The Seventh Gate

The Death Gate Cycle #7

by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

The Seventh Gate is the thrilling conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. In this tale of treachery, power, and heroism, Alfred, Haplo, and Marit embark on a journey of death and discovery as they seek to enter the dreaded Seventh Gate. Encountering enemies both old and new, they unleash a magic no power can control, damning themselves to an apocalypse of unimagined proportion in a final struggle between good and evil.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy, Science Fiction Fantasy, Dragons, Science Fiction

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

Margaret Edith Weis is an American fantasy and science fiction author of dozens of novels and short stories. At TSR, Inc., she teamed with Tracy Hickman to create the Dragonlance role-playing game (RPG) world. She is founding CEO and owner of Sovereign Press, Inc and Margaret Weis Productions, licensing several popular television and movie franchises to make RPG series in addition to their own.
In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Weis one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons, saying she and Hickman are "basically responsible for the entire gaming fiction genre". In 2002, she was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in part for Dragonlance.

Reviews

[Tom Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine something like the grand mythos of Tolkien adapted for the stage by an exuberant community theater company...

They say you can't go home again. But I've found you can approximate it by re-reading your childhood favorites.

4 stars out of 5

[Jim C · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the final book of a series. In this one, we find out if Lord Xar will succeed in bringing the worlds together and killing millions or will our heroes close the seventh gate and thwart his plans.

As you can tell by my rating I did not enjoy the finale of a series that started off so strong. This offering was my most disliked offering of the series. I don't know where this book and series went wrong. I liked the two main characters and their developed relationship. This relationship is on full display thru this book. While this relationship was on display I did feel every other character wasn't and it seemed like they were streamlined. I know there shouldn't be much character development in the seventh book of a series but it seemed like this book was just action. After awhile this action became boring. This action would have looked great in visual form but I lost interest in it during my read of this novel. The ending was satisfactory and left it open that the series could continue (spoiler: it doesn't). At the end there are many appendices that are in small print to explain plots and themes from this series. Shouldn't this be in the story? At that point I just didn't care and didn't bother with these appendices. Not a good sign of my enjoyment.

For me, this book did not have the magic the first four books of this series contained. At the beginning of the series I loved the world building and dive into different realms. This book was more an action book and I did not care for it. Although it might be a case that it could be me more than the book. My personal life is not the best at the moment and maybe I wasn't in the best place for this book. Maybe I did not give this book a fair chance because of this. Maybe sometime in the future I will try it again and see if this affected my enjoyment. For now, it was not my favorite read.

[Emiley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I suddenly realized that all the books I had reviewed were ones that I had enjoyed. So, for a change of pace, I decided to include some that I thought were in need of serious editing. Seventh Gate immediately popped into my mind because I can still feel the crushing disappointment--and it's been ten years. I had faithfully read all the other books in the Death Gate Cycle, and tolerated the fluctuations in quality--ranging from the mesmerizingly melancholic meditation that was Fire Sea to the cheesy romantic fluff that was Elven Star. (After all, this was a series, not a stand-alone novel.) What I found within Seventh Gate, however, was more of an outline than a satisfying conclusion. The formerly complex and engaging characters had been reduced to cardboard cutouts--and the dialogue...I cringe even to recall the dialogue. To add insult to injury, the ending was extremely rushed and I think that the entire conflict was resolved with some kind of deus ex machina. For a moment, I even wondered if the authors had been abducted by aliens and the publishers forced to employ a junior ghostwriter.

The bottom line: I would still recommend this series for the interesting premise and for the volumes such as Fire Sea which were of higher quality (but which you can't really understand without reading the other books); just be forewarned that the ending will not be satisfying.

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sci-fi series masquerading as a fantasy series, a post-post-post-apocalyptic masquerading as an epic. This is a series which introduced my brother and me, as boys, to the core concepts of quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. This is a series which meditates on the power hate can grant us, on the power fear holds over us, and on the terrible sacrifices things like love and faith and hope and trust demand. This is also a series about the value of a friendly dog.

This is the final volume, but it is not the end; the Wave is unending and the Wave acts to corrects itself.

(If only the Wave had bothered to correct the bright, colourful, and entirely uncharacteristic covers of this and the preceding volume!)

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know, whenever I'm lucky enough to find a reasonably literate person who has read some fantasy novels, I'm always surprised by the fact that - as far as I can recall - none of them have read The Death Gate Cycle. Granted, I had some holdover nostalgia from the Dragonlance Chronicles for Weis and Hickman, and so I probably had more cause to read them than most, but, even solely on their own merits, these are really excellent books. They're filled with interesting and nuanced characters - Hugh the Hand is still one of my favorite characters ever - and the plotlines are expertly interwoven. The real mastery, though, is in the novels' 5 distinct - geographically, sociologically, politically, ethnically - worlds.

People who enjoyed Harry Potter or Tolkein should give these books a shot.

[Elessar · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

Concluido el libro que pone fin a la saga de El ciclo de la Puerta de la Muerte, me invade una extraña sensación de melancolía. Pese a ser tan irregular, me ha hecho volver a disfrutar de un tipo de fantasía que consideraba ya exenta en mi vida. El nivel de madurez es bastante superior a los libros del universo de la Dragonlance, pero no alcanza el de otras obras del género. Aun así, sus altibajos son soportables y la calidad de algunos de sus volúmenes, como el cinco, me sorprendió mucho. Quizá influya el hecho de haberla leído junto con otra persona. No lo sé.
Con su lectura me he evadido todos los días un poco de la realidad, que, sin ser desagradable, podría ser más bonita. Estoy satisfecho de haber llegado al final. Una conclusión que, por otra parte, ha resultado ser muy apresurada. Deberían haberse explayado un poco más, puesto que este último libro tiene la mitad de la extensión del resto. Agradezco también que hayan intentado cerrar todas –casi todas, más bien– las subtramas y hayan reaparecido personajes que se creían olvidados.
Quizá algún día haga una reseña más detallada, quién sabe. Me gustaría.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This epic tale shows you the strengths and weakness of men and women alike, whose lives are interwoven so beautifully and inescapably, that it should bring us to deeper thought. We might not live on four separate worlds, that need each other to survive; we only have one, which we all need to survive. There is much to learn. The loyalty and will to fight (back) of the Patryns. The survivability and inability to lie of the Sartans. The way in which all lifeforms are linked together through the Death Gate (the Force is strong in this one!).

Book 7 brings it all together, perhaps not in the most original way, but definitely in a way that is true to the genre and incidentally, is written for the big screens. The action scenes and overall descriptions worked marvellously in my mind, and I’m sure they’d work just as well in cinemas. Imagine the runic magic special effects, just for a second… the tattoos, the dragons, the shapeshifting, the endless strong male and female characters, the physics of these worlds!

I read this as a teenager, I've enjoyed re-reading them tremendously. They still speak to me, I can still visualize them and their world, and there is beauty in this. In the end, it is a happy ending, with quite a few bittersweet notes, farewells and the knowledge that evil can't truly be extinguished from the world.

It is with a slight sense of sadness that I say my own farewell for a while, but I know I can return any time!

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the series review here.

A terribly disappointing end to what started out as an awesome series. Almost no story arcs had a true resolution, random stuff that doesn’t make sense showing up from left field, and an epilogue that’s some dumbed down version of the story’s original premise. Hint: If, when you’re done writing a saga, you need to simplify what you were trying to say the whole time in the epilogue of a seven book series – you fail. Your readers are not idiots. If you wanted to preach to us, do it outright and don’t waste our time.

Here’s what should’ve happened…

Haplo should’ve died for real.

They were building up to it for the entire story. The Seventh Gate could have brought him back anyway, but to have his dog/soul hanging around and still giving advice to Alfred was just cheap. Xar should’ve been told he needed to wait three days before trying to raise a body, Alfred should have had to look at Haplo, consider bringing him back to life, but change his mind because of what he learned from Hugh, and then the Great and Powerful Oz Higher Power in the Seventh Gate should have brought Haplo back while commending Alfred on learning that he was not a deity.
 
We needed to experience what happened to Hugh.

