Customer Reviews

GATE OF WORLDS (Ibooks Science Fiction Classics)

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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The Gate of Worlds takes place in 1985 in an alternate world in which the Black Death killed 3/4 of Europe (instead of 1/4) in 1348. As a result, the Turks could easily conquer Europe, leaving them in no position to colonize the New World, or anywhere else, for that matter, and non-Western civilizations all over the world were allowed to develop. But technology is almost a century behind.
This is the story of Dan Beauchamp, an 18-year-old Englishman who emigrates to the Aztec Empire, which takes up all of Central America and eastern North America. Europe is poor, but Mexico is a very rich country. I won't tell you how it ends, but it is very interesting, very realistic, and leaves you begging for a sequel.

I've admired Silverberg's craft in devising a world utterly different than our own, where the major powers are the Aztecs and the Turks, and in painting the subtle nuances of such a world, to the tiniest detail. So, I cannot understand why he makes his main charachter commit such a stupid mistake, when the teensiest bit of sense would have commanded a different choice.
I was somewhat disappointed. But the intuition of the gates of worlds and of possible realities is wonderful. It reminds me when in Dick's The Man In The High Castle, set in a reality where Hitler won, someone circulates a fantasy where the events have gone othervise...a similar scene occurs when the portly mentor of our not overbright protagonist delineates the , to us, REAL story, and becomes suspectly heated in the telling. Was he an Universe shifter, like other protagonists of Silverberg's stories?

Mad Englishman goes out in the Mexican Sun.


Wants to be an Aztec warrior type. No dog. The pommie life is a bit dull and dreary, so he sets off and decides he'd like to be adventurer.

Despite the title and the bodysuited babe on the cover, this is something in the alternate history vein, along with being your manly adventure story.

The Black Death affected some of Europe more severely, Turkey then built an Empire, and failed, and Montezuma et. al. didn't bend over for Europe as others were in charge, or something like that. The actual characters are aware of a Many Worlds theory and talk about this in the book, that choices cause divergent universes.

However, most of this is concerned with a rebel prince, our protagonist who joins up with his crazy plain, and a cool sporting event. If you ever played Speedball on the Amiga, imagine the low tech version of that for the Aztec type game with a rubber ball, armour, and brawling that he gets invited into as the final chest to join up with said warrior prince.

This was a good book. ANY book that is a good book is a book that makes you think. What would have happened in the Plague had hit Europe worse then it actually did? Would there be a different powerhouse now? Who would rule? How good would the technology be? Anyways, i reccomend this book to anyone who likes to think, no matter what they like to think about.