psc@lzwi.UUCP (Paul S. R. Chisholm) (09/19/85)
THE DOOR INTO FIRE and THE DOOR INTO SHADOW: novels, Diane Duane: Tor,
$2.95. Originally published in 1979 and 1983.
These two books are finally both available in mass market
paperback. (Due to quirks of the publishing industry, Tor brought out
the second book *first*.) I'd heard a lot about Duane, and overcoming my
mild antipathy towards fantasy, bought both books.
Duane nicely creates a vivid, interesting world. In the Beginning,
there was the Goddess, actually three personalities, one woman at three
ages: Maiden, Mother, and Eldest. She created the world too carelessly,
too quickly to remove Death from it before she set it in its form. She
will eventually lose to Death, as relentless as "entropy" in our
understanding of the world, and aided in its destruction by the Shadow,
the Maiden's Lover destroyed by jealousy. Every human has Fire (magic)
within him or her, but only a few women and an occasional legendary man
can control it, nurture it, keep it burning before it smothers from
neglect, and use it. There are afterlives, and afterworlds, some
pleasant, some not.
Ideas are fine, but fiction requires Story. It's here, both in the
characters and in the plot. Herewiss is that once-in-an-eon rarity, a
man with enough Fire to be a sorcerer, but without yet Control to keep
it from burning out. Freelorn was a cheerful, adventurous firstborn
prince, until his father died and the exchequer took rein of the kingdom
while Freelorn was out of it. Segnbora, like Herewiss, has Fire but no
Control over it; she's been kicked out of apprenticeships from one end
of the Middle Kingdoms to the other, in desire, and finally, in shame.
They're not cardboard cutouts; they have conflicting, sometimes hidden
motivations, and doubts and fears. And always, rarely visible, the
Goddess and the Shadow, Life and Death incarnate, play the eternal game
that Good cannot forever maintain. There's plenty of action, too, none
mindless. (The second book picks up later in the night that the first
book ended on!)
A few random observations. THE BOOK OF THE FIVE conists of these
and two more books, THE DOOR INTO SUNSET and THE DOOR INTO STARLIGHT.
The third of the series will appear "in late 1985 or early 1986",
probably in Bluejay trade paperback. (Why does THE BOOK OF THE FIVE
conist of four books? I dunno.) The whole series is "light fantasy",
not in the sense that everyone is always happy, but in that everything
is convenient. Everyone is royalty and a polymath, no one has to go to
the bathroom, inns have single rooms, and armor is easy and quick to
take off for making love. There are several elements borrowed from Anne
McCaffrey; I'm not sure if I liked that or not. There is a bit of
psychiatry in each book; not surprising, Duane is a psychiatric nurse.
(You may now bite back the elitist thought you just had about nurses.)
The prose is good, a nice mixture of terseness with an occasional,
appropriate flower.
Don't think of it as losing another SF writer. Think of it as
gaining another fantasy writer, and a good one. And enjoy.
--
-Paul S. R. Chisholm The above opinions are my own,
{pegasus,vax135}!lzwi!psc not necessarily those of any
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(*sigh* ihnp4!lzwi!psc does *NOT* work!!! Use above paths.)
"Of *course* it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake?"