Instead of a “Where’s Hugh?” “Oh, I don’t know, dead or something.” “Yep, definitely dead.” we needed to see him finally get accepted into the world that Alfred tore him from, watch him ascend to the heavens (or whatever the heck it is they do), and experience his relief from his point of view. Not come back and see him randomly dead on the ground next to a spirit that shouldn’t have been in the Labyrinth to begin with.
 
Leave Marit out of it.

Yes, she was Haplo’s woman. But the last thing you need in the final book of a seven-book saga is to introduce some random character, try to make your audience feel for her, and give her point of view more precedence than the other characters who we were already close to. Nobody really cared about Haplo’s baby momma. The only relevance she had to the story was the way Haplo grew from his relationship with her. It would’ve been just as effective to have him want to search for her when he ended up in the Labyrinth again at the end.
 
Ditch Zifnab. Really.

The guy had no point. The only reason to use him in the story was a throw-back to Fizban and to help explain things that the author was too lazy to bother with. He ruined the idea of the greater powers of Good vs. Evil (beyond the Sartan vs. Patryn) since the “good guys” were some wingless snakes that don’t really do anything. Leave out the crazy guy who ruins the immersion of your story. Bring on the intelligent good dragons to fight the dragon snakes. Otherwise why bother with the “This is our fight!” pronouncement by the Pryan dragon to the Sang-drax at the citadel?
 
Deal with Xar before getting inside the Seventh Gate.

It would have been much more meaningful if Haplo and Alfred had a moment of peace to decide what to do with the Seventh Gate on their own, instead of trying to fight some guy who shouldn’t have been there to begin with. Xar forced their hand, which means that neither of the two main characters (Haplo/Alfred) got a chance to learn anything. Have Alfred go to the Seventh gate alone, have the Greater Power raise Haplo to help him, Haplo has to shut Xar out of the Seventh Gate without knowing what his Lord was planning while he was dead, and then we see true character development. The way it was done instead was a cheap and shoddy end.
 
Ramu just gives up from a dog bite? Really??

The Patryn vs. Sartan conclusion could have been SO much better. Instead, the leader of the Sartans gets bitten by Haplo’s dog (presumably) and then all the Sartans and Patryns forget years of bred hatred to end the series with a cheesy laugh. COME ON. I did not waste that much of my time reading all these books for an ending like that.

[Rue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think what I like most about this series is that almost no one is inherently evil, they are just scared and/or misguided. No one is a saint either, they all have their faults, but they almost all learn as well. Sometimes a bit late, but never really too late, even if they did some horrific stuff. The character development is outstanding! And although the relationships are all heteronormative, at least the serie has quite some strong women as well.

The main character basically starts as some evil guy learning that maybe his truth and his way of living are not the best for himself, the people around him and the world. He's certainly no better than the mensch and neither are the rest of his people: Sartan and Patryn alike. But he's also not powerless. Although he's just one drop in a big ocean, he can still make a difference with the help of unexpected friends.

Typing it like this, it sounds a bit cliché, but it's not.

I read this series I don't know how many times, since I first came across it at the age of 11 or 12, and I still love it :) I would love to read more about these people, even though this story is finished and I know there will not be anything more.

I'd even like to see this on screen, but that scares me as well, knowing the way Hollywood tends to change characters drastically in a horrible way, while they are perfect as they are in this book (well, it could be a bit less heteronormative, but it's ok. It's still a good bromance and all).

[Traek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazed at the lessons to be learned from this book. It started out as an interesting Fantasy title that quickly turned "Science Fantasy" and evolved into a look into the human condition that was so well-planned and carefully executed to help you learn something while being entertained!

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Death Gate Cycle finally comes to it's (somewhat satisfactory) conclusion in this final, seventh volume, in which finally all of the long-held secrets are revealed.

After this much build-up over a seven-book storyline, perhaps it's understandable that expectations can't be completely met. Personally, I think that the series could have wrapped in six books, and I think they purposefully wanted seven in order to match the number of gates. Even this, the shortest of the bunch, felt overly stuffed, as there simply wasn't enough content left. As a result the main characters and villains go through one unresolved confrontation after another, with the good guys getting thwarted so many times that you want to grit your teeth in frustration. Which is probably the point, of course.

Anyway, the ending does wrap things up as much as can be expected, although I imagine that some might not be totally satisfied with what happened. For me, it was revelation of the nature of the world that I was particularly interested in. As a result, I felt that the ending could have been better, and certainly more imaginative. Did I enjoy the series as a whole, though? You betcha.

Now, one of the key points in the "secrets revealed" category has to do with the "higher power" that has been mentioned ever since book 3. There was a lot of build up for this, and the resolution didn't meet the hype. With all the Biblical references and the obvious references all but mentioning the word "God" (which does happen in this one) I was hoping for some kind of revelation of God at the end of this series, secretly hoping for an allegory the likes of Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. Alas, the authors took the cheap way out, going with the "look inside yourself" and the "god is in all of us" route that has been so over-done, and stating that the dragon-snakes and the good dragons are simply manifestations of the good and evil inside all of us. We of course know that all of the people of these worlds are obviously not gods; in fact, the entire series has been hitting us over the head that the Sartan and Patryns - who had thought themselves gods - were not gods at all. Therefore this conclusion at the end of the series makes no sense and flies in the face of everything that has been built up. In fact, in the notes at the end, Alfred pretty much admits this, stating that "I believe there is still something or someone in the spiritual realm that is the most powerful of all" (I'm paraphrasing, but closely). Therefore it was disappointing to see that the actual characters fell short of seeking true answer out there, the Creator of the original world (and magic system of which they so closely adhere), and that the authors couldn't have figured out a way to include that into the resolution. They do however come across an important spiritual truth of reality, which Christians understand, which is that any action taken in the physical is first birthed out of the spiritual. That leaves us to guess that Alfred, at least, is headed in the right direction, although because of the the open-ended conclusion, I can't say it truly is satisfying.

Perhaps I was simply expecting too much from this series. In the end, maybe they were just trying to tell an interesting story, and that's fine, too.

Ultimately, I gave it three stars because the dragged-out sense of this story (which had been building since book 5) put a lot of frustration into the conclusion. Constant, needless repetition of events and scenes that happened earlier in the series exacerbated this. Finally, the writing and portrayal of the characters is certainly not on par with some of the greats, such as Robert Jordan or Tolkien. So I will reiterate, that I did greatly enjoy this series and would recommend it for sure, but that some stories just strive to be a little too epic and cannot always deliver on the reader's high expectations.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The finale of the Death Gate cycle, and, ultimately, I'd say it probably went the way I was generally expecting it to go. Which isn't a bad thing, per se.

I did find parts of it a bit weird that were like, "And here's a 5 page reminder of what's happening on other worlds, as addressed in prior books" - but I probably would've found it more useful if I were reading these books years apart, instead of just a month at a time.

Anyway - as with most of the books in the series, I found it to start slower and then pick up as the story progressed. I sort of felt like, though, with this being the last series, and with the cliffhanger ending of the last book, that it should've been a bit more... tense? Exciting?

I just felt kind of flat, in parts, after the ending of the prior book. For me...

Anyway -

I did like the ending, including Xar's 11th hour bolt of realization that he's a giant asshole and sacrifice. I continued to be annoyed with the one set of Sartan, lead by Ramah, but I liked Balthazar and company, from the Labyrinth.

I wish we'd seen a little more of the other worlds in this book, though - aside from the recaps. Like, to see how they were reacting to the events happening, instead of just a little aside bit. We got some in the epilogue, but I would've liked to have revisited the group at Celestra, especially, if only briefly.

Overall, I would say that while I enjoyed the series, it also feels a bit dated to me. (And the covers are hysterically perfect for fantasy books of the time period. Oh gods, I love how bad they are... )

But it is an interesting series, and I like the characters and how they develop over time - especially Haplo and Alfred, of course - and also the overall messages about coming together and working together and overcoming prejudices and all that good stuff.

I think this could easily be a 4-star series if the writing was a bit tighter and each book didn't take so long to actually get going...

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sad to finish the series. There is a nice wrap up in the appendix that makes that part a must read.

It may be time to re-read some other favourites by these two authors.

