Customer Reviews

The Lost Gate

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

In truth, I am not an avid reader of fantasy material and my forays into sci-fi territory generally tend to run to the darker side, but I've been aware of Orson Scott Card's reputation in the genre for many years (I've ALMOST bought "Ender's Game" dozens of times). I do know that OSC has done quite a bit of work in the realm of mages and mysticism in recent years, so I eagerly jumped on "The Lost Gate" as it promised to be the first of an announced "Mithermages" series. With "The Lost Gate," OSC has created an enjoyable adventure and coming-of-age story appropriate to both the adult and the young adult marketplace. Filled with likable characters and mildly dangerous scenarios, "The Lost Gate" kept me fitfully entertained and pushing through the pages.

"The Lost Gate" really tells two stories set in alternate worlds. The bulk of the book is devoted to Danny North who hails from a once powerful clan of mages living on a rural compound in contemporary America. Thought useless by most of the family, Danny soon starts to understand that he does have a power--the power of gatemaking. This is an outlawed resource, however, as the power to make gates (which grant you the ability to move almost anywhere in the simplest terms) can be exploited in the wrong hands. "The Lost Gate" presents a complicated history in which forces have eradicated ALL gatemakers and closed all existing gates. Danny is soon on the run as his ability starts to become apparent which leads him to others who seek to alternately help and/or harm him. In the parellel plane of Westil, we meet another young man with gating ability. His mysterious past keeps him aloof--but as an underling in the realm's royal workforce, he soon becomes entrenched in court politics and intrigue.

The titular Lost Gate refers to the gate that used to exist between these two worlds. This gate allowed mages to subjugate humans and build their power bases. The mages on earth have been weakening without the mystical strengthening/healing power of this gate--so to create it again would redefine their former glory. As "The Lost Gate" propels forward, it seems apparent that all roads will lead to Danny attempting to once again link the worlds. But at what cost? The novel does end well positioned for the continuation of this saga and I enjoyed "The Lost Gate" enough to seek its sequel out when the time comes.

Sometimes, however, the prose does become weighed down in what I like to think of as "Gatespeak." While the physics of gatemaking is an interesting topic, some chapters explore the theory to the point of shutting down the narrative. Overall, OSC does a good job of incorporation this technical aspect into the action--but a few passages end up quite heavy. Also, there is a lot of implied danger in Danny's journey--but it is played more as an adventurous romp than as actual danger. The tone is much darker in Westil as the narrative has real suspense and bloodshed. So the two halves never quite gelled even as I enjoyed them individually. But the primary decision of whether or not to stick it out in "The Lost Gate" is Danny, and here OSC has created an extremely likable protagonist and one that I'd follow anywhere. A fitting introduction, let's see where we go next! KGHarris, 12/10.

Orson Scott Card is one of those rare authors who is not only prolific but continues to write incredibly creative and fascinating science fiction and fantasy. His latest book, The Lost Gate, continues in this tradition. Card has done it again: he has created a whole new world and populated it with incredibly interesting characters. When you combine this with the fact that Card is a masterful story teller, it is no surprise that this book is a real page turner. This is definitely a stand-alone book, but is clearly the beginning of another successful fantasy series for Card.

Card is at his best when he writes about children, and The Lost Gate is no exception. The Lost Gate is the story of a boy named Danny North. Danny grows up on a commune in rural Virginia where he and all of his family members are the descendants of Norse gods. But unlike his relatives, Danny doesn't seem to have any special, magical knack. In spite of being far more intelligent than his friends, Danny's ends up being the target of his peers derision and a disappointment to his parents. But just when you think that the book will turn into a sort of reverse Harry Potter, Card turns things around. Danny does have special powers--he is a gatemage, able to make tunnels across space and time. Because Danny has the potential to outstrip even the most powerful magicians in his community, Danny is now seen as a threat. Once Danny discovers that he is a gatemage,he is in a race against time; he must escape his community and learn how to use his powers to protect himself, before he is hunted down and killed by his own kind.

