Customer Reviews

The Seventh Gate: A Death Gate Novel, Volume 7

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The series itself was a good read. However, this last book is typical of this partnership of authors; Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They basically start killing people off, and destroy the world. It feels like the authors just had one big brain fart and wrote to fill some word quota versus to entertain the reader. Read it to finish the series, but do not waste your money on it.

The Death Gate Cycle is a great series. The authors have the ability to conjure up the most fantastical worlds, the Death-Gate being no exception. The Death-Gate is the portal between 4 worlds that were once together as one, each comprising of an element. This is the final tale of a powerful Patryn, who traveled the four worlds and sets out to fix what went wrong. . Zifnab made me laugh all the way through. Hugh brought a few scares down my spine, as well Kletius. Alfred stopped tripping for once, (which shocked me!) Yet Xar I pitied. He meant well but his ambition was his downfall. I was just wondering, is there going to be a second generation for death gate like dragonlance? I really want some more!

...

I can't understand what happened with this book. The previous six (im my mind) were tremendous. The build up for this book left the writers with so many paths they could take . . . but in the end, they left us with nothing. Descriptions were non-existent, and the action was full of gaps and lifeless. The end of the book was utterly ridiculous. It just felt like the writers were either sick of the series or felt like they had no idea how to end it. Now, don't get me wrong, you MUST read the first six books (all deserving of five stars), and naturally after that you'll want to read this one. Just keep in mind that this book does not touch the quality of the first six. Very disappointing.

The Death Gate Cycle series is imaginative and creative, with appealing characterizations and non-stop action. If you can still get the first few out-of-print volumes, the series will take you into a wonderful world of magic and mayhem, human angst and bizarre terrors. I read them all together, allowing the universe of Tracy and Hickman's creation to be firmly embedded in my personal lore. Well done!

Having just finished reading the entire Death Gate Cycle, I can say I have to agree with the other reviewers who said this book was just not up to par. The most disappointing thing about it is not the actual events of the plot, but the inferior writing style it exhibits. This book lacks the immersive language and attention to detail that really made the series shine. The whole book just feels like a skeleton with no flesh. (Consider the fact that this book is about 150 pages shorter than all the others and uses embarassingly large, spaced-out print). It's like they whipped something up just to beat a deadline. It also lacked the subtlety of the earlier books: instead of planting seeds of wonder in the reader's mind, this one just beats you over the head with its main moral (i.e. can't we all just get along?). Not that it's bad enough to ruin the whole series. Death Gate is still a quality series and this book has its share of moments, like when Haplo confronts Xar before the entrance to Death's Gate. That image gave me chills. Some plot issues seem unresolved, like the dog (OK, I get it, it's Haplo's soul. But that doesn't explain why Alfred trips over it in Death's Gate, or how it gave Ramu an incurable wound.) Also somebody pointed out that Alfred's past is not completely resolved. So basically, a disappointing ending to a fabulous fantasy series.

I just finished this series, and is second, in my mind, only to Weis's own Star of the Guardians series. Weis is easily my favorite author.

The series, however, is one I found completely enthralling. The characters are created in great depth, the world in which it is set has no peer.

The one thing I can remember that worried me about the series was the crazy wizard Zifnab making refrences to other literature characters, like Gandalf, James Bond, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Of course, it all comes together in this book, and then it's quite funny (it is when he's introduced in Elven Star as well).

This book is a fitting and emotional, yet not overly, end to this incredible series.

However much I felt that this book was not on par with the other books of the series, I must say that I felt that they wrapped up the series nicely, with minimal holes in plot. In fact, in reading the last book I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, and that is hard to do. I recommend reading the entire series in order. I'll bet you'll want to go back and read it again. In short: same fabulous cast of characters with a number of new emotional outpourings in the least expected places.

Finally, the last novel of the Death Gate Series. This novel picks up right where the last one ended. Xar has now taken a wounded Haplo to Aberrach, and Alfred is now missing. Meanwhile, the serpents have led an attack on the Final Gate in hopes of closing the Labyrinth for all of time.

Alfred is later found by Hugh the Hand and Marit. Once he has been found, the trio travel to Aberrach in hopes of saving Haplo from Xar. When the trio gets to Aberrach, things really start tyo get interesting. Xar's main goal in the whole novel is to get Alfred to take him to the Seventh Gate. However, Alfred has no desire to do anything along these lines, even though Xar is leveraging Alfred with Haplo.

How and why the characters end up in the Seventh gate is a complex tale that is important to the whole novel. The plot is always in full motion; there isn't a chapter that does not have something going on in it.

However, this book does not rate as highly as the other books. The main reason that this is so, is because there is simply not enough to the story. The novel feels like it was written to tie up lose ends and it lacks the quality of the previous books in the series. Overall, the series was phenomenal, but this book leaves the reader depressed, because you simply want MORE. The characters were ingenious, but the ending leaves you hanging. The reason the ending leaves you hanging, is because you have a sense of a new beginning, and no idea what is in store.

Weis and Hickman did a tremendous job throughout this series. Surely, if they decided to add to this series the additions would be welcomed and desired. Don't let the last book diminish the over-all excellence of the series.

So. After getting through Tolkien's incredibly complex and epic Lord of the Rings, here I am, right back in the upper middle of the proverbial chain of fantasy novel quality. Not that this series is at all mediocre -- it is actually a very, very top notch piece of work. True, Tolkien's novels were better thought out and written with a deeper and more deliberate use of language, but it's just so nice to instead read something that's a little more comprehensible, a series that makes excellent use of simpler language and contains quite a bit of modern humor.

But I gotta stop here. Unlike many, I won't even attempt to compare The Death Gate Cycle with Tolkien's masterpiece; not because one is distinctly better than the other, but because the two are completely different entities from different time periods.

I absolutely loved the Death Gate Cycle. I loved it. The series was exciting, original, and completely satisfied my fantasy fix. It had the right balance of everything that makes a story truly epic and unforgettable -- action, suspence, love, tragedy, comic relief, great characters, equally great character development, and finally the ability to get into your mind and leave you dying to dish out some cash and get your hands on the next novel. ^__^

I'll admit, however, that the first and last books in the series were... iffy. The start -- Dragon Wing -- was much too slow for anyone with a short attention span. The ending -- The Seventh Gate -- was too forced. Not BAD, mind you, just hurried and at times confusing. Weis and Hickman could have easily added about 100 more pages to the last book and truly concluded the series.

Fortunately, the start and fin are the only major down points in the Death Gate Cycle. The five novels in between are more than worth your time and money (Serpent Mage and Into the Labyrinth are probably my favorites among them). Each character in the series is distinctive, well-developed, memorable, and overall enjoyable. The worlds are very well-conceived (How do Weis and Hickman do it? It boggles the mind...), and the plotline is almost always smooth and flowing.

My advice? Whether or not you like fantasy, get the first two novels of the Death Gate Cycle and give them a try. If you find you like them (and you probably will), you'll thank me. If you don't, then hey, you're only down a couple of bucks.

The final to the greatest series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the team behind the fantastic Dragonlance series. This book is spellbounding, you can't stop. The authors have the ability to conjure up the most fantastical worlds, the Death-Gate being no exception. The Death-Gate is the portal between 4 worlds that were once together as one, each comprising of an element. This is the final tale of a powerful Patryn (human-godlike), who travelled the four worlds and sets out to fix what went wrong.