[Koen Crolla · Rating 3 out of 5]

1 2 3 4 5 6

Last one! Having spent the last couple of books mainly moving characters and situations around so as to be in a position for story to happen, story finally starts happening again, and we're all grateful for it.

I don't know to what extent this book was written first, but it clearly hews closer to the original design document for the setting's universe than the previous ones, with much less of the high-fantasy vagueness and indirection of the earlier books—magic is tediously explicitly about manipulating probabilities, the world from which this universe was created is straightforwardly named Earth in the main text (not just the appendices), and the mechanics of everything are generally described much more plainly, with doors and corridors instead of spinning toroids. Unfortunately, this is also true for all of the religious imagery, which is now much less escapably Christian: Hugh the Hand, who was resurrected in the first book, is upset at not being able to die anymore not because he feels he doesn't have control of his life anymore but because he knew infinite love in the afterlife ("But there was a woman who loved him," Alfred said in a low voice. "She loves him still." / "Her love is only a very small fraction of the love he found. Mortal love is our introduction to the immortal."), and the ~mysterious~ higher power, which is experienced in the titular Seventh Gate, is felt as infinite love and acceptance by good people and much less pleasant for evil ones.
And in case it's not obvious enough, the first appendix lays it out even more explicitly: the serpents are physical manifestations of the evil "that had always existed in the world", and the dragons of Pryan (which actually didn't really feature in Elven Star, where Haplo visited that world) are an equivalent manifestation of good. The other dragons are just dragons, I guess. Things don't quite go full Narnia in the end—the serpents aren't defeated by the Sartans and the Patryns setting aside their mutual hatred and making peace but by dragons showing up and physically fighting them, for one (Sang-Drax, the main one, at one point looks like he's being set up to die by Haplo refusing to fight him but actually just hits his head on a ceiling)—but that's really just because Weis and Hickman lacked the strength of their convictions to do it, which isn't exactly a point in their favour. (I'm not saying it would have been better if the serpents had been defeated by the power of love, but it is a clear change from how they worked in previous books.)

That first appendix, incidentally, also spells out again what the various worlds were for and what happened to the Sartans in all of them, and why the Labyrinth became what it was and why all of the events that happened happened—you know, in case you missed all of the actual story underneath the mountains of text about dwarves and elves and humans doing filler dialogue at each other. More to the point, at eighteen pages it also proves that this series really didn't need to be seven books.

I think I've said before that Weis and Hickman are good at coming up with interesting and internally coherent settings but not so great at actually working out stories in those settings. I'm not sad to be seeing the back of this one.
I've already forgotten how it actually ends.

[Cris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ha sido todo un acierto recuperar esta serie que leí por primera vez durante mi adolescencia. Como era de esperar, esta relectura la ha privado del barniz de obra maestra que le apliqué entonces, pero aún así ha pasado la prueba con creces. Se trata de una colección de libros en la que tiene cabida la reflexión sobre grandes temas pero que se sustenta, sobre todo, en unos personajes carismáticos, un universo rico y complejo y un ritmo narrativo adictivo que deja espacio suficiente a los detalles.

En mi opinión, esta serie llega al listón de joya del género fantástico (con permiso de Sapkowski) ya que, a pesar de apoyarse en muchos de los estereotipos tradicionales, crea un nuevo espacio totalmente genuino. Se aleja en gran medida del hilo narrativo habitual: si bien también contamos con la figura del héroe (varios, de hecho), en vez de seres humildes que descubren poco a poco su poder, los protagonistas surgen de entre los que hasta ahora se creían dioses. Su hazaña final no será luchar activamente por la salvación del universo, sino que dicha salvación depende en gran parte de su capacidad para aceptar lo limitado de su poder, saber retirarse a tiempo y aceptar que no tienen derecho a gobernar en la vida de nadie. Recorremos, por tanto, el camino contrario al que siguen muchas historias del género.

Reseña completa y mi versión de la portada en https://sidumbledorefueralibrero.com/...

[Elihú · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una conclusión demasiado apresurada de la saga. No logro entender las prisas por acabarla, considerando que el resto de los tomos tenían entre 400 y 500 páginas. Sin embargo, Weis y Hickman cierran este ciclo, marcándose una las sagas de fantasía épica más imaginativas que he leído. No es una dragonada al uso, pues aunque los hay, así como elfos y enanos, logra construir mundos -y un universo- intrínseco y armado con lógica.

Es además una historia que toca el tema de creerse a sí mismo superior sobre otros, acerca de la peligrosidad que acarrea acercarse demasiado a lo tecnológico -entendido aquí en un mundo fantástico- y perder tus capacidades más humanas en el proceso, todo por querer ser dios -o dioses-.

La resolución tanto de la historia de Haplo, Alfred y el perro son más que satisfactorias, pero si en algunas sagas ruegas porque terminen pronto y no se vayan tanto por las ramas, aquí definitivamente hicieron falta páginas, aunque realmente todos los cabos sueltos quedan atados -eso sí, no escapa de ciertos recursos deus ex machina que afectan el producto final, el cual, no obstante, sigue siendo muy entretenido.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last and shortest of the Death Gate books wraps everything up nicely--or as nicely as can be expected. Haplo and Alfred, now working as a team, have some big decisions to make about what will happen to their people. Poor Marit is relegated to the typical woman role, spending most of her time having internal debates about how to balance vulnerability and capability. (She even bursts into tears at one point. Sigh.) Zifnab makes a few appearances, to my great delight.

I loved this series...again! Now I'll just have to wait about five years (enough time to forget everything) before reading it again.

[Kaotic · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to read all of the books in this series, but it will always remain one of my favorites. It's such a powerful series in so many ways. <3

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome series!

[Octarine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Et hop, une série terminée ! Ce dernier tome était plus court que les autres d'une bonne centaine de page, donc plus rapide à lire.

J'ai apprécié de retrouver Haplo et Alfred une dernière fois à la recherche de la Septième Porte.
Globalement, j'ai vraiment bien apprécié la série : les personnages sont approfondis au fil des livres (et je me souviendrai longtemps du chien, deZifnab et de son dragon de Pryan), l'intrigue est très intéressante, les différents mondes vraiment uniques. La guerre entre Sartans et Patryns, à peine évoquée dans le tome 1, prend une dimension de plus en plus importante, les informations sont disséminées par ci par là dans chaque tome. Aussi, les différents mondes, que l'on pensait au départ indépendants, sont en fait reliés et forment les éléments d'une grosse machine qui est malheureusement tombée en panne. Enfin, j'ai beaucoup apprécié les réflexions sur la peur, la haine, le racisme et le combat pour les ressources naturelles.

Donc, SI on fait abstraction de la traduction (bâclée) et/ou relecture (absente), et c'est un grand SI, je recommande cette série qu'il est agréable de découvrir.

Enfin, je poursuis sur ma lancée, et je constate que le tome 7 est une suite conforme au tome 6, bourrée de fautes et de traductions obscures, qui m'ont profondément agacée, parmi lesquelles (édition 1996) :
- chapitre 6 : Jonathan (La mer de feu) s’appelle encore une fois Jonathon
- chapitre 11 : « les runes protecteurs » (nom féminin d’après le dictionnaire)
- chapitre 18 : « tiens-toi prêt, juste en cas » (just in case ? au cas où ??)
- chapitre 18 : « libérée de toutes rêves »
- chapitre 18 : « Il ne savait pas ce que méditait Haplo » - non, Haplo ne fait pas de yoga
- chapitre 19 : « Xar se souciait comme d’un os-runes de ce qui pouvait advenir aux lazars »
- chapitre 20 : « les runes patryns protégeant la nef patryn étaient presque tous détruits » - elles devraient être détruites
- chapitre 23 : « as-tu compris… quelque chose à ce que tu viens d’entendre. » - c’est censé être une question il me semble
- chapitre 25 : « pour soulager un peu l’inconfort de cette longue station debout » - façon très étrange de dire qu’on attend debout depuis longtemps
- chapitre 25 : «  il n’était pas claustrophobe, mais la tension, la peur et la presse lui donnaient l’impression que les murs allaient se refermer sur lui » - « pressure » ? la pression ??
- chapitre 27 : « ils ne suivraient aucun chef que le leur » - je trouve la formulation bizarre
- chapitre 31 : « Alfred entreprit la magie de Xar » - pas compris
- chapitre 32 : « il lança son propre rune » - UNE rune !!
- Epilogue : « Lambic Serre-Boulon » est devenu « Lambic Serreboulons »
- Epilogue : « Qu’il suffise de dire qu’à la suite d’une curieuse série d’incidents, je rencontrai Haplo et son remarquable chien » - j’ai l’impression que la phrase n’est pas finie

