The Silver Door

The Three Doors Trilogy #2

by Emily Rodda

Three magic Doors you here behold.Time to Wood? Silver? Gold?Listen to your inner voice, And you will make the wisest choice.Rye is willing to risk everything to save his brothers, lost in the terrifying world beyond the Wall of Weld. Sonia is determined to find and destroy the Enemy who is sending the ferocious flying beasts called skimmers to ravage the city. The companions barely escaped with their lives during their first thrilling adventure beyond the golden Door. But they won't give up.Their desperate quest must continue. Deep in the ancient heart of the Keep of Weld, two more doors await them.

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Adventure, Magic, Childrens, Young Adult, Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2012

About the author

Emily Rodda (real name Jennifer Rowe) was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the University of Sydney in 1973 with an MA (Hons) in English Literature. Moving into a publishing career, first as a book editor, and finally as a publisher at Angus & Robertson, Rodda's first book was published in 1984.

Reviews

[Amelia Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just reviewing Emily's books make me realise how much I loved these books

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first book in this series more than The Silver Door. I am not sure if this is because of middle book syndrome or because there were less locations to explore. One of the things that Rodda does so well is creating vivid and rich worlds for her characters to travail and there was less of that this time around. I still miss the Deltora style puzzles that I have come to expect from Rodda as well.

I really enjoyed the hints in this book that perhaps Kyte's Master comes from a more technologically advanced background given the sliding doors and electronic devices that Sholto and other guards use. I wonder if perhaps Rodda is doing an Obernewtyn, where the familiar of our own age collides with a post apocalyptic new fantasy age; a world where magic and science uncomfortably collide. I will be definitely reading the final book in this trilogy to find out...

[Kylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has so many twist endings and it leaves you astonished at how all the little bits of the story fall into place, especially in the last book! Look out for foreshadowing! You may need it later. I really want to spoil it, but I won't. This book is AWESOME and I totally recommend it and the other 2 books.

[Yassy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable and well written childrens literature. A fast plot with exciting twists and turns, certain to delight your 8-12 year old... or yourself!!

[The Honest Book Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second book in The Three Doors trilogy is just as fun and exciting as book one. Again, we follow Rye as he embarks on another quest, this time with the hope of saving his other brother. In the first book, he rescued one brother and defeated a tyrant. This time, he knows nothing of what to expect, but he now understands that the world outside his walled city is full and wonder and danger.

Emily Rodda has used the second book to expand on the threat of the skimmers, the creatures that attack Rye's home city. We learn more about this threat. Using pure cunning and with the help of new and old friends, Rye must try to put a stop to plans that threaten all people in the land. I found this adventure more chilling than the first, and is another reason why I think this series is perfect for all ages.

Character development is so important in books like this, and we're shown a lot of growth in the characters. I also enjoyed seeing new parts of this world, and meeting new characters. Parts of this story made me think of the dwarves in Lord of the Rings, and that's not a bad thing.

Reading this trilogy has not only made me hungry to dive into more and more fantasy, but also makes me nostalgic for the types of books I read when I was a child and teenager. I need to get revisit more of those types of books, whether it be The Famous Five, David Eddings, or Stephen King.

[Alexander Draganov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Това приключение беше тегаво и неприятно за четене, тъй като светът беше прекомерно сив и гаден за детски роман, а героят често бе в състояние да е безпомощен, което пък го правеше пасивен наблюдател на случващото се. Финалът позакърпи нещата, но третата книга трябва да е доста по-добра, за да спаси впечатленията ми от трилогията.

Подробно ревю на линка:
https://citadelata.com/the-silver-door/

[Bruno Rodrigues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Variety is the spice of life, just like we wander through different landscapes and atmospheres throughout Rodda's Deltora universe, the same happens in this trilogy. The Silver Door takes the main characters to a desolate part of Dorne, quite the opposite of the Golden Door, which sets the theme and pacing of this adventure.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fast paced sequel to The Golden Door, Rye and Sonia continue their quest to find Rye's other brother Sholto - who they think chose to go through the Silver Door - and then defeat the enemy who is sending creatures to destroy their kingdom.

We spend more time with the superb cast of characters met in the first book, and the youngest - Rye and Sonia - once again demonstrate the greatest courage and wisdom. But there's wisdom to be learned from the others too, like the humility to admit one's mistakes and heed counsel, and not gloating over the fall of others.

The adventure is another journey with lots of interesting characters to meet along the way, and plenty of action and danger. But friendship and loyalty ensure that the goodies all stick together, and Rye's little bag of magic powers is put to good use for all.

