World Famous Comics: Serpent Mage (The Death Gate Cycle, Vol 4)
Serpent Mage (The Death Gate Cycle, Vol 4)
By: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman Publisher: Spectra Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Spectra Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 480 Publication Date: March 01, 1993 Release Date: March 01, 1993
Product Description: After the four worlds Alfred has at last found his people on Chelstra, the realm of sea. But his travels have taught him to be cautious... and Alfred soon realizes his caution is justified, even among his own kind. The one person Alfred can trust is, strangely, Haplo the Patryn. But Haplo's lord has decreed all Sartan to be the enemy, and Haplo dares not go against his lord. Now the companions have arrived in a land where humans, elves, and dwarves have learned to live in peace. Unaware of an even greater threat to all the realms, it is Sartan and Patryn who will disrupt this alliance of the lesser races in their struggle to gain control of all four worlds. Only Alfred and Haplo realize that they have a much older -- and more powerful -- enemy than each other...
really good book The setting of the fourth book in the magnificent Death Gate series is when Haplo, one of the many main characters, arrives in the nexus after traveling through deaths gate from Abarrach is punished by the Lord of the Nexus before he is sent to Chelstrea, but when he arrives at Chelstrea, he receives quite a shock when he realizes that the water at chelstrea nullifies his magic. The story then switches to Grundle, Alake, and Devon who are three mensch living on the world of Chelstrea. A few days before, sea serpents attacked the dwarven seamoon and destroyed their Sunchaser fleet.
The story may get complicated and can be confusing, but if you keep reading you will like this book very much. The intertwined personalities of the characters are the most confusing, but this is the best book in this series that I have read so far. The summary above is of the first few chapters. The ending of the book will leave you hanging on an almost never ending cliff, but that is to be expected since it isn't the last book in the series.
Serpent Mage - My favorite so far!!!!!! Serpent Mage was (in my opinion) the best book (so far) in The Death Gate Cycle. This is probably for a number of reasons. First and foremost is proabably the fact that the "world story" (ie: Gegs in Dragon Wing, the elves selling weapons in Elven Star, The necromancers in Fire Sea.) was entertaining and really held my attention. Second, the authors really dive in (or should I say sink? :p) to the minds of Haplo and Alfred. The insights into how and why they tick is truly amazing.
The book starts with Haplo hurrying to get his ship ready for his next trip to Chelestra, The Realm of Water, without alerting his lord that he's there. Xar comes and punishes Haplo for lying to him and punishes him severly, but not before he weasles the truth out of Haplo. Haplo soon gets to Chelestra and discovers that the water on Chelestra negates any magic. This causes many problems, as you can imagine, with both the Patryn and the Sartan.
Alfred, after jumping ship in the middle of Death's Gate, finds himself in a chamber full of sleeping Sartan, the same Sartan that made the decision to commence the Sundering. Alfred soon learns some ancient Sartan secrets that cause unrest through all the Sartan. Also, since Alfred is so different from the rest of the Sartan, he is accused of being more Patryn than Sartan, and is horrified when most people start thinking this.
These two stories, along with the "world story" with elven, human, and dwarven princesses is quite good, most likely the opal of the Death Gate Cycle, at least so far.
Also, please read the appendicies...They're important!
NOTE: There are some people who say that Xar has nothing to do with Czar of Tzar. Saying since they;re both rulers there's really no coincidence. I would like to quote from page 1, line 1 of Serpent Mage: "I visited my wrath upon Haplo this day." (1) Footnote: "...Xar was not his real name. It is not a Patryn name at all, one that is possibly a corruption of the ancient word tzar, derived from Caesar." IT SAYS IT RIGHT HERE THAT XAR IS A CORRUPTION OF TZAR! Just thought I should bring this to some people's attention. (Had to get that out of my system :p)
Not bad again, the series was almost starting to look good First, I will tell you how to get the most enjoyment out of this series. Start with going to the library and renting all of these books. Do not buy them as they are not worth it. Then read books 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7 without reading the footnotes or the appendixes. You have the option of reading books 2 and 5 if you are really enjoying the series, but they are only filler and do not even need to be skimmed. Finally, accept the fact that Weis and Hickman may only be one hit wonders and move on.
Second, I write reviews for those who seek good fantasy and not for the zealots who hang on every Weis and Hickman word. You would think from some of the reviews of this series that these books were greater than War and Peace and written by Bronte and Conrad. In reality, this series is not very good. I am not trying to trash Weis and Hickman, I found the Dragon Lance series to be extremely enjoyable and would give at least the first two series of that line four stars. This series deserves no more than 2 stars. The books are incomplete thoughts that may have been much better had the authors taken more time to flesh out the story. Beware of fantasy books that contain footnotes and appendixes. Usually, these are the telltale signs of poor writing. Having said that, I did manage to read most of these seven books and here are some thoughts.
Many reviewers have made a lot of the fact that Xar is actually tsar or czar. I fail to see the significance here. Xar is a ruler and a tsar is a ruler. So what? What I found to be much more interesting and ultimately distracting was the use, by the authors, of the word mensch. Mensch is a Hebrew word. It is not close to a Hebrew word, it is a Hebrew word. If you look it up, mensch means a person of integrity and honor. What are the authors trying to say here? That all people without ambition or power are full of integrity and honor. I read all seven books trying to understand the use of this word to no avail.
Not surprising considering the books are filled with errors and inconsistencies. Some of these errors and inconsistencies are no doubt addressed in the footnotes and appendixes, but it would take an additional seven books to address all the problems. I believe that most of these problems occurred because the authors did not take the time to complete their work. Perhaps they were pressured by their publisher.
Most of the characters are thinly veiled shadows of those characters from the Dragon Lance series. Only, these characters are not as interesting or as engaging. Part of the problem is that Weis and Hickman never determine where they want the story to go. They blur the line between good and evil, then they erase the line, then they re-draw the line in bold. In Dragon Lance, it was intriguing to see how the characters dealt with the discovery of the duality of their own nature. In this book it is just confusing.
4th Book in a Very Good Series In all probability, people who read the first of the Death Gate Cycle books and like it, are going to want to read all of the books in the series (regardless of any flucutation in the individual books' ratings). Ditto for the reverse: if people don't like the first book, then they're probably not going to want to read any of the other books in the series. Thus, instead of individual book ratings, I've rated the whole series and given a short blurb on any specifics for each book.
Overall, this is a very good series. The authors were amazingly creative in coming up with this concept and the books are well-written, extremely interesting, and internally consistent (mostly -- see below for some exceptions). I highly recommend this series of books for everyone. My comments for the indidual books follow:
Vol. 1 -- Dragon Wing: This book covers the exploration of Arianus: the realm of Air. It introduces us to the two main characters (Haplo and Alfred) and many of the recurring characters throughout the series. It's a well-paced, well-written book that's an excellent reresentation of what to expect in most of the rest of the series. Essentially, if you like this book, you'll like the other six books. If you don't like this book, then there's no sense in reading any of the others.
Vol. 2 -- Elven Star: This book covers the exploration of Pryan: the realm of Fire. Alfred is entirely missing from this book, and Haplo isn't really the centerpiece. Instead, the book is mostly written from the perspective of the mensch and of the newly introduced (and recurring) Zifnab. The one possible weakness in the book is that Weis/Hickman wrote it such that the structure of Pryan itself is more of a mystery than Arianus was in the first book.
Vol. 3 -- Fire Sea: This book covers the exploration of Abarrach: the realm of Stone. Once again, both Haplo and Alfred are present. The characters and areas presented in this book are key elements for the entire series. An interesting book, but not a very happy one at all.
Vol. 4 -- Serpent Mage: This book covers the exploration of Chelestra: the realm of Water. Both Alfred and Haplo are on this world. But, for the most part, they follow separate plot lines. There's a lot of action taking place throughout the book and Weis/Hickman introduce some actual Sartan (besides Alfred). They also bring in an ancient evil to balance the ancient good introduced in the previous book. The most irritating thing about this book is that it ends in a cliff-hanger. The previous books tied up their worlds' activities fairly nicely. Not so in this book. It ends at a very inconvenient spot.
Vol. 5 -- Hand of Chaos: This book returns Haplo to Arianus and the people he met there earlier. Whereas the first four books of the series cover the exploration of the four realms, this book starts the synthesis of the various threads from those books into a movement towards closure. It's a good book, but, unfortunately, it doesn't do anything with Alfred. The previous book left Alfred heading towards a bad end. This book doesn't do anything with that. So, while reading the book, you constantly have this little voice in the back of your mind going "what's happening with Alfred?" Irritating.
Vol. 6 -- Into the Labyrinth: This book ranges across just about all of the worlds of the Death Gate. It brings all of the various threads from the other books to a head. Most importantly, it finally does something with Alfred. The unfortunate thing about this book is that it contains a lot of technical errors (or, more specifically, contradictions). For instance, in Dragon Wing, we're told that a person needs to be familiar with an area to use a transportation spell to get to that area. Yet, very close to the beginning of the book, one of the characters uses such a spell without ever having been to her target location. There are also several instances where the characters COULD have used such a spell, but don't. Likewise, there are problems with replication spells. In Fire Sea, Haplo and Alfred use such a spell to replicate enough food for a large group of people. Yet, in this book, no one seems to consider using a replication spell to produce more of some food. But, later on, those same people are using that same spell to replicate weapons. Plus, at one point, Xar uses a spell to just materialize both food and drink for a party. But, if such a thing is possible, why do the Patryns hunt and, apparently, farm in the Labyrinth? Also, the size of the Labyrinth seems wrong. From the previous books, it's taken hundreds (if not thousands) of years for various Patryns to traverse the hundreds of Gates in the Labryrinth. Yet, in this book, from the very beginning of the Labyrinth they can see the results of things happening at the Final Gate. There's also the problem of how people at the center of the Labyrinth would know anything about the Final Gate.
Vol. 7 -- Seventh Gate: This is the conclusion of the Death Gate series. Unforunately, I didn't much care for it. Basically, it comes across as being pretty sappy. All of a sudden, Haplo and Alfred are best buds and want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Most of the various threads are tied up adequately (if not very satifyingly). But, the sudden push towards liberal "peace, love, and harmony" is trite. Of the seven books in this series, this one is the least good. Once again, I didn't much care for the tone of this book. But, since it adequatly ties up most everything that needed tying up, I'm not going to downgrade the whole series because of that.
huh??? Oh where oh where have the real authors gone oh where oh where can they be? I want stuff a the level of the Darksword trilogy not this redundancy...
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