Even though this is a paragon of contemporary fantasy, there are a couple good reasons not to read this book.

Don't read this book if you are looking for a simple uncomplicated story that you can read in single digit sittings. This book will absorb you and you will eventually end up reading all seven Death Gate Cycle series volumes.

And definitely do not read this book if you are satisfied with the fantasy novels you have been reading. What you're currently reading may not measure up.

The Authors

The Death Gate Series was written by renown Fantasy and Science Fiction authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. This is the first installment of the most impressive fantasy series I have ever read. In fact the seven volume Death Gate Cycle has set a standard so high, it has spoiled fantasy for me. Hence my title. They created such a unique and creative concept and their writing was so clear and easy to follow (Readers of Tolkien take note)that after ten chapters I was hooked.

Death Gate Cycle

The Setting

The Death Gate Cycle is a seven book series about four mythical Realms, actually five, that were created untold ages ago when a powerful magical race, known as the Sartans, sundered the single world into four realms named after the four elements, Sky, Stone, Fire and Water and a fifth realm, the Nexus, which is a Penal colony for the Sartans vanquished rivals, the almost equally powerful Patryns.

The Main Characters in order of appearance.

Haplo - A Paytryn, explorer/spy

Hugh the Hand - A Human, mercenary/hired sword

Bane - A Human prince

Limbeck - A revolutionary Geg

Jarre - His revolutionary wife

Alfred - Bane's man servant

Haplo's Dog

Background

Good vs Evil

The story revolves around the Sartan and the Patryns. Both races are powerful magicians, the Satan a beneficent people who respect all beings and the nefarious Patryns who want to conquer and subjugate all the races of the world. Eons ago these great and powerful races fought and the Sartan were victorious. Based on some lost plan the Sartan sundered the world creating five realms revolving around the Death Gate. On one of these realms, Nexus, was created a penal colony called the Labyrinth to which the Patryns were exiled. The Labyrinth, which apparently has a life of its own, is a cruel hostile place in which most of the patryns have been exterminated. But finally one great wizard, The Lord of Nexus, escapes into the city(prebuilt by the Sartan) Nexus and starts to help others. And so our story begins;

The Plot

The Patryns are gradually escaping their tortuous prison, The Labyrinth and are now plotting their revenge against their implacable enemies, the all powerful Sartan. Haplo, the great Lords trusted emissary, is being sent out to cause destabilization in the realms, surreptitiously search for the Sartan and to report back all findings to the Lord.

But Haplo is unable to find any Sartan. Where have they gone?

Volume I, Dragon Wing

Arianus, Mid Realm

Hugh the Hand was framed but it doesn't matter. He's about to be beheaded by Three-Chop Nick, an executioner renown for his bungling beheading, when an envoy from King Steven arrives, by Dragon, to save his life.

It seems King Steven has a job for Hugh, a reputed assassin.

Who is the target of this assignment? Why, it's King Steven's own son, Bane. Meanwhile:

Arianus, Low Realm

Limbeck the Geg is also in a predicament. What got him in hot water was that he repeated what he saw.

The Gegs are a race of small people, similar to the Hobbits from another more obscure novel. They are the sole inhabitants of the lower realm of Arianus and their only purpose in life seems to be to mine coralite by use of an enormous, extraordinary machine, the Gegs call Kicksey Winsey, thats just always been there. The real purpose of the machine is unknown but it manages to allow the Gegs to mine coralite and to sell it to the Godlike Elves from the upper realms.

Lembeck, who sees injustice in toiling away for the Elves, saw one of the Elves get killed in an accident taking delivery of a shipment of coralite and informed everyone that the Elves are not Gods, they die just like Gegs, therefore they no longer need to take orders from the Elves. This of course is heresy and leads his banishment to the Steps (the very small islands just below Drevlin, the main island, that are mined for coralite. This is tantamount to a sentence of death as no one ever returns. Meanwhile;

Arianus, Mid Realm

Back with Hugh, who is ambivilent about his new contract, especially after meeting the seeminly endearing youngster 912 year old), takes Prince Bane on a dragon to another location from which they can hike a couple days to Hugh's Elfen dragon ship, "Dragon Wing", however Hugh notices that someone is following. So Hugh waylays his follower and captures Alfred, Price Bane's loyal but timid, clumsy and bumbling chamberlain. But is Alfred what he seems? Hugh begins to wonder when an accident occurs involving a deadly Crystal Tree in which neither Prince Bane or Alfred get even so much as a cut and later when they are airborne on the Dragon Wing, Bane poisons Hugh (he knows Hugh's Mission)with a deadly poison only to be awakened(from death?) by Alfred, primarily,so he can stabilize the falling ship. Meanwhile;

Arianus, Lower Realm, The Steps

Lembeck is Marooned on one of the small unnamed step islands but manages to get his Initials on one of the dig claws to let Jarre, his loyal, loving wife, know where he is. In the meantime the whole island is shaken by something and Lembeck goes to investigate and finds some unknown type of airship has crashed and the occupants, some kind of manlike person, who is severely injured, and a dog, are in imminent danger of getting crushed by a dig claw. Once Lembeck effects their rescue he examines the manlike person(Haplo)and discovers he has tattoos(actually runes) over his entire body and decides, despite the fact the he is near death, that Haplo is a true God. Luckily Jarre is able to send a "help hand" down to Lembeck to rescue him and he brings back Haplo and the dog with him. Meanwhile;

Arianus, Deepsky Descending

Bane's poisoning of Hugh has caused a crisis. It seems Bane is only the step son of King Stephen and is the biological son of Sinistrad, an arrogant mysteriarch of the upper realms, who maintains contact with bane through a feather amulet he wears. It was Sinistrad who instructed Bane to poison Hugh and now the ship is hurtling toward the perpetual storm known as the Malestrom.

The Rest of the Story

Eventually our main characters will all meet up at Drevlin in the Lower Realm and procede to the Upper Realms, where the action and intrigue continue unabated to the climax, which isn't really the climax since there are six subsequent novels, each one, I think is more exciting than the previous.

Authors Note

As you can tell, this is a purposely involved and complex story. The writing is excellent, as is the character development of two of the characters, Hugh the Hand a reputed noblemans son, orphaned and left in the care of the strange austere Kir Monks, and Haplo whose parents were killed in the Labyrinth, while Haplo played dead. As for the other characters, the authors have not deemed much detail other than necessary items such as Lembeck's nearsightedness. Alfred is a central character and an enigma and meant to stay that way at least for a while.

If you decide to tackle this series, Good Reading!

The death gate cycle is a series from my childhood. I was stuck with book 5 in the series and none other to read until now. I bought this book intending to get more out of a series written by respected Dungeons and Dragons authors, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman.

All fantasy stories come with expectations these days. Elves, dwarves, dragons and magic. Dragon Wing contains all of that. However, the book makes changes to these tired tropes. Elves are not the woodland recluses of some fantasy lore, dragons are deadly mounts controllable only by magic, and magic functions differently for each race.

The story follows the Patryn Haplo as he is sent to the world of Arianus to determine if the humans, elves, and dwarves are ripe for conquