THE SEVENTH GATE by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

The Seventh Gate is a 1994 fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the conclusion to the seven-volume Death Gate Cycle. Here, as the dragon-snakes wage war against the Labyrinth Patryns, Alfred and company race Xar to the Seventh Gate.

As a novel, The Seventh Gate is an engaging page-turner. As a conclusion to this series, however, it’s merely adequate. This book is substantially shorter than the others in this series, and it tends to center on action rather than character. This action is good but unspectacular; nothing wildly unexpected happens, and there’s nothing approximating a “wow” moment, but it is all appropriately high-stakes and climactic. All the storylines are resolved in passably satisfying ways, all the character arcs are taken to more or less logical places (however, a more satisfying resolution for a number of characters would have been nice, most notably Xar).

The Seventh Gate feels sloppy sometimes, much in the way that Into the Labyrinth did. We’re still playing fast and loose with the magic rules established in the first few volumes, for example, and Haplo’s willingness to seal his people inside the Labyrinth feels too easily arrived at.

However, the biggest problem with The Seventh Gate is that it’s self-indulgently sentimental; hand-in-hand with this, the handling of the “higher power” the characters have been seeking throughout the series is eminently disappointing. Instead of any meaningful connection with the divine, we’re ham-fistedly presented with a muddled postmodern, Oprahesque power-within denouement that, while fitting the character arcs of Haplo and Alfred, makes little sense theologically within the context of this series (the last chapter is particularly cringeworthy in this respect). Unanswered questions remain regarding God, the origin of evil, and the purported deity of Krenka-Anris. All this decreases the impact of this book: since the end of Elven Star, we’ve been working toward a big theological payoff, and we don’t get anything close. 

Faltering steps over the last few volumes knock The Death Gate Cycle out of consideration as one of the all-time great fantasy works, and deservedly so, but it is, overall, a very solid, very imaginative series, and one with some truly great highlights; it’s just too bad that nearly all of them came in volumes 1–5. In short, then, The Seventh Gate reflects the series as a whole: flawed, but worthwhile.

RECOMMENDED

INTO THE LABYRINTH by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Into the Labyrinth is a 1993 fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the sixth in the seven-volume Death Gate Cycle. Here, Xar, on Abarrach to learn necromancy, sends Haplo’s ex-lover to kill him.

There are some serious and damaging problems here, the likes of which we haven’t before seen in this series. First, Xar does not live up to his billing. Rather than the wise patriarch of a proud people, this is an insecure, short-tempered leader of a cult of personality with dumb-as-rocks followers (this effect is compounded by the tiresome Marit), and sometimes, frankly, Xar’s kind of an idiot. This makes it hard to take him seriously as a credible threat to any faction, and it detracts from his character arc of growing obsession.

Far too much time is spent with the Pryan crowd. It seems like the authors felt obligated to get Pryan back into the story, even though there was really no pressing reason to. I, for one, didn’t need to see these folks ever again: they squabble like little kids every chance they get. This, coupled with the preponderance of recap provided, may lead the reader to skim a significant number of pages.

There are issues with the Labyrinth, too. For one, it makes no sense for Haplo to think that his child might be in a city near the very beginning of the Labyrinth. There are also significant inconsistencies with the use of magic, particularly concerning the fact that the Patryns, who can magically multiply their weapons and food stores, always seem to be scraping by.

There are some lesser problems. We could have used more from Samah, and less sentimentality from the authors, including but certainly not limited to all the hand-holding and Kumbaya-singing on Arianus well after the resolution of those storylines in The Hand of Chaos (the reader is given to believe this is included because the activation of the Kicksey-winsey is significant, but nothing of consequence is done with this plot thread).  

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. There’s a lot of action here, and it’s handled well. Alfred receives some of the development we’ve been waiting for since Serpent Mage. The authors also do a surprisingly good job of explaining and incorporating Zifnab, the walking deus ex machina, into the world. With the exception of all the bickering on Pryan, the authors keep the pages turning.

It may set things up nicely for the conclusion, but Into the Labyrinth itself is a weak entry in the series.