Card is an expert at building up suspense while moving the story forward at a rapid pace. The biggest danger in picking up this book in the first place is that you will not want to put it down. I started reading this at a time where I really didn't have much time to read and Card still got me hook, line, and sinker.

The premise of the book and the mechanics of The Lost Gate's universe remain unique. However, there are some staples of Card's writing that Card sometimes takes just a little too far. He has a tendency to make his child characters a little too prescient and even a little too vulgar, at times. Card also likes to have his characters engage in occasionally tedious conversations where they try to 'out clever' each other. Finally, Card often can't help being the puppet master, pulling his reader's strings a bit too deliberately.

But if I ever wanted to be led down the garden path, I'd choose this one. And if ever there was a competent guide, it would be Card. And when you reach the end, it is clear that there is so much more to tell. In The Lost Gate, Card has created the basis for a saga that will rival his Ender or Alvin Maker series. For those of us who crave cutting edge fantasy, this book is the real deal. Highly recommended.

Danny is an almost orphaned child raised in a family of magical adepts, while he himself lacks the skills and talents that set his family apart from humanity. Instead, he focuses on his academic studies, absorbing history, languages, and learning at a voracious rate. One day, almost by accident, that all changes when he realizes he unexpectedly inherits magical powers long thought to be lost from the world. This discovery is a death sentence in his family, and he does the only logical thing--he runs, narrowly escaping certain death.

On his journey, he explores his new and strange magical powers, as well as the non-magical world he has been hidden from his whole life. He is a mage, descendent of the gods and goddesses man worshiped in ancient times, but he travels among normal people, finding his way among the beggars and thieves in the underworld of Washington, D.C.

Even as he does, he is hiding from his family, the descendents of gods. You see, the ancient pantheons in the Greek, Nordic, Roman, or Hindu world are really visitors to Earth, mages whose powers were amplified by their journey through magical gates between their world and Earth. Those gates were lost many centuries ago, stranding them here and weakening their powers. Now, Danny is about to find himself at the center of an ancient struggle to get back to their world, renew their powers, and regain control of the Earth as gods and goddesses. His very existence will reignite a power struggle between the modern descendents of the pantheons for the control of the gates, and he will be at the center of it.

While not an entirely original story, it is clever and creative. A young boy finds out he is not actually as normal as he thought, but is really a being of unique magical powers (like Harry Potter), the son of gods (like Percy Jackson), and those powers make him among the most powerful people in the world. Orson Scott Card brings his own flavor to the story, but it is a story that has been done better before.

Even so, The Lost Gate is full of interesting ideas. Some of the best sections are during jumps from Danny's perspective on Earth to that of another mage on the gods own world. While most of Danny's story is focused on his learning about his magic, by interweaving the alternate perspective, we catch glimpses of the greater conflict, one that began thousands of years before Danny's birth. However, the story feels rushed, and in the rush, Card's best ideas falter. Rather than flesh out the characters and plot, the story leaps from point to point, never really building on the ideas.

In short, Card's newest novel is too many good ideas and not enough time. The result is an average story by an above average author. Card's intermingling of the two perspectives and their genre blending works well, setting the stage for a war between worlds. Even as the novel closes, we have only seen glimpses of the real fight, and we know that before the tale is through (this is only the first in the series), Danny will be at the center of that conflict.

Even with those glimpses, I often felt disappointed by the story-telling itself. The plot felt jumpy and lacked tension. Even on the run for his life, Danny feels more like he is meandering than fleeing. Card lets his character out of any kind of scrape that might actually threaten him, with little or no cost. At the end of the day, we all want the hero to win, but we want the win to feel like a victory, not a foregone conclusion.

Another concern I had with The Lost Gate was Card's heavy use of info dumps. With the creation of any system of magic, an author has to explain things and fill in the reader on how things work. But Card's info dumps were constant, going so far as to feel more like a Wikipedia entry than a piece of the story. Rather than supporting the story, the story sometimes seemed to play second fiddle to the info dumps or sudden character introductions. To be sure, the world and ideas are very interesting and very creative, but the alacrity with which Card makes stuff up to fit the situation, rather than providing all the rules upfront, makes the internal logic of the story feel contrived and inconsistent. As a result, the story hurts, even while the ideas flourish.

