realistic end of the fantasy spectrum, good and evil aren't clear-cut. There's much more character interaction than swordfighting, and the pacing is maybe a bit on the slow side, but once it gets going midway through the first book, the plot is compelling and something is always happening.

While there are logical ending points for the first and second books, like most fantasy trilogies this one is of the "three-volume novel" variety, and I rushed through them all back-to-back. But although more novels are planned in this world, there's a solid resolution at the end.

CHARACTERS: The character development overall is quite good, and most of the main characters are sympathetic and likable if at times frustrating. Elliott is a rare epic fantasy writer in that she uses the multi-book format to actually further develop the characters, and I found my opinions on several of them changing book by book.

A few things that stand out: One, the characters have actual interests, like carpentry, gardening, etc., beyond fulfilling their plot-related goals (these books made me realize how rare that is in fantasy). Two, they're products of their cultures, and have baggage and prejudices that they never shed. I was expecting the main characters by the end to repudiate slavery and realize there's no such thing as demons.... but most of them never did, and that made it better. Three, I liked the way sexual relationships are handled. There's romance (surprisingly little of it), and there's meaningless sex, and there's attraction that never turns into relationships. Characters (women included!) can be attracted to and have sex with more than one person in the series. Speaking of which: there are a lot of strong female characters, but more in a realistic way than a wish-fulfillment kind of way; it's good stuff.

For the first two books I did feel that personal morality aligns rather too closely with which side of the war a character is on, and wished for more moral ambiguity. To a large degree that's subverted in the final volume, though.

WORLDBUILDING: A highlight of this trilogy. There are multiple highly-detailed cultures. I loved the amount of thought Elliott clearly put into the customs, religions, and so forth, and the fact that the inspiration was non-European. I see some Pacific Islander, Chinese, Mongol, Muslim and Zoroastrian influences, and undoubtedly didn't recognize many more. The world is increasingly well-developed in subsequent volumes.

The Hundred, where most of the action takes place, is a bit idealized, but every culture has its strengths and weaknesses. The Hundred does very well (especially compared to the other countries in this world) in women's rights and accepting homosexuality, and has been peaceful for generations despite no strong central government. But slavery is widespread, arranged/forced marriages are normal, and there's corruption, xenophobia and disenfranchisement of religious minorities. Meanwhile, the only group in the entire world that opposes slavery also forces its women to wear something burqa-ish, and virtually imprisons them in the home.

The introduction to the world is handled well. Customs aren't explained so much as mentioned in passing, allowing the readers to deduce cultural practices and background from context. Sometimes a custom will be alluded to and never mentioned again, hinting at hidden depths. So, thank you Ms. Elliott for treating readers like adults here.

THEMATICS: You can tell Elliott thinks about what her books are saying, and epic fantasy still being a somewhat conservative and male-dominated genre, I love reading good fantasy books informed by a progressive and feminist ethos. The trilogy examines how power affects people, how cultures interact and change and has a fascinating take on the myth of the fantasy hero and the good-vs-evil dichotomy.

I did think that the "good" side (with very different, conflicting ideas of what's "good") was better drawn than the "evil" side. It's great that the "evil" army is human, comes from within the Hundred itself and that the problem was at least partially caused by actual corruption and ignored problems--but in my judgment Elliott didn't do enough with that, and there's no apparent reason why many of the people on the evil side are quite as evil as they are, and why there are so many of them. One has to read between the lines to figure it out, where the author should probably have explored the reasons for this more or else not had so much cruelty on the one side and so little on the other.

WRITING: The prose is average. Not bad, but workmanlike. It's true there's a lot of description, which I mostly liked but isn't for everyone. There are several POV characters, but dealt with in a disciplined way; we don't get into everybody's head, the POVs are well-developed and there's no head-hopping.

MAGIC: Not much of it, thankfully. No sorcerers, although a very limited number of people have very limited magical powers. The supernatural elements are mostly in the worldbuilding, while the real focus here is on people, as it should be.

OTHER THINGS I LIKED:
1) Groups that are usually either evil or two-dimensional in fantasy are neither here: merchants, conquering horsemen, people who wear headscarves or turbans, and most notably, non-white people (which describes almost everyone in the trilogy). Even slave traders aren't automatically written off.
2) Elliott allows main characters to be illiterate. Most authors do cortortions to avoid this even where it's realistic.

OTHER THINGS I DISLIKED:
1) Being told halfway through the second book that "week," "month" and "year" don't mean what I thought they meant. What do you mean a year has 432 days? Couldn't another word have been used to clue me in to this sooner? Do I have to recalculate everyone's ages now? Blargh.
2) Characters coincidentally meet rather too frequently.

