The Gate Thief: Mithermages, Book 2

What I liked:

Card manages to put together a fairly interesting structure of magic and how that creates the major conflict that drives the story. His exploration of the way magic works and the way that the characters discover it is quite interesting. His take on ancient pantheons as magic-wielding aliens come to earth is also insightful, forcing the reader to completely shift her thinking. The reader encounters plenty of unexpected actions and circumstances and that is all to the good. The book is unpredictable and that is enough to keep you listening.

The Ok:

The main character, Danny, is a retooling of the "super-powered teenager trying to lead a normal life" (as in My Secret Identity, Smallville, etc.) genre. Which goes ok, maybe even a little bit better than average with Danny's well-developed intellect, but complete ignorance of actual teenage interaction making for very appropriate awkwardness. Unfortunately, the high school friends he interacts with feel like they're made of cardboard. They seem developed only just enough that the story can move forward.

Also Wad's story line of protecting his world from incoming mages and looking for a way to get revenge on his former lover is not bad. Not great, but not bad; interesting, but haphazard. It's one notch above only existing to be the reflection of Danny's own magical discovery.

If the following things bother you, steer clear:

Rudniki should not be narrating this book. He has a less than versatile deep bass voice. This isn't particularly ideal for a coming of age novel where many of the characters are youths. Not to say that his voice is not pleasant, he just doesn't have the range to characterize teenagers and women. Rankin has a better range, but doesn't make bold characterizations.

This book bogs down around the various characters' banter. It is not witty, insightful, or entertaining. It will make you want to skip portions.

Some of the book's portrayal of teenagers is dissonant. I am not an expert on teenagers, and maybe some do think and talk the way they do in the book, but there are some things I think are a bit too out there. A teenage girl being loaded up on hormones, emotional and desirous of sex, I get. But one that needs her boyfriend's seed in her uterus and expresses it to him in those terms? The girls in the book are generally focused on procreation. Every time it comes up (often enough) you think, "seriously?"

I have read everything Card has written, this book is pure formula. I hope it isn't a warning bell of things to come. The performance was great, the book was not.

Probably - because he has written well in the past and I hope he will again.

I enjoyed the books beginning - the first two chapters drew you in. After that, it became predictable.

no

Disappointing
The story did not flow very well, it was like each chapter was written by a different person who only loosely followed what happened in the previous chapters

The book is generally good but the thing i didn't like about it is the constant talk of 16yr olds wanting babies put their stomach or wanting to avoid babies put in their stomach. It comes across as very weird and disconcerting. The other thing is that there are a few tasteless descriptions eg someone says to another you look hungrier than a Jew in a concentration camp... really?? Because this book isn't meant to be a 'dark' book some conversations between charecters are in poor taste. Other than those two complaints, the book is really easy to follow and has an exciting storyline that will keep you hooked.

I agree with the reviews that are put off by the infatuation of teenage pregnancy. Orson Scott Card's books often come across as a pedantically cyclical read, so when the topic get's brought up, suddenly all the teenage girls in the story are obsessed with it in the same very disturbing and stupefied way. Grabbing at men's waists and demanding men 'put their baby inside me,' was an approach my mother must have missed. It's incredibly insulting to young women that this is how their teenage interests are portrayed. Really think about your teenage experience, and try to count on one hand the number of girls in your school, who would do this, and throw themselves at boys like this.

The dialogue is all in the same kidney, this adds to the cycling feeling of the book. It could almost be one person arguing with them self. The sentence structure, word usage, lines of thought, etc. cohere so that there are some golden opportunities for OSC's brand of humor, but it's not often believable that you are listening to several people talk, just one man's interpretation of a conversation.

OSC tackles Christianity, and a lot of other religions, legends, and myths, in this book. I'm not religious, but if you are, fair warning, he reinterprets the big J into his canon. Neil Gaiman did this in American Gods, then went back and edited him out, and it probably saved him some angry readers.

Stefan Rudnicki has a super creaky deep voice, like someone is opening and shutting an old door. Emily Rankin tried to match his voice in this book, which made her voice croak and crack. And to get what they are saying, you can't just dim the volume until you can just barely hear the words. The croaking is still loud before the words fuzz out. It's okay in the short term, but after a few hours it starts to hurt. When I took my ear buds out, I couldn't hear all that well for a few days.

The storyline is original. The plot twists aren't too severe. The book ambles, but it stays pretty cut and dry sequential. It'll be great for a solid OSC fan, but it's not Ender's Game.

the guy has written some amazing stories - I guess its hard to live up to your own best work - this certainly doesn't.

