Orson Scott Card's newest book, "The Lost Gate" opens up a new world
I picked up Orson Scott Card's "The Lost Gate" up in the ARC pile last month. I was a big fan of the Ender series back in high school and read a few of his standalone novels since, but have become less enamored of him between his vitriolic political essays (he thinks he's Demosthenes and it's not pretty) and the fact that he didn't seem to remember any of Ender's Game when he wrote Ender in Exile, and I didn't finish. "The Lost Gate" is a contemporary fantasy novel based on a thirty year old short story, but written recently (I haven't read the source story). The book comes out in January.
Danny North is your typical Ender-style genius/outcast who lives with his incestuous extended family on their compound in the middle of nowhere Virginia. His family are mages descended from the Norse gods of legend, but their powers have been weakening ever since Loki the gate-mage trickster closed the Great Gate to their homeworld Westil in 632 AD. Now they are stuck paying for electricity and appliances and modern things instead of providing the other way around. Among Westilians, children are only as powerful as their parents (gotta keep the magic in the family), but their mage affinities (which can range from stone to weather to flowers to ... cows) don't really follow genetics as we know them. Danny's childhood has been awkward because despite having the two most powerful mages in the clan as parents, Danny's a squib ("drekka"). To Danny's partial relief, he's had powers all along, he just didn't know that he was forging connections between places in space (gates) when he was trying to hide stuff in weird locations, spy on the family, or just sneak out off the compound to gaze upon kids who got to wear shoes and go to the local public school. Unfortunately, the Norths and the other mage clans have a centuries-old agreement to execute any gatemage children produced, because gatemages tend to be untrustworthy, though paradoxically, only a gatemage could fix the Westil situation. During a visit/inspection by the Greeks (yep, also descended from the gods), a Greek girl exposes Danny's powers. Danny's Uncle Thor tells him to run away and never return if he wants to live, but figure out how those powers actually work, and reopen the Great Gate.
Thus, a barely-teenaged Danny who was never supposed to have left his compound, but knows about culture and money from the internet (phew), and can barely consciously use his powers, sets off among the Muggles ("drowthers"). Luckily, being able to make private tunnels from one location to another is really conducive to stealing stuff. Danny meets up with a big-brother figure who is more than happy to harbor a runaway with sticky fingers and they head down to D.C. There, the autodidactic Danny gradually discovers more about his powers, and meets Westillians not connected to any particular family. To stop with the plot summary, there's a nice mix of action and rest scenes as a few years pass. By the end of the book Danny tries the major gate and it's clear there are more books to come.
The vocab from the this new universe is handled well enough, with the glaring exception of any gate-magic related terms. There are other mages who can do Gate Stuff (though not like Danny) who haven't been offed, but I couldn't keep their powers or some of the minor gate rules straight in my head: who can move, see, use and close the gates Danny makes isn't quite clear to me, nor was why these people aren't fugitives like Danny.
The book is peppered with OSC tropes: the parents are distant, characters who have sex are all about the babies and populating the world, Danny is a miracle kid, and there's the usual awkwardness with male genitalia.
High points include descriptions of D.C. (exciting because I was just there for the Stewart rally and still have the map in my head). The book holds true to OSC's famed writing advice quote "every character is the hero of their own story" and is chock full of people acting out of their own self-interest. Like most good sf/fantasy, there are sharp intersections with the real world and the mundane. There are several small surprises along the way. Low points include the overuse of the word "iPad", and a scene where Danny is sexually assaulted by a young woman for no apparent reason other than the fact that she needs help. This scene would have been far worse if the genders were reversed, which was probably the point. I was also annoyed by the lack of contingency planning on the part of Danny's parents.
I'd recommend the book to OSC fans and fans of urban fantasy- it's not mind-blowing like Ender's Game or Speaker, but an exciting story in an intriguing world. I will certainly be watching for the release of the sequel.
Danny North is your typical Ender-style genius/outcast who lives with his incestuous extended family on their compound in the middle of nowhere Virginia. His family are mages descended from the Norse gods of legend, but their powers have been weakening ever since Loki the gate-mage trickster closed the Great Gate to their homeworld Westil in 632 AD. Now they are stuck paying for electricity and appliances and modern things instead of providing the other way around. Among Westilians, children are only as powerful as their parents (gotta keep the magic in the family), but their mage affinities (which can range from stone to weather to flowers to ... cows) don't really follow genetics as we know them. Danny's childhood has been awkward because despite having the two most powerful mages in the clan as parents, Danny's a squib ("drekka"). To Danny's partial relief, he's had powers all along, he just didn't know that he was forging connections between places in space (gates) when he was trying to hide stuff in weird locations, spy on the family, or just sneak out off the compound to gaze upon kids who got to wear shoes and go to the local public school. Unfortunately, the Norths and the other mage clans have a centuries-old agreement to execute any gatemage children produced, because gatemages tend to be untrustworthy, though paradoxically, only a gatemage could fix the Westil situation. During a visit/inspection by the Greeks (yep, also descended from the gods), a Greek girl exposes Danny's powers. Danny's Uncle Thor tells him to run away and never return if he wants to live, but figure out how those powers actually work, and reopen the Great Gate.
Thus, a barely-teenaged Danny who was never supposed to have left his compound, but knows about culture and money from the internet (phew), and can barely consciously use his powers, sets off among the Muggles ("drowthers"). Luckily, being able to make private tunnels from one location to another is really conducive to stealing stuff. Danny meets up with a big-brother figure who is more than happy to harbor a runaway with sticky fingers and they head down to D.C. There, the autodidactic Danny gradually discovers more about his powers, and meets Westillians not connected to any particular family. To stop with the plot summary, there's a nice mix of action and rest scenes as a few years pass. By the end of the book Danny tries the major gate and it's clear there are more books to come.
The vocab from the this new universe is handled well enough, with the glaring exception of any gate-magic related terms. There are other mages who can do Gate Stuff (though not like Danny) who haven't been offed, but I couldn't keep their powers or some of the minor gate rules straight in my head: who can move, see, use and close the gates Danny makes isn't quite clear to me, nor was why these people aren't fugitives like Danny.
The book is peppered with OSC tropes: the parents are distant, characters who have sex are all about the babies and populating the world, Danny is a miracle kid, and there's the usual awkwardness with male genitalia.
High points include descriptions of D.C. (exciting because I was just there for the Stewart rally and still have the map in my head). The book holds true to OSC's famed writing advice quote "every character is the hero of their own story" and is chock full of people acting out of their own self-interest. Like most good sf/fantasy, there are sharp intersections with the real world and the mundane. There are several small surprises along the way. Low points include the overuse of the word "iPad", and a scene where Danny is sexually assaulted by a young woman for no apparent reason other than the fact that she needs help. This scene would have been far worse if the genders were reversed, which was probably the point. I was also annoyed by the lack of contingency planning on the part of Danny's parents.
I'd recommend the book to OSC fans and fans of urban fantasy- it's not mind-blowing like Ender's Game or Speaker, but an exciting story in an intriguing world. I will certainly be watching for the release of the sequel.