A highly recommended classic fantasy series for younger readers, looking forward to the final book in the trilogy - The Third Door. www.GoodReadingGuide.com

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Be patient with the seeming anachronisms in this book, there is a fairly ingenious reason for them (but you will need to read the last). Some hints and foreshadowing... brief but magnificent feminist rant from Sonia which seems to hint at something...Annocki and the rather insipid Faene turn out to be more than at first expected.

Some complexity. A twist I was expecting but it has that high-fantasy rightness to it. An excellent denoument though it leaves a lot for the third book (but brings this volume to a satisfying end. I was disappointed Kyte left, she was fun as a bad guy. I loved how it happened. As always when there is magic involved it is verging on Deus ex machina but I think Rodda is able to pull it back enough so it makes good reading.

As usual there is something original here, it is not just a "sequel" to the first one but the whole movement of the story is well plotted.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

at first, I was scared that Rye, Dirk, and Sonia will just turn out to be another Lief, Barada and Jasmine luckily this didn't happen especially with having Sholto in the last 30% of the book. however, these 3 still reminds me of those 3!:D
I liked that Rye had brothers, in other books of Rodda the character are all the only child of the family. I mean even their parents don't have siblings! it's a pleasant change for me at least. and still, I'm excited to hear and learn more about Lord of Shadows. I wish someone would have told me years ago ( when this trio get published) that it was about lord of shadows so I could have even enjoyed it more! not that I'm not enjoying it but for Rodda's work the younger you are more fun you have.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

More fantastic beasts, hostile environments, strange characters, narrow escapes, and daring rescues!
For some reason it takes me a while to pick up each new book, even though I know I'll enjoy it and it's been staring me in the face for days! I'm reluctant for the series to end, even though I can't wait to discover how it turns out. What's behind door #3? Time will tell!

[Madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I did not enjoy The Silver Door quite as much as The Golden Door, it was still fun. This time around, I didn't care so much for the events and people of the Saltings, the Scour, the Harbour etc. However, I still love how tied The Three Doors trilogy is to Deltora Quest and the Shadow Lord.

Excited to read the final novel in the trilogy!

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

No middle book syndrome here! Excellent second book.

The story progressed at an excellent pace, and I found it highly enjoyable. There was a lot of set up going on, but that didn't distract from the rest of the story. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Content Advisory: magic, evil, violence, death

[Jeni Enjaian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could not put this book down. Once again, Rodda drew me in and did not let me go. As I mentioned in my review of "The Golden Door," Rodda absolutely astounds with world building and the way she connects these seemingly disparate portions of Dorne in a way that draws me to the third book in the series so much that I will likely finish that the same day that I write this review as well.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading the first book of the series (The Golden Door), a gift from a good friend of mine, I needed to know how the characters I so liked fared, so I bought book two and three right away - and it didn't disappoint. The whole series is so lovely!

[Olivia Caola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the first one but still interesting. I’m hoping that everything starts to tie together in the final book but I’m not sure. I do want to finish the series now that I’ve started, but probably won’t be worth a reread.

[Ozana Ozzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading The Golden Door and I really loved sequel as more.

[Laith Nasir · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's fast-paced and the best of the three doors trilogy

[Sol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crazed, toothless old man pulling a sled made of human bones home to a pile of dirt mounds, the villagers' hands stained red by the gelatinous mutagen they once mined as slaves - THIS is the Deltora I know and love! Even the puzzles are back.

Rye and Sonia are joined by the rescued Dirk, and go through the silver door to find Sholto. There they find a wasteland ruled by the Master, an evil sorcerer far worse than Olt. The Deltora easter eggs are becoming increasingly obvious. Ak-baba, the mark, grey guards, they're all there, but it doesn't assume any prior knowledge. The story so far works perfectly fine as an island going from bad to worse.

This entry adds several anachronistic/science fictional elements. The literally four-eyed trader uses what's clearly a truck, and the Master's harbour facility has elevators and fluorescent lights. This isn't that out of place - we already knew from Deltora that the Shadow Lord is a mad scientist who also happens to be a wizard. The grey guards were made in a factory, he was constantly experimenting to create better servants, it's just the particulars here are a bit different, and the presentation is more jarring. The previous book had this too - there was a piano, and Weld seemed to have the ability to print pamphlets.

Rye/Sonia/Dirk is functionally Lief/Jasmine/Barda, and I'm fine with that. It's slightly different given the familial relation and Dirk's younger age, but the function is the same. And I'm fine with that. LJB worked great, and I'll take them with the serial numbers filed off any day. Maybe adding Sholto in will change things up. Sonia is oddly becoming a damsel in distress regularly, which is funny because it felt like Jasmine was the MVP in at least half of the encounters in Deltora.

The bag of powers is becoming half what I feared, and half not so bad. If Lief had this thing, his quest would've been over in a week tops, but Rodda is amping up the situations such that they don't feel that overpowered. Both Silver and Golden Door end with an escape sequence that's impossible without the bag, but the complexity is increased massively here. There's some apparent asspulling going on with Rye being able to just wish the feather was stronger, or the unexplained smoke. Rye and Sonia's telepathic communication doesn't bother me, however. If you told me redheads could do that IRL I wouldn't be that skeptical.

Time travel pretty much confirmed. The trio first assuming the Master is the younger brother, then credulously flipping to thinking that the Master completely took over in the handful of days since Olt's fall confirms it. From their perspective time travel is an insane proposition, but I think Rodda could be hiding it better from the reader. Obviously a twist intended to be read and understand by children can't be as subtle as one for adults, but I felt this was handled better in Deltora. The question of the heir managed to keep the heat off Lief by having a good reason on the face of it for why he couldn't be, and by regularly propping up alternate candidates. Here, there are obvious problems with the idea they're teleporting to different locations on the island, and they don't have good alternate theories. I could be wrong, but I doubt it at this point.

Further confirmation is that this second book takes place around the Lief era. Grey guards didn't exist in the Adin era, and there are only two Ak-baba, as most of them were killed in Sister of the South. So it seems after getting repulsed a second time in Deltora the Shadow Lord went home. It's funny that he was the child of some kind of nature spirit people, and ended up being an industrial Giger biotech nightmare. He does speak through a microphone to one of his minions, and it hasn't yet ruined his character.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 / 5, rounded up.

The second book in the Three Doors trilogy, The Silver Door picks up right where The Golden Door left off, with Rye and Sonia - and now Dirk and Faene! - on their way back to Weld to continue their quest, and go through the next of the three doors. This time, the plan is to go through the silver door; the one that Sholto (Rye's other brother) would have chosen, in the hopes that the source of the skimmers can still be found, and that Sholto can be returned home.

Brief(ish?) recap below:
After a few... issues... in the keep at Weld, Rye, Sonia and Dirk travel through the silver door and find themselves in the middle of a wasteland, with only random metal objects - and seemingly impervious snails - surrounding them. Following their escape from the wasteland, they meet with a man called Bones, who takes them to his home, thinking they are mages due to being able to escape from the wasteland (which apparently none survive). But probably the most important thing for me here (and likely any other reader who has previously read a Deltora Quest book before this series) was that THE SYMBOL OF THE SHADOWLORD was present at the entrance to the wasteland, alongside a warning basically saying "none will survive the wasteland".

Fast forward a bit and Rye, Sonia and Dirk stow away in the vehicle of a trader to try and get closer to their goal of learning about the skimmers, only for Rye and Sonia to be kidnapped by other stowaways (whilst Dirk is left stranded on the side of the road with a possible concussion and Rye's bag of magical tricks) and used to try and save the family of the other stowaways that are being held captive by the Shadow Lord's minions, and are being used to mine up something called "jell" (which to the knowledge of our heroes has no real use) and THEN being taken by one of the Shadowlord's minions to The Harbour, where they will be used in some undisclosed trial run - it's just one thing after another really!

When they make it to The Harbour though, they meet with someone they did not expect to see - Sholto! He's infiltrated the enemy's people by pretending to be the sole survivor of a sailing wreck, and is doing what he can to work out how to destroy the Skimmers, who we learn the Master (the Shadow Lord) is breeding for war... and also selectively breeding so that the skimmers can HUNT IN THE DAY. He manages to rescue Rye (though not Sonia or the "mine rats), and they work together to try and find a way to defeat the skimmers once and for all.

After managing to destroy some of the skimmer "crop" (through opening a vent to the ocean and causing the entire Harbour to start flooding), Sholto and Rye make their way back to the prison to release Sonia and the mine rats and rescue all of them, only to find that they've been taken to the "testing station" and are about to be hunted by the skimmers... and Sholto and Rye are trapped underground. But, you can't count them out just yet, and they - along with a surprise appearance of Dirk and Bones! - manage to use Rye's bag of tricks to save Sonia and the mine rats, and climb out of the roof of The Harbour. And thanks to some quick thinking by Sholto, they're also able to use some monstrous dragon-like creatures (that they conveniently found along the way) of the Master to defeat the skimmers - release the monsters and let them fight it out basically :|

All-in-all, I thought it was a fantastic addition to the series, and loves how the lore of the world was expanded in this. I again had so many questions about this, #1 of which would be "How the HELL is the Shadowlord involved in all this", because it was very clear that something serious was happening there.

[Emmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things are really starting to heat up in this book and I was on the edge of my seat!

I found the second half of the book, which featured Sholto (Vrett) working in a strangely technological science building to be both unsettingly out of place, and yet perfectly appropriate within the bounds of the world Emily had set up for us. While I prefer my mad scientists to be more like Dr. Frankenstein and less coldly clinical, I was still absolutely fascinated by the whole thing.

Huge kudos for tying in The Shadow Lord of the previous series into this one. And I love that while his plot was foiled, he wasn't truly defeated...setting up an opportunity for him to attack Deltora in the main series. I'm guessing that this one takes place somewhere between Adin's adventures and Lief's.

I loved both Bones and Sholto as characters and I'm hopeful to see what roles they continue to play (if any) in the third book. Although, may I just say that Bones was legit terrifying and his introduction to the story left me with my jaw dropped!

Right now, I'm just sad that there's only one more story and then I'll have read everything that Emily published that was set in Deltora. Sad days, to be sure.

[Olivia Ganzenmuller · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Silver Door by Emily Rodda: Middle-grade. Secondary-World Fantasy. Adventure. Monsters. Action. Single POV. Quest. Rescue Mission. Family. Subterfuge.

The Silver Door was a pretty good novel. It's got plenty of actions and mystery, new magic talents, new lands, new challenges, new monsters, and a glimpse at the enemy the characters have been chasing. The characters getting closer and relying on each other more and I really enjoyed this team work. I would have preferred a more defined internal plot and more emotion overall. As is the characters are doing stuff and they have opinions about it, but I'm not quite feeling the immediacy or the presence of their emotions (fear, suspense, happiness, care, etc). However, while the emotions are minimal, it may not be necessary for those reading for the plot and action, which were perfect.

How much I liked it: 3 stars
Ideas - World Building: 4 stars
Ideas - Plot: 4.5
Character Depth: 3 stars
Animal Characterisation: 1-2 stars. One-dimensional monsters.
Execution: 5 stars.

[James Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spatial Literature Geometry is not my forte. By that I mean, I am not able to adequately picture a scene when there are too many references to where everything is, and it's not clear. It just subtracts, because it makes it hard to know exactly what's happening, so instead I just ignore it, and focus on the tenor, like is what is happening good or bad for the heroes. Anyway, we get to see Sholto again, and we definitely get a really cool glimpse into his character. But another drawback is unlike the first one where it seemed a really cool victory happened, this one seemed more like a bare escape. I think the victory came in a different way, but I was expecting something different. But, we're at a place where book 3 can wrap it up, and leave us with satisfaction. The possible appearance/recognition of a villain from a different series was quite cool as well. Overall, don't expect the greatness of Deltora Quest, but this still has it's good moments.

[Pádraic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another day, another totalitarian overthrown. There were a few bits in the final setpiece where I lost track of where everybody was physically in relation to each other, like the nature of the space they were in or something, which was confusing but not deal-breaking. Additionally, there's a wonderful chilling moment here where a certain symbol appears, and while the characters don't recognise it, if you've read Deltora Quest, you will. I'm still fascinated with what Rodda's doing in this series, the way she's got so many pieces moving around the board, and I'm scratching my head, not understanding what the game is. Of course these seeming incongruities, the answers to these puzzles, will no doubt become clearer as we head through the third door.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This installment was somehow better than the first. It was equally as compelling, still progressed the plot and characters, and still had the great writing style of the first book without ever suffering from middle book syndrome. Despite being a fantasy book, every relationship between the characters felt very rooted in reality and grounded enough to allow for the suspension of disbelief to never be stretched too much. The worldbuilding was itch perfect with the pacing and it never felt like too much was given at a time.

[Alex Gardiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was certainly more intense than the first and has been much harder to put down - as evidenced by how it has only taken me 2 days to read it. The speed at which this story unfolds does not leave much time for calm moments as there is danger at every turn and the ever-pressing feeling that time is running short.

There are some interesting questions being raised here (many I struggle to conjure believable answers for) and I'm keen to have their answers revealed in the final instalment.

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Older children / YA fantasy novel. I enjoyed it but not as much as the first book. It does build on information provided in the first novel but I would have liked a somewhat more concrete 'villain' than a distanced roiling evil. I am interested to see how things conclude in the third book.

[Jaq · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good solid adventure tale for the young (10 and above) reader.

[Grace Cortese · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't understand what was happening in the book even though I read the page over again a couple of times

[Eva B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun fantasy. 3 1/2 stars