Overall, a great series for those who like thoughtful, character-driven fantasy set in fully realized secondary worlds.

The "Crossroads" series continues several years later with "Shadow Gate", an ordinary novel with a couple exciting incidents. The Joss begins pulling the reeves together in his new position, Mai'ili learns about her new family as she builds her own, and the former slave Keshad travels. There is minimal politics, minor romance, undefined religion, and sparse action in the disjointed storyline.

The powers the former reeve Merit gains and Shai's activities near the end are the only bright spots to a bland cast. Captain Anji does not contribute anything worthwhile. Some characters interact with ghosts, but it serves the storyline poorly. Suddenly people appear when it wasn't clear whether it is a flashback or real-time. Also many moments are thrown together, the different plotlines do not mesh well together.

The series is more fantasy with extraordinary being, creatures, and experiences, but no magic per se. The characterization is light and the rare battles are decent enough.

A better detailed map of the significant terrains and a comprehensive appendix including the many characters would have been useful.

Thank you.

So after being mildly intrigued by Spirit Gate, I went and read through Shadow Gate. I am quite happy to say that I liked Shadow Gate more.

Captain Anji and company busily carve out a little niche for themselves in the Hundred, with blessings from the town of Olossi. Joss the eagle reeve, recently promoted gets to enjoy all the headaches that come with being a Hall Marshal. Meanwhile, the bad guys from the north are regrouping for nastybad nogood purposes.

Quite a few of the questions I had from the previous book were explained a bit. A great deal about the Guardians was explained, indeed, they became rather integral to the plot of the book. I'm not a huge fan of overpowered, immortal character messes, but I do appreciate the effort that went into trying to make the Guardian characters into people rather than types. Sadly, I had mixed luck in that regard. Lord Radas isn't explored more with regards to motives, although there are some core explanations from a character that did not appear in the last book. I'm not sure how I feel about the expansion in the cast of characters. Nor am I entirely comfortable with the degree of coincidence that seems to be transpiring around Kirit, Mai's newborn son and Hari. It is giving me a case of "plot device" grumblings.

I did have a bit of an issue with the pacing of this book. It would go at a nice pace for a while and then it would stall. Much as I love all the character detail with Anji, Mai, Joss and Shai, I kept having this feeling that the plot was spinning its wheels in places. I felt that the interlude into Cornflower/ Kirya/ Kirit's past went on for far too long, to the point that it was jarring getting back into the normal flow of the story. It just seemed like That particular section could have been half of what it was and still let the reader understand what that character went through.

On the other hand, Marit became an interesting character and I found myself wishing that her side of things had been brought up sooner because a huge chuck of the over arching plot was explained through her. Marit trying to deal with this unexpected situation she finds herself in is intriguing to read and there had better be more of it to look forwards to. I hope she comes out of this better than anyone else.

Shai's character also had some much needed expansion, which was nice, although in some ways it didn't seem to have much impact on the plot. It was still a nice bit of character development though.

I remain interested enough to see how everything gets tied together in the end.

The Crossroads series is an excellent example of well written, carefully thought out fantasy. Unlike so many other fantasy series, this series has a tidy beginning, middle, and end. The characters are three-dimensional and varied, and you find yourself really identifying with many of them. The world is richly detailed and fully realized, with many systems of religion, and society. I highly recommend this read!

Kate Elliott is always a good read, in my humble opinion. For me, she can't write her books fast enough! thx, Kate

I picked up a copy of Shadow Gate in my library. I've read a tremendous amount of sci-fi and fantasy over the years, enough so that I see the typical pattern(s) of developement of story line and character. I kept waiting for this story to get off the ground. I kept reading on wondering WHEN something, anything would 'happen'. For people who like the "world" developed over the plot or storyline, this book/series might be great. Around pg 253 I got tired of waiting and began skipping pages. At page 361, I put the book down and havent picked it up since. As to character developement while initially good, was wooden enough that the separate story lines began to blend into each other. I wondered why bring in separate lines when the primary story line was dealt with so poorly.
I've added this author to my dont bother list as a result of this first read of her work.

I have a copy of all of Ms Elliott's books and liked all of them. I even
like this series. But, it is almost as if she took her other books, put
them in a bowl and picks out characters , etc , changes them a little and
puts them in the new series.
For instance, the blond girl Kirya and her people, are straight out of the
Jaran series. If you are a fan and have read the books, you can pick
various characters , etc out.
Despite this, I like the series and will probably get the next one.