Book 2.5: The Lost Gate

Author: Orson Scott Card
Dates read: ?
Pages: 378
Genre: Fantasy

I’m not even going to bother getting into my scheduling at this point (though a post on that subject alone is forthcoming), suffice it to simply say, I’m way behind. Nonetheless, I was very excited to read this Orson Scott Card book as he’s the author of my favorite book (Ender’s Game), and this particular novel sounded like it was in the same vein with a fantasy approach rather than sci-fi bent.

This novel is the first in a new series chronicling the lives of mages drawing on ancient ways of magic around the world in present times. The central character, Danny, discovers that despite having spent his whole life seemingly without magic power, he actually is a mage able to wield a type of magic so powerful that any sign of it in a child typically results in the child being killed. Afraid, Danny runs away from the old-fashioned mage compound on which he’s spent his whole life and strikes out on his own. Soon, he finds himself befriending other mages that left behind the ways of their families. As his power grows stronger through his teen years, Danny realizes his magic may be the key to finally unlocking a long lost gate to a source of great power.

While I wasn’t as enthralled in this story as I have been with the Ender books, I still really enjoyed this novel because Danny has the same kind of precocious characterization that made reading about the kids in the Ender books so enjoyable. The fantasy mythology in which this world exists is really interesting as well, particularly the aspects revealed when a secondary viewpoint character becomes a large focus in the second half of the novel. It becomes clear quickly that the plot is, in various ways, driving toward events that will span several books, and I was really excited by this while reading because the world is so rich and clearly has so much to offer. One particularly interesting aspect of the mythology Card created in this book is that it folds existing myths and supernatural phenomena into it in a really fun way. For a book dealing so heavily with magic, though, it manages to stay very grounded and Danny’s emotional experience is more central to the story than his ability to do magic. All in all, it was definitely a page-turner and I’ll be excited for the next installment.