Alex James's Blog: AlexJamesNovels Blog - Posts Tagged "evil"

Door Into Shadow is a self-discovery for Segnbora, who is a deadly swordswoman without much ‘fire’, sorcery, to defend against the dark monsters and demons of the Shadow. Segnbora’s failure with fire is revisited often when she compares herself with prodigy Herewiss, the only male fire-wielder who can outperform most Rodmistress fire-wielders. Most of the story is about the adventures of her allies, and tales of past lovers and how they relate to Segnbora’s failure. Throughout, she is not seen by the reader as a failure but as a brave sacrificial swordswoman who is the first to jump into the conflict and save her friends.

There were many remarkable scenes throughout – infiltrating the Glass Castle that only appears at a certain time, and confronting evil variations of the Goddess or manifestations of the Shadow. The battle scenes were engrossing, and allowed the story to release its true energy.

There were aspects I really liked about this book. The atmosphere, landscape, and scope of the story were terrific and realistic. Diane Duane had gone to lengths to create varied cultures and an immense fantasy world. The dialogue was good, and she kept the quest going with new challenges. For example, a challenge of note was when Segnbora must join with a dragon and the memory of its ancestors to save the dragon from the terrible fate of death and its associated loss of its race’s ancestral memories. Thereafter the dragon is a part of her; talking to her, aiding her, and giving her a cool dragon shadow.

I did think there was too much lore, and the significance of much of it was lost on me, perhaps because this is the second book in the series and I hadn’t read the first. The story needed more present action and breathing room. The character focus was a bit off too. At the beginning Segnbora’s attention is fixed on exile prince Lorn, but then Lorn becomes almost a sub-character and all the action occurs around Herewiss. Some events, such as the treacherous Cillmod’s deeds, were only mentioned in passing, instead of being shown, which was disappointing because I thought he should have been the main tool of the Shadow. The Shadow’s tools ended up being hordes of developed monsters, and we didn’t learn much about them or understand their significance clearly. Cutting down a touch on the fantastic elements and on the lore of gods and goddess may have helped to see where parts weren’t developed.

The Door Into Shadow had its memorable moments. I may read the first book, if only to see if I can make more sense of the world, but it wasn’t one of my favourite fantasy reads, even if it was well written.