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.

I thought the first book had a lot of potential, but then it started to go down hill towards the end. I had hoped this second installment would have started off better than it did and I felt the need to stop every half hour to get through the first half of the story. In fact, with a little editing I think we could have started with the second part (last 5 hours) of this recording. However, I did not find this novel without some redeeming qualities. But I can not recommend this for adults or young adults as it stands. For the record, I preordered this book and would have given the first in the series a five star review if I had purchased it on audible and not through itunes when it originally came out.

The Gate Thief picks up at the creation of the great gate. You should expect more of the same to continue from the end of book one for quite a long time. I started to really dislike the main character for being an insolent, foolish, and childish. If you like that sort of high school maturity scene then maybe you'll love this book. I could see someone relating this experience to that of listening to the Percy Jackson series because of the correlation with characters in high school, greek mythology, and super powers.

A big issue I found with this novel was the filler and immature teenage dialog between the characters. Some of it felt like an inappropriate teenage soap opera. Orson Scott Card (OSC) tries to explain that he wanted to give a thorough explanation of events so we would understand everything in the closing of this book, but I found some needless repeating of events. Often we experience occurrences, reasoning, and conclusions through the perspective of two different characters. There is also a need to explore, rationalize and philosophize through Danny's powers which brought back memories of the Pathfinder series. Another big mistake with this novel was the romantic angel. Danny has many girls trying to have his "babies" and sex with him. This definitely got a few few eye rolls from me. OSC is somewhat crude in his writing. We know this from Ender. He will be blatant about nudity, promiscuity, and bodily functions. We get the pleasure of listening to the characters talk about spying on girls in bathroom, peeing, pooping, and whole shebang that many authors tend to leave out. Overall, I mostly found the writing involving Danny to be sophomoric, predictable and staged, while finding other dialog repetitive.

So, the space time talk is back. I disliked his pathfinder series for its philosophical approach and it appears OSC's new obsessive focus on this topic has splashed over to this novel as well. 'Young child set off with self discovery for new powers but is confounded with that darn space time,' sound familiar? I shouldn't be surprised that this happened, but I guess I expected him to do a better job at separating his books since he is putting both these series out so close together.

Now, were there any redeeming qualities to this book? Yes, I thought that the other world OSC created with Wad (aka Loki the "gate thief") had some great characters developing and plots unfolding. It was a complete change from the teenage day dream world the character Danny North was living in. The narration wasn't fantastic, but it helped in this instance to have two narrators for each world. I didn't like the voice that portrayed Danny and the people from middle guard. Maybe it was due to the deep voice that came off monotone.

Anyhow, here is a passage I found amusing coming from OSC, a very outspoken anti gay marriage man.

"Girls were all man mages when you thought about it. They wrap guys around their fingers and drag them anyway they want it. First time I have ever envied the gay thought Danny. But then he had to admit to himself, being honest, he felt nothing of the kind."

Religion eventually is tied into this world of magic and I will give OSC credit for being thorough with trying to make this universe believable. An explanation for the Devil and Jesus is put forward. But we all know OSC's true God is space time. We get a long 15 minute explanation on why he wrote what he wrote at the end of this book. If you are looking to be a writer, maybe this is helpful, but it sounded like a lot of needless justifications to me.

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

Ok, I'm very on the fence here. I think my real rating is a 2.5. I liked Orson Scott Card's attempt to bring in Egyptian mythology with Norse and Greek Mythology along with Judeo Christian beliefs into his world buildinng and magic system. Orson Scott Card actually refers to this as his boring bits. I believe these were the good bits. He should have focused more on this and the plot.

If you read the first book you meet Danny North who is a Gate Mage and a Gate Father, meaning he can create great gates that will travel to another world and increase the mage's magic. This is highly desired and everyone either wants to kill Danny or gain his favor so that they may use his gates. This causes contention between the families and has the potential to lead to war.

The first book is good and introduces and creates good characters you can understand. For some reason this book does not continue this. The characters are very flat. Also, Card focuses on Danny coming into his power as a young God and his going to High School. It focuses on Danny's interaction with high school kids and in particular high school girls. Card focuses on the alure men of power have on young girls and goes overboard on Danny's sexual allure. Every young girl in this story wants to have sex with Danny and he is constantly fending off their advances because he is trying to be the "good god" because there are so many "bad gods" in history that took advantage of silly young females. It gets really trite. There was a point I almost quit reading out of boredom.

I am interested in his third book and there are some interesting pieces. I really hope the third book is better because the first one was good and there is still potential in this series. I hope this just becomes the necessary evil of the series. I recognize the writing of the second book of a series is difficult but I was a bit disappointed that such a seasoned author fell into some of these traps. Read it because the first one is good, we have hopes the third will be great, and this is necessary to get there.