If that was my only complaint, the story might still have been an enjoyable experience. But problems arose when Card lets his characters talk to each other. I know, right? The audacity. But rather than move the story forward, though, the characters' dialogue seems to get in the way. They argue and complain, bicker and whine...constantly. In one "memorable" scene, the characters seem to flip-flop between decisions they had already agreed upon just so that the dialogue can continue (and by "continue" I mean "argue") for another page. It makes them look inconsistent and unlikeable, not to mention irritating, and it rarely does anything to affect what we can already see is going to happen next in the plot. As a result, I could not decide whether I thought a character was unlikable, or had just been poorly scripted. In the end, I rarely felt any connection with the characters, including the protagonist, Danny.

While The Lost Gate is full of ideas and potential, for me it fell flat. I found myself frustrated that I was too far into the book to put it down, but not far enough to be done.

Last comment: at the end of the novel, Card inserts an Afterword where he explains the roots of his inspiration for The Lost Gate. After thirty years, he figured out how to work the ideas together. My concern is that while it may have had its genesis 30 years ago, the book feels like it was rushed to be finished in the last month before it went to print. While Card is not G.R.R. Martin (and nobody wants to wait as long as we already do for Martin's sequels), I do wish he would take a page out of George's book. Slow down to redraft, rewrite, and edit. With great ideas, it's worth the time, and I think it would make all the difference.

Orson Scott Card states that the magic system idea for "The Lost Gate" began thirty years ago and the story itself has been slowly building since then. Unfortunately for me, it felt much like a formulaic recycling of his Bean character from the Enderverse. I haven't read much of Card's works outside of the Enderverse novels, so maybe this is how he writes all his characters.

The lead in "The Lost Gate" is a young boy by the name of Danny. Danny shares many striking background characteristics with OSC's other young characters Bean and Ender, such as rough childhood, smarmy "better than thou" attitude, an almost-omniscient knowledge about all things academia but lack of real world "street smarts", and "The Chosen One" syndrome. So it's very much like taking the character of young Bean/Ender and sticking them into this new setting without rewriting any character traits. Many of the secondary characters feel very familiar as well - Veevee is Petra, Ced is Peter(ish), Stone is Graff, and Hermia like Valentine.

The world setting is also bland and uninspired and more people centric than environment centric. Much of the story is driven by Card's need to explain the magical system in place in "The Lost Gate." As a quick synopsis: magic in the TLG world is real but it works more like elemental affinity magic than the "everyone can learn anything" school of thought in the Potterverse. In other words, there are types of mages - fire, water, animal, wind, and of course, gate (and others). A gatemage cannot learn how to be a firemage, nor vice versa. A gate itself is much like the standard sci-fi wormhole - one entrance in, one exit. In fact, if you've played the video game: Portal, you understand 95% of the gate system in TLG. Add in a smattering of old world mythology gods, and you've got the "Gateworld".

The story itself was an interesting read, but not his best work. When standing side-by-side with great classics like "Ender's Game," it just doesn't stand up. There were quite a few sections that felt oddly paced and even slow. The fact that many of the story's coincidences are written away as "pranks on spacetime" (yes, straight from the book) is both humorous and weak at the same time. It's as if Card knew that many readers would find all of the coincidences in how everything seemed to work out just right for Danny hard to swallow, so he created a catch-all for that event. A "Everything works out for Danny because the space-time continuum actively "wants" it to work out for him" plot hole plug. In several spots he even actively points out all of the coincidental actions that happened in the storyline.

It was a hard call giving this book 4 stars - it really felt more like a 3 star book if you're a Card Enderverse fan. However looking at it from a person who has never read any of Orson Scott Card's materials before, it's not a bad book and was enjoyable to read. So 3.5 if I could, 4 stars since I can't.

I guess I'm a sucker for the worlds of Orson Scott Card (or maybe just a sucker for the very excellent narrators that tell me his tales), and the combination real/fantasy world of the Lost Gate is no exception.