De plus, pendant six tomes, « patryn » et « sartan » ont toujours été mis au masculin. Dans ce tome, il y a par exemple des « runes patrynes » et des « runes sartanes », mis aussi des « runes sartans » et des « runes patryns »… Il faudrait choisir, quoi…
Bref, si ça avait été comme ça depuis le début, je n’aurais pas continué cette série. Il me restait deux tomes, donc bon…. En tout cas, je constate que les erreurs de la version 1996 ont été fidèlement conservées dans la réédition de 2006…
Autre chose : le tome 7 est le seul dans lequel il y ait des sauts de lignes pour mettre en évidence les ellipses temporelles ou le changement de point de vue.Avant tout était collé et on avait du mal à comprendre qu’on avait changé de personnage ou de lieu, on passait du coq à l’âne. Ce changement est très appréciable, et c’est dommage qu’il n’ait pas été ajouté dans les six premiers tomes de la réédition de 2006, en tout pas dans les miennes (tomes 1, 2, 3 et 6).

[Irus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gustó aún siendo el más flojito de la saga

[IñIgo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Después de tantos libros, esperaba un final algo mejor hilado. Buen petruño, pero en fin, viaje antes que destino, supongo

[Belinda Vlasbaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars - Dutch hardcover

Review follows later. Is on a piece of paper inside the book and that is with my daughter. Have to recover that next time I am there.

[Hannah Berendsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

En dat was het, het laatste boek van de zeven-delige serie. By far het beste boek uit de reeks. Het verhaal was vlot geschreven en door het hele boek heen heel spannend. Een mooi einde van een, soms ietwat trage, mooie serie.

[kingshearte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally over. As I suspected it might be, this one was an improvement over the last few. I even found that its middle was somewhat less meandering and interminable as most. So that's good. But it had its flaws, too.

The main one, I'd have to say, is the lack of closure for almost all the characters. At the end, we get a resolution of sorts for a good chunk of the characters (Haplo, Marit, Alfred, Hugh, Jonathon, Xar, and to a certain extent, the rest of the Sartan and Patryns, as well as the serpents and dragons. We get a little bit of Limbeck and Jarre, a little of the Kenkari, and even a little something for Zifnab. Which sounds like a lot, but there are even more who got nothing. On Arianus: Iridal, Re'shahn (or however they choose to spell his name at any given moment), Stephen & Anne. On Pryan: Paithan, Rega, Aleatha, and Roland (basically everybody left alive). On Chelestra: Again, everyone. On Abarrach there was no one really left, but even if there had been, I bet we wouldn't have found out what happened to them. So the point is that that is a lot of people that we have no conclusion for whatsoever.

And frankly, I don't know why Pryan and Chelestra were even in this story. Chelestra at least contributed the serpents, but none of the mensch from that world had any bearing on the final outcome. And really? Same goes for Pryan. The only thing it really contributed was extreme aggravation, and the most tiresome characters I've read about in a very long time. I just feel that if you're going to do this whole four worlds coming together thing, make all of them equally important. Otherwise, a few of them really do come across as being completely superfluous, and the reader is left wondering why they even bothered with those books.

And then there's the repetition. Oh. My. God. This book had less of it than the others, but seriously? Were Weis and Hickman under the impression that all of their readers had the attention span of a gnat on speed? I can forgive repeating stuff from previous books (once), because although it's annoying when you read them all at once, with the time between the publication of each book, that's justifiable. But there is no call whatsoever to repeat things multiple times within the same book. A reminder of who some character is that you met briefly at the beginning, but he doesn't come back until the end? Sure. Several reminders within a few pages of a major character's background and intense magical powers? Makes me want to throw things. So at the risk of being repetitive myself, these two desperately needed a better editor to reign them in.

There's a decent story here, with some really great characters. But it reads like it was written by a not very skilled teenager with very little experience, and that's really too bad.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all the action that happens in this novel, it's not very exciting. And what might have been the most thrilling aspect (the Patryn/Sartan final stand at the Labyrinth's Final Gate), is left completely to your imagination, as is the demise of a certain fan-favorite character. Unlike the last volume, which had a lot of content, this one felt relatively short (and, therefore, rushed).

One major disappointment through the whole series were the chapter headings. It just seemed like, throughout the series, 4-6 chapters in a row were in the same locale, which made the device a bit redundant. "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy used the similar device with greater effectiveness (of course, RSR is far more "adult" in its content than the Death Gate Cycle).

This novel is mostly Alfred being indecisive about everything and only being powerful at the last moment. Haplo has made peace with himself (possibly the most interesting character development), and Marit takes up the mantle of Haplo 2.0 as she struggles with the same prejudices as her lover from earlier in the series. Zifnab's trope continues, and, overall, while I like the implication that Paladine is a god in this realm, too, instead of Krynn, he was far more annoying throughout that Fizban. Lord Xar has his "Come to Jesus" moment, as well, but it rang hollow in my eyes.

At times, I was pretty sure Jonathan's warning to "Do No Violence" was also a favor asked of the reader, because there were a couple of storylines wrapped up so neatly that you just wanted to throw the book through a window.

Overall, the Death Gate Cycle is a pleasant distraction, but I'm not likely to remember much of it with the passage of time.

[Stephanie Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely conclusion

Love it love it love it. Beautiful ending. I love the stuff with the higher power mainly because its still a mystery by the end.

More than that, though, Zifnab is exactly in line with my type of comedy and I love whenever he shows up on screen even if all the other characters groan.

The way (most) everything in the plot closes up is exactly what I needed if not what I expected. I love it when books manage to do this.

I love how for so many of the books I was focused on Haplo and his character development and by this one I switched to watching and cheering for Alfred's development. The two of them together make me happy and I can't say more without spoiling it.

Three cheers for The Death Gate Cycle. Now what do I do with my life.

((Over all I think I'd give the series a 4 or 4.5. It's great fun and has its own symbolism and flavor of humor that I love and the setting is soooo unique and the characters are sooo interesting. But there's a little...something...missing to really put it on the same level as, like say, Way of Kings or Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. But damn is it close)

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this a 4.5 if possible; it's a fitting end to a stunning series.

I'm not sure what more I can describe of the book(s). Highlights of the book for me were the redemption of the Sartan on Abarrach (Balthazar ends up being another very solid minor character), Alfred/Coren embracing his power, the positivity of the ending (humans, elves, and dwarves set free from the machinations of others, possible space exploration, the working together of Patryn and Sartan), and the overall badassery of Hugh the Hand (facing down a Labyrinth dragon, slaying several chaodyn in the end - awesome).

My only disappoint was that there was no visit to the characters we met on Chelestra; the stories of the Arianus and Pryan mensch were wrapped satisfactorily. But, we get no mention of what happens to Grundle or Devon. Still...just a minor quibble.

[A. Dawes · Rating 1 out of 5]

How do you sew up an epic series of largely individual novels set on a variety of fantastic worlds? Well Weis and Hickman's solution is with a slap-dash effort tying up the few sporadic threads. This final novel is an immense failure, and if you view the series as a hole, really discredits the previous works.

I really enjoyed the previous six. The first few I thought were especially strong. The world building was great, as was the characterisation and they really had me gripped.

This final novel was meant to fizz and sparkle, but Weis and Hickman only delivered flat lemonade...

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine conclusion to an epic tale. I cried, I laughed, I couldn't put it down. The relationship building between the characters Haplo & Alfred (and dog), from sworn enemies to realizing that not only do they care for each other but need each other, was so touching and emotional and heart-wrenching. I love them all. The world was built on a massive scale but also was solidly supported by how's and why's. I loved the footnotes and appendices.
I would keep reading about these characters & their worlds.