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

THE HAND OF CHAOS by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

The Hand of Chaos is a 1993 fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the fifth in the seven-volume Death Gate Cycle. Here, Haplo is sent with Bane back to Arianus to activate the Kicksey-winsey in advance of a Patryn invasion.

Implausibilities abound as the writers spend the first seventy pages roughly forcing the story in the direction they want it to go. It’s mind-boggling that Haplo wouldn’t even try to grab Samah after the events of Serpent Mage – that would have solved all his problems. And Xar, the “wisest Patryn of all,” is swayed far too easily by both Bane and the dragon-snakes, above and beyond even what his vast hubris can account for.

When the story gets going, Haplo is shoved to the margins; The Hand of Chaos is not so much a sequel to Fire Sea and Serpent Mage as it is Dragon Wing 2, which isn’t exactly what we were looking for at this point. Nevertheless, this is a reasonably suspenseful page-turner, and it wraps up the Arianus storylines with a satisfactory – if shaky – conclusion. The authors also do a fine job of writing from a half-dozen different viewpoints.

There are some issues, though: Limbeck’s glossed-over personality shift at the end of Dragon Wing renders him largely unrecognizable here. We get way too much Iridal and not nearly enough conflicted Haplo. And there’s little lead-in to the next book beyond the developments in the first several chapters.   

Its problems are not insignificant, but The Hand of Chaos is, ultimately, an engaging and fairly satisfying novel, even if it often feels like a detour on the way to more pressing (and more interesting) storylines.  

RECOMMENDED

SERPENT MAGE by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Serpent Mage is a 1992 fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the fourth in the seven-volume Death Gate Cycle. Here, Haplo and Alfred travel separately to the ocean world of Chelestra, where they discover the last bastion of the Sartan as well as a mysterious race of powerful creatures.

Weis and Hickman are thus far doing a very fine job of making their world(s) increasingly complex. Serpent Mage begins to explore the series’ theological theme in greater depth, for one thing, and in the course of their storytelling, the authors also paint a clearer picture of some of the lingering mysteries from prior volumes.

Serpent Mage is longer on lengthy conversations and shorter on action (although what action there is is quite good) than the previous books in this series, but the authors do an excellent job of building up compelling intrigue, which drives the story forward to a satisfying climax. If there are any criticisms of the story, they would include the fact that the overall plot structure bears more than a casual resemblance to that of Fire Sea, the case of Haplo being too quick and too eager to trust the dragon-snakes (particularly as they all but have “evil” written across their foreheads), and the fact that the geographical structure of this world is extremely alien, not all that clearly explained, and thus kind of confusing. But by and large these are minor quibbles.  

Character development gets a passing grade. Haplo spends a lot of the book kind of stuck between gears, and Alfred, while he’s making progress, can still be extremely frustrating. Samah is nicely done for the most part; he can be impressively complex, although he lapses into the one-note arrogant despot a bit too often.

In the end, Serpent Mage is an engaging, page-turning novel that continues this series’ strong march forward. It’s at least as good as Fire Sea, and maybe better.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

FIRE SEA by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Fire Sea is a 1991 fantasy novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the third in the seven-volume Death Gate Cycle. Here, Haplo travels to the subterranean world of Abarrach, a dying realm in which the Sartan remnant has turned to the forbidden art of necromancy.

This is easily the best novel in the series thus far. The authors use their striking atmosphere – a third distinct and captivating world – to tell what is essentially a horror story. It certainly helps that the novel depicts a scenario that’s extremely horrific.

Fire Sea also starts to give us some real insight into the questions raised in previous novels, particularly the burning question of what happened to the Sartan on the other worlds. At the same time, the authors introduce compelling new questions while simultaneously ratcheting up the stakes for all concerned.

We also get some nice character development for both Haplo and Alfred, with Haplo beginning to make the obvious move from antihero to a man with a conscience, and with Alfred beginning to maybe grow a pair. Both characters can, from time to time, feel like one-note caricatures, so this evolution is welcome, even if their moody self-questioning can be a little much.

In short, Fire Sea is a compelling blend of horror and intrigue, one that is full of bold promise for the rest of this series.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED