The Lost Gate

I was at a library book sale when I happened upon this book. I'd read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and the sequel Speaker for the Dead last year and loved them both, so I decided to give this one a try. Hey, it's only a dollar, right?

Don't pay more than a dollar for this. Maybe it's just because I loved Ender's Game so much, but The Lost Gate did not meet my expectations. 

Fair warning, this review has SPOILERS

The book is about Danny North, a thirteen-year-old boy who is--you guessed it--different, special, unique. He is a member of the North family, one of several families on Earth that originated from a magical-alien-god race from another planet called Westil. Long ago, the people of Westil came through gates (kind of like portals) created by the rare gatemages and frolicked among us. You probably know them better as every god you've ever heard of, such as Zeus etc. 

The idea of the gods of long ago still being around today isn't exactly unique nowadays. Off the top of my head I can think of American Gods by Neil Gaiman (which blows this shit out of the water) and the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. In fact, the whole book is very un-unique if you ask me. The beginning especially reminded me of a YA book called Graceling by Kristen Cashore. In that book there are also people who have special powers or talents, made distinguishable by the fact that they have different colored eyes. The protagonist of the book is thought to have a killing Grace and is despised (much like Danny is despised for being drekka) but in the end it turns out she had a survival Grace, which is a supremely awesome thing. Read The Lost Gate and you will find very similar ideas.

Anyway, as long as the magical-alien-gods in The Lost Gate had a way back to Westil, they remained powerful. But a gatemage, Loki, mysteriously closed off all the gates leading back to Westil, stranding everyone and weakening their powers over time. Ever since then, the families have promised to kill any gatemages they come across to prevent further disaster.

Danny is a smart, precocious, and seemingly useless boy. He is the only son of the two leaders of the North family, but rather than being a great mage like his parents, he isn't even able to make a clant. (You are probably wondering what a clant is. To answer your question, as far as I can tell it is a golem. If you are wondering what a golem is, you should google it.) Everyone looks down on him because they assume he is a drekka (someone without mage capabilities), but oh-so-conveniently forget that one of the signs of a gatemage is that they are unable to produce a clant. They also show a great affinity for languages (which Danny has demonstrated by showing off in school) and like to play pranks (again, Danny has made this obvious). So I don't really understand why it comes as such a surprise that Danny is a gatemage, but whatevs.

Anyway, Danny flees, and the book basically tells the story of how he comes to learn about and control his gatemagery while on the run from his apparently brutal family. He meets friends and enemies, but mostly friends. Actually, one of my main problems with the book is the marked lack of trouble for Danny. Sure, he keeps thinking about the constant threat of his family finding and killing him, but they never do. Not even close. Years pass and he has no encounters with his family. Plenty of other people find him, sure, but they miraculously don't want to kill him. They followed him to help him. I think my English teacher would call this a lack of stakes.

The book as a whole feels rushed. The layout is odd, in that we pass so much time with Danny, actual time, like years, that aren't covered in scene in the book. Maybe it's just me, but because so much of Danny's life was in summary, I didn't get to see him interact enough with people. Or at least I wanted more interactions, because that's where I really learn about the characters. Instead we just get a sentence like: "Danny trained with the Silverman's for three years without getting anywhere." And then the Silverman duo go from contemplating whether or not to kill him to getting teary-eyed when he calls them "mom" and "dad." That was just one example of where the passage of time was too much of a leap for me. Was that a pun? Almost, right? hahaha I'm so punny.

I didn't much care for the protagonist, Danny North/Silverman/Stone. Most of the time his jokes and smart-mouth came off as obnoxious (which Card does point out, so I guess I can't really blame him for) instead of funny. Like that kid in the back of the class you is always cracking jokes when you just want to punch him so he'll shut up and let the teacher talk already. I would say he is funny about 20% of the time. But when I did find him funny, I cracked up, man. Lemme tell ya. My favorite line in the book was probably:

"I don't want to go to high school for the classes, I want to go to high school because that's where they keep the girls."

In fact, the whole concept of Danny wanting to go to high school was one of the most interesting aspects of the book for me, and I wish it was explored more. It could have taken up its own book in this series, rather than all the awkward time jumps happening--but whatever. I found it especially charming that Danny prepared for high school by ready YA fantasy lit. I did not like how Danny handled high school. He promises himself he is going to keep his head down and just get a normal, high school experience, and then creates a gate his very first day that heals people's acne and bullshit like that. Not exactly subtle, Dan.

I admire and enjoy reading about uber-intelligent and analytical characters, such as Andrew "Ender" Wiggen and Lisbeth Salander. But Danny's intelligence combined with his sense of superiority and obnoxious sense of humor that often ignored people's feelings was the opposite of endearing.

This was so frustrating because I know that Card can write. Ender's Game was fantastic, and the protagonist, Ender, was a precocious, intelligent, analytical child just like Danny, except he was actually likeable. I don't know here Card went wrong with this one, because I know he can do better.

The ending is a great example of how Card could have done better. In the last chapter, after Danny has managed to create a Great Gate and defeat the Gate Thief, there is a reunion between Danny and the North family, where we see his parents for the first time. I think Card should have left this encounter to a later book. Well, what he really should have done is introduce us to the parents before Danny ran away so we can actually form an unbiased opinion of them and see how dangerous they are instead of just hearing it secondhand. Then he should have given us a confrontation earlier in the book where Danny had to escape from the North family scouts that finally caught up with him, and the final encounter should have been saved for a sequel.

I think one of the main problems that doesn't work for the book is how powerful Danny is. He has this superpower so that if he ever needs to escape someone he just pops somewhere else and locks the gate so nobody can follow. He has a natural affinity for languages so he can understand ancient texts and speak to everybody in their native tongue. He can heal himself every time he goes through a gate. He is extraordinarily intelligent. And, for some unexplained reason, he is the most powerful gatemage ever heard of. He can create so many more gates than normal people, and without breaking a sweat. Why is he so powerful when the magical-alien-god race is supposed to be weakening? Who knows.

The Lost Gate was also predictable. I guessed that the Greek Girl (Hermia) was good and powerful from the moment we saw her. I guessed who Wad was. All in all, not many surprises to be had.

I would not recommend this book. If I find the sequel at another booksale for a dollar, I'll probably buy it, but not before trying to haggle the price down to 50 cents.