The Death Gate Cycle
                     by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
		
                 Review copyright (c) 1996 by Doug Ingram

[Bibliographic information at the end of the article.]

	My last experience with the Very Long Fantasy genre, Jennifer
Roberson's _Chronicles_of_the_Cheysuli_ (see my previous review on the
Web at the URL http://www.phys.tcu.edu/~dingram/books.html), left
me wondering if any author might be capable of holding a reader's interest
over 7 or 8 books.  That series, while it had an extremely promising
beginning, really started to tail off after the initial trilogy and 
didn't really pick up the pace even with the final book.  Nevertheless,
it was certainly readable...just not something I'd recommend with
enthusiasm.  That pretty much sums up my feelings about _The_Death_
_Gate_Cycle_ (_DGC_) by Weis and Hickman.

	_DGC_ is not so much intended to be a seven-book series as it
is to be a four-plus-three-book series.  The universe of _DGC_ is split
into seven worlds.  First is the Vortex, which is essentially a null
world whose only exit leads to the Labyrinth.  The Labyrinth is a
terrible world in which a race of magicians (the Patryns) were imprisoned
long ago by their rivals, the Sartan.  It was originally intended
as a "reform school" of sorts for Patryns, requiring them to overcome
physical tasks and suffer great hardship as they passed closer and
closer through a series of "gates" to the final gate.  The Labyrinth,
however, seems to feed off of negative emotions and grow more powerful,
leaving the bitter Patryns in a vicious cycle of fear and hatred in
an ever more dangerous world for them.

	Outside the Labyrinth is the Nexus, a Sartan-built city where
a group of Patryns who have escaped the Labyrinth have settled.  The
four other worlds (each the setting for one of the first four books
of the series) are founded upon the four basic "elements".  First
is Arianus, a world of air, where islands of lighter-than-air coralite
house cities of "mensch" (lesser races to Patryns and Sartans but still
capable of minor magics, these are elves, dwarves and humans).  Second
is Pryan, a world of fire that is actually just a huge, hot, steamy
jungle planet constantly lit by a fiery set of suns.  Third is Abarrach,
a world of stone, consisting of a series of interconnected caverns
laced with rivers and seas of hot lava.  Fourth is Chelestra, world of
water, with habitable "islands" sprinkled throughout inside of air
bubbles.

	The series begins as the de facto ruler of the Patryns, Xar,
the first escapee from the Labyrinth, sends one of his most talented
Patryn servants, Haplo, on a mission to learn more about each of the
four worlds in turn.  Haplo is to learn about the worlds, instill a
little chaos into their politics if possible, and return to help his
Lord plan to conquer them all with an army of Patryns.  As Haplo
travels through each of the worlds, we are introduced to several
subplots involving the mensch, the vast majority of which are 
unfortunately not only trivial to the storyline but also fairly
uninteresting.  

	As Haplo experiences what each of these worlds has to offer,
his character, easily the best written of the series, evolves and matures,
coming to accept (with no small conflict, external and internal) his
place in the grand scheme of things.  In fact, all of the major characters
show some growth throughout the series, and it is to the credit of the
authors that, while there is certainly clear-cut evil in these worlds,
the "good" characters are rarely quite so undeniably good as you might
find in less subtle fantasy (pardon the slam, but _The_Belgariad_ leaps
to mind).

	By the end of the fourth book, the situation is clear to both
Haplo and Xar, and the plot proceeds to throw the Patryns' ancient enemy,
the Sartan, into the mix with gusto as well as an evil race of dragon
snakes bent on throwing every world into turmoil.  While Haplo and his
erstwhile traveling companion, Alfred (not to mention the most entertaining
character in the series by a mile, Haplo's dog, aptly named "Dog"), try
to find a way to stop the snakes, Haplo's Lord Xar begins to seek out
the legendary Seventh Gate (not to be confused with any of the "gates"
in the Labyrinth), which he believes will bring him the ultimate
victory and power over the rest of the worlds

	Probably the biggest strength of this series is the imagination
behind the four elemental worlds.  Even though the first two books start
the series off fairly slowly plot-wise, the worlds they describe are
certainly unusual and entertaining to learn about.  My favorite was
definitely Abarrach, the world of stone, probably because the storytelling
here was the most powerful.  The highlight of the series is definitely 
the first hundred pages or so of the third book, which would serve very
well as a short story on its own.  Not that each of the other worlds had
something interesting and unexpected about it.

	One of my two major problems with this book shouldn't be all
that surprising given the seven-book length:  The plot was entirely
too thin.  Much of the story that didn't revolve around Haplo and
Alfred involved mensch characters who, while perhaps important to the story
(Limbeck the dwarf on Arianus, for example) just weren't that interesting
to read about (the mensch on Pryan, for example).  Among them, Limbeck's 
story and the story of Balthazar on Abarrach are the most engaging.
But for every Hugh the Hand (arguably the most well-drawn mensch
character and the most interesting), there were two or three such
subplots that led nowhere.  I got the feeling there was some serious
padding going on in order to sell a series of extraordinary length,
especially since the majority of the mensch plots amounted to nothing,
dwindled out without resolution or just plain vanished.

	The other major problem I had was the presence of a completely 
unnecessary character, the eccentric yet powerful (stop me if you've
heard this) wizard, Zifnab.  Now I appreciate good comic relief as much
as the next reader, but the Zifnab character was the equivalent of seeing
a Jim Carrey cameo in "Julius Caesar".  Not only that, Zifnab regularly
made references to both the Real World (we eventually are led to 
believe that this universe is sometime in our future after most of
humanity dies out and magic returns against triumphant over science)
and other milieus such as Tolkien and Ian Fleming as if he were 
personally familiar with characters from those works.  It was so
awkward at times I was simply embarrassed for the authors.  The ultimate
insult was the discovery Zifnab really didn't even have an important
role to play in the grand scheme of things other than to act as little
more than a gossip.

[Ed. Note:  Since writing this review, I've had several readers write
	to explain to me the origins of the Zifnab character in the
	other works of these two authors.  Actually, I guessed this
	at the time I read the series, but my review is not clear
	about this (I mistakenly thought such a statement would be
	unnecessary).  To be clear, then, I am VERY MUCH aware of
	Zifnab's "background", and I enthusiastically stand behind
	my sentiments expressed in the above paragraph.  Before you
	send me a foul message, please do me the favor of reading
	http://www.phys.tcu.edu/~dingram/sourgrapes.html.  Thanks.]

	But I don't want to end this review on such a negative note.
After all, I am perfectly capable of reading over (what I think are)
flaws in a fantasy work to enjoy it on some other level, and there was
much to enjoy about this series.  If you're a fan of authors who
construct brand new worlds and tell you all about them in loving 
detail, then this series is definitely for you.  I should mention
here the very detailed appendices at the end of each book, describing
aspects of each world in more depth, which some readers will certainly
appreciate.  The main thread of the plot was passable, but uneven.

	So while I wouldn't enthusiastically recommend this work to
anyone, I would argue that it is very readable.  If you can find this
at a used bookstore (I see parts of it all over the place), then it
is certainly worth picking up.  On my scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 6,
and that's largely due to my background in Douglass Parker's class in
Parageography at UT-Austin, which made me learn to appreciate the
construction of worlds a bit more than construction of plots.

Doug Ingram // d.ingram@tcu.edu // "Carpe Datum"
	http://personal.tcu.edu/~dingram/books.html (for more reviews)

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T Dragon Wing
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1990
%G ISBN 0-553-28639-0
%S The Death Gate Cycle

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T Elven Star
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1991
%G ISBN 0-553-29098-3
%S The Death Gate Cycle

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T Fire Sea
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1992
%G ISBN 0-553-29541-1
%S The Death Gate Cycle

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T Serpent Mage
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-553-56140-5
%S The Death Gate Cycle

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T The Hand of Chaos
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1993
%G ISBN 0-553-56369-6
%S The Death Gate Cycle

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T Into the Labyrinth
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1994
%G ISBN 0-553-56771-3
%S The Death Gate Cycle

%A Weis, Margaret
%A Hickman, Tracy
%T The Seventh Gate
%I Bantam Spectra
%C New York 
%D 1995
%G ISBN 0-553-57235-X
%S The Death Gate Cycle