Danny North lives in a world where the adults bear names like Thor and Loki. Civilization is split into factions of "families," and each faction bears a name which ties it to its history, like "The Greeks" or "The Norths" (who bear Norse heritage). Almost everyone in Danny's world has personal magic, whether it is the ability to possess a bird and bid it do your will or to encourage the plants to grow just a little bigger. But Danny has none of these magical abilities. He is drekka.

Eventually Danny runs away from his family to join the druthers, the non-magical everyday folk who used to worship the families as gods. He plans to live among them, but he has a secret of his own, bigger than his past.

The Lost Gate is a wonderful blend of fantasy and mythological fiction, and is reminiscent of Rick Riordan's Greek (Percy Jackson) and Egyptian (The Kane Chronicles) series, and Michael Scott's The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

The characters have depth and capture your sympathies. You really care what happens to this boy, and whether or not he ever makes it to the promised land of Westil.

While I loved Ender's Game (long ago), very few of Orson Scott Card's other works have appealed to me since. Until now. With THE LOST GATE, OSC takes another swing and hits one out of the park. THE LOST GATE is truly a terrific read and, I hope, the start of an outstanding new series.

In THE LOST GATE, OSC has created a beautifully detailed world out of legend, myth, folklore, and magic. Here, our erstwhile young hero, Danny, is a gatemage, the greatest gatemage to be born in 1400 years. Only he doesn't know it. And neither does anyone else. You see, 1400 years ago, Loki closed all the gates between Earth and Westil (the home planet of all the Indo-European gods (Greek, Roman, Norse, etc.)), stranding those "gods" on Earth and preventing travel between the worlds, which is what strengthens their individual powers. No one knows why Loki did it, but since that time, gatemagic is forbidden, and anyone caught with even the slighted bit of gatemage talent is immediately put to death. Once Danny's latent talents are discovered, he must run for his life, since all the remaining gods on Earth want him dead. Unfortunately, Danny's unusual and obvious talent makes it very hard for him to hide. But throughout his adventures, Danny finds friends, a real family, and discovers his destiny.

When I reached the end of THE LOST GATE, I thought, "that can't be the end, I want more of the story!" That in and of itself is some of the highest praise that I can give. OSC's meticulous attention to detail in all things - atmosphere, character, and plot - thrust the reader deeply into this rich world. His characters are fascinating, and while they may not all be completely likeable, you still want to know more about them, to know their stories. According to the afterword, OSC spent over 30 years developing this world and these characters, and it shows. They were clearly created with love, and that is what makes them so special.

I am waiting anxiously for the next installment of this series. I can't wait to read more of Danny's story. I hope that OSC can keep up the quality and uniqueness that he created with THE LOST GATE. If he can, then this series will be remembered for a very long time.

My main reaction upon finishing Orson Scott Card's new fantasy novel is simply confusion. As usual Card breathes forth lively, engaging characters. He also introduces us to a complex and carefully planned system of magic. ("Introduce" being chosen very deliberately, we're given only the basic elements, with an implicit promise of more later.) All of this is great, but then I get to the end and . . . it feels rushed, confusing. I get to what should be the end, and I feel like the real story is just getting starting.

The Lost Gate tells the story of magical families on two different worlds. Our Earth and Westil, where the mages originated. Long linked by magic, these two worlds have been separated for over a thousand years, with the magic of each waning without this connection.

The Lost Gate explores the politics of these mages, former gods in hiding on our world and the general population of Westil. We see the insiders and outsiders---love, trust, and betrayal.

Danny North, an untrained gatemage, seems destined to reconnect these two worlds and revitalize the dying magic. That is, of course, if he isn't killed, as gatemages are forbidden since the last one stole the great gates, cutting the worlds apart.

Card's characters are always richly drawn. We see not only who they are now, what drives them, but how they got here and why these goals are so important to them. Unfortunately, near the end of the book, Card introduces a character that is not any of this. Although she is absolutely vital to the plot, her appearance is abrupt and, after the book finishes, I still don't feel I understand her at all. He may as well have named her Plot Device.