He seems to be losing the plot (in every way) between his first and second books - where the characters in the second books of his two latest series, are almost starting from scratch and often very different from the development in his first books. The second installment in the Pathfinder series really is a trainwreck, this isn't that bad, but he is certainly giving us a filler after doing a good job in the first book in the mithermage series.

Stefan Rudnicki is a great performer - Emily is ok, and next to stefan, comes across quite weak.

This book would be 1/3 the size if you cut out the unnecessary drivel - which, considering Orson boasts about only putting in dialogue that moves the story forward, is a big let down.

Orson really needs to sit down and create the entire story arc in one go, then go and write installments that fit to the arc - he is losing the plot between instalments.

I really hope this great writer can deliver to his earlier standard and doesn't finish his writing career slowly sputtering out

To a friend, no because I keep my nerdery close to the vest. But to a fantasy fan, YES!

I like the coolness of Stone. He's a nice guy with a consistent personality. I also like Wad/Loki. Loki is a tragic, smart, awful creature...

When Danny drops the goons in the ocean. It was a glimpse into his potential abuse of power. I liked the emergence and abruptness of the act.

Yep, I bing listen when I have been waiting for the story to continue.

Whatever you think of OSC, his offbeat politics, etc. He's a great story teller. This series is well worth a listen.

Redo of the original like old time space opera

Flat characters

Emily Rankin needs some work

Boring and trite

Not up to most of Orson Scott Card's Work

This is the middle book of a planned trilogy. Many authors have had trouble with the middle of their trilogies; think of the Lord of the Rings. I liked the first book in this series better than this one, but I definitely plan to buy the next one.

I liked much about this book (and its predecessor). I like the double fantasy: Part of the action takes place here on Earth in the present and part of the action takes place on another planet which is more like your typical sword and sorcery fantasy world (Medieval setting; kings and peasants; swords and mages, etc.) I like the world-building. Card’s novels always show that he puts in considerable thought into how the science or fantasy work in his worlds. He really thinks about the background stuff. I like the two narrators. One, a man, narrates everything that takes place on Earth; and the other, a woman, narrates everything that takes place on the other planet. This makes it easy to follow the switches in location. I liked the explanation that different mythologies actually reflect families of mages who lived in particular parts of the world: One family lived in Scandinavia, so they are known in mythology as Odin, Thor, Loki, etc. Another family lived in Greece and were known in mythology as Zeus, Mercury, etc. I liked the unfolding of the plot. In the first book, the story is mostly about Danny trying to survive and trying to figure out how to use his powers without any living tutor to mentor him. But in this book, a deeper problem unfolds.

Now to the things I didn’t like. I didn’t like the amount of time spent on discussions of sex. Danny is an adolescent boy; this means he’s horny all the time. I get it. But it doesn’t interest me. I also didn’t like the portrayal of virtually every girl in the book (not the women; just the girls). It seemed that every single adolescent girl in the book was just as obsessed as Danny with sex, and they one-and-all come on to him. I have read other young adult books in which adolescent horniness reared its head and I didn’t mind it, but in this book I found it unpleasant. In fact, I didn’t care for most of the repartee among Danny and his high school friends. I didn’t feel that it contributed to the story, either. Maybe it will become more apparent in the third book why Card felt it necessary to add these kids.

Now I’d like to comment on the woman from North Carolina who says she can never read another Card book because Jesus is mentioned once in this book. She reminds me of those fanatic Christians who wouldn’t let their children read the Harry Potter books. (I had a 13 or 14-year-old student who was reading an adult romance novel that had quite a lot of pretty explicit sex, and that was okay with her mother, but she wasn’t allowed to read the Harry Potter books, because magic comes from the devil.) Don’t they understand the concept: FICTION? And in fact, I thought the question of whether Jesus was one of the mages in these families was left very much up in the air.

Okay, bottom line: I liked this book. As far as I can tell at this moment, I think the complete trilogy is going to be terrific. If you haven’t read the first book in this series, I would recommend that you do. Read them in order.

P.S. There is another story which Audible has which takes place on the second planet in this series and the magic system is the same. It is called “Stone Father” and it is novella-length. I liked it a lot.

This is the first time in years that I've given up on a book, but I'm halfway through this one and I just can't do it. The premise is interesting, but there's a lot of extraneous information that doesn't seem relevant to the story. Worse, none of the characters - and I mean none - have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. There's nothing to like about any of them! Even the friends of the main character, Danny North, all come across as being vapid and grasping, so I'm having a hard time getting engaged. The character 'Wad' held my interest for a time, but unfortunately those times were few and far between.

I can appreciate the amount of work that has gone into this book, but alas it's just not for me.