The Door on the Sea by Caskey Russell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was a pretty good story although it was not what I was expecting. I thought it might be a compilation of indigenous myths possibly reworked into a modern setting. In fact, it is a fantasy adventure novel set on a world different from our own. Part of my confusion came from the story starting with Raven, the trickster but he was the only holdover from myth I could identity - not that I'm an expert on indigenous myth so perhaps there was other stuff I missed; nevertheless, most of the book seems unrelated to anything which has gone before. Although the plot was well done, I had to struggle with the names, and had I read the text as opposed to listening to the audio version, I might have had much more serious difficulties. This is book one of a series and I doubt I'll bother with the rest which is just as well because they haven't been published yet and may not even have been written. There is some character development as the protagonist tries to understand tradition, how it came to be, and whether it can be changed for the betterment of all. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to ignore his soul searching and get on with the story. In addition, the author sneaks in a dash of environmentalism, but it too is easy to ignore. I think I can recommend this book if you don't mind a bit of whining on the part of the protagonist and enjoy a good fantasy.



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