Then the climax we've been waiting for all this time happens and . . . nothing comes of it. Correction: great changes may have been introduced to the world, but we have only the slightest hint of what these are because the story ends so quickly. I realize this is setting us up for a sequel, but I still want a story that is complete in itself.

I wish I could say this is as great as the other Orson Scott Card books I've read, and ninety percent of the way through it is. But, as the saying goes, "The ending pays for all." That final let-down dims the entire book for me.

The Lost Gate is a story about a boring idiotic boy with the super human inability to learn from his mistakes, grow up, and develop into a character. There are simply too many characters that we are never really given a reason to care about them or a back-story to give them relevancy. Honestly, the best parts of the book are when we leave earth behind and visit the other world and read about Wad. I simply cannot force myself to care about Danny. He is the most boring over-powered luck magnet in the entire world and makes ridiculously horrendous mistakes with little to no consequence for him to learn from. Whereas Wad loses his son and feels absolutely terrible for the loss (for the three sentences we get for it). Meanwhile, Danny is off curing acne and infected body piercings, accidentally creating portals that high schoolers fall into and nothing happens as a result. Then to top it off, he ends up beating the gate thief by automatically understanding a barely mentioned cryptic inscription at the last minute by using a poorly explained mechanic that was only introduced in the prior chapter. All of the action, development, and plot development all happen in the last four chapters of the book making the entire rest of the book a waste of time. This book is sequel bait of the worst kind. There's no plot, no characters, and no story. Avoid at all costs.

Final verdict, this reads like a short story that got blown up to full size by padding out the majority of the book with boring, irrelevant and irrational filler. You can skip large chunks of the book without missing anything and you'll notice when you get to those chapters that are polished and well written, and then immediately run into the filler sections. The experience is jarring at best and immersion killing at worst. The experience is like going to a nice steak house restaurant and after getting your 18 oz steak you realize the steak is actually pressed meat made from ground up, day old McDonald's burgers. Its meat, but is neither satisfying nor what you ordered.

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Second thoughts:

I wanted to go back after thinking about this a while.

I don't "get" the wizards/gods of OSC's The Lost Gate. I simply don't care for them. I don't understand why Danny would EVER open a great gate. He even said as much during the story several times that life under the Family's was short, brutal, and terrible. If anything, the Loki was the real hero and we didn't even get to read HIS story. Instead we're reading the high school shenanigans of a bratty over confident bungling teenager who ends up undoing all that Loki accomplished by accident. I can only imagine what life for humans is going to be like with someone like Danny and company selectively allowing the "gods" to return.

The story I ended up wanting to read is the story of Loki and how he must have come to the realization that in order to protect humanity he must sacrifice everything to stop the rampaging Westilians. To give up his life, and powers, to become nothing more than a sentinel against all gates, to remove gate mages from existence, to kill or cripple all who would connect the two worlds. Now that should have been the story we read. Not this fakey coming of age tale that left me wanting Danny dead and his friends imprisoned.
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I happen to be a big fan of irreverence. And of mythology. So a book that combines a protagonist who is descendant from Norse gods and who as irreverent as they come? Perfect. Imagine a world where the gods of the myths you grew up all exist. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Carthaginian - all exist. All have descendants. But these scions of the gods are not as strong as they were once. For in 632AD, the gate between Earth and the world of the gods was closed. And without a gate to connect the two worlds, the mages on Earth are not as powerful as they once were. The book is a narrative of two individuals living separate lives in separate worlds. In this coming of age tale, a young man who is seemingly without magic tries to discover who he is. In another world, another young man, wielding great powers tries to discover just who he is as well. As they each walk their separate roads, they discover just who they are, who they can be, and ultimately a connection is made. First in a trilogy, I look forward to reading the next chapter in this story. I only wish that this one focused just a bit more on that other non-Earth world. From the glimpses we see, it looks intriguing - like a Northern European/Nordic Medieval World but with magery. Here's hoping the next book shows us more of that world.

The Lost Gate (2010) is the first Fantasy novel in the Mithermages series. It set is a comtemporary world where the remanent clans of Westil mages dwell in obscurity. Before 432 AD, the Westilians had been gods among the humans on Terra.

Mages had enhanced their powers by traveling through Great Gates to and from Westil. Then Loki had closed all the Great Gates. Now gatemages are hunted down and killed by the clans.

In this novel, Danny North is a drekka, a person without any magic. He is the son of Alf Rockbrother -- the Odin of the North Clan -- and the lightmage Gerd.

Eric is an eighteen old punk. He graduated from high school and then found ways to support himself.

Wad is a gatemage. He had dwelled within a tree for centuries.

Hull is a baker in the King's castle in Iceway. She is also the night cook in charge of the kitchen in the evening.

In this story, Danny's aunts have told him that his magic will appear later. He has tried every form of magery found in the North clan, but nothing seems to work. He can't even sense clants made by his cousins.

He likes to run around the area, spying on the drowther kids in their houses and schools. Then he discovers that he has been creating and using gates in his runs outside the compound. He is a gatemage. If his family finds out, he will lose his life and be buried on Hammernip Hill.

Nobody seems to know anything about gatemagery except the historical tales of the strongest gatemages. Danny is afraid that others have noticed his use of this magic. He listens in to a conference with the Greek clan and is exposed by a finder.

Danny escapes from his nook in the library wall, but is immediately confronted by Thor North. It seems that Thor and others have noticed his gatemagery before he did and are waiting to see if he survives. Danny decides that there is no time like the present and gates away.

Danny first goes to the local Walmart to get drowther clothing. The rags he is now wearing would mark him as an outsider. He finds a way to get into the store and shoplift some clothing and shoes.

Danny leaves the shopping cart at the back of the store. He is noticed by Eric and another teenager hanging out behind the stores. They laugh at the tags dangling from the stolen clothing.

Danny decides to go with Eric for a while. Eric has him wear his old clothes to ask for handouts or rides. They travel to Washington with friendly strangers and make enough in handouts to eat well.

In the District of Columbia, Eric and Danny meet Ced and are invited to the house where he is staying. The house is owned by a middle-aged man called Stone, who likes to have kids living in his house. Unknown to Eric and Ced, Stone is a Westilian who recruits for a clanless group called the Orphans.

Eric learns that Danny can gate and convinces him to become a burglar. First Eric asks around for a fence to buy their stolen goods and then they meet him at his store. The fence is not friendly and threatens to attack them with a baseball bat if they return.

Danny tries to convices Eric to find another fence, but Eric believes that the man is just putting on a show in case they are working with the police. Danny and Eric case some areas in Georgetown and find a couple of good propects. Danny discovers one house that seems to be empty, but the family has already been robbed and hidden in the safe room.

Despite Eric's objections, Danny reports the robbery. That evening, the television news announced that one dead man and three others were found within the house. The police would also like to talk to a youngster who reported the incident.

Later, Danny and Eric find other houses and steal a lot of electronics and other goods. Danny has decided to leave Eric and wants to provide enough for his needs. They store the loot in the shop ran by the fence and then show some jewelry to the clerk. The fence attacks Eric with the basebal bat, but Danny gets Eric away from the raging man.

Meanwhile, a boy is trapped under the bark of an oak tree on Westil. He breaks out while a family is visiting the tree and is found by some of the family. The next day, the boy is out of sight, but follows the family home.

Later, the boy appears at the castle of the Iceway King. Hull realizes that the boy is a gatemage and coaxes him inside to the kitchen. She names him Wad and makes him a special assistant to the night cook.

Wad gets to know the castle very well. He knows places that have been forgotten for centuries. He also gets to know the residents of the castle. He is especially intrigued by the Queen.

This tale shows the lives of Danny on Earth and Wad on Westil. Both have adventures and find themselves at risk. Eventually theur paths intersect through magery.

This is the first novel in the series. Prior publications have been short stories and maps, but another novel is forthcoming.

Highly recommended for Card fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of various magics, political intrigue, and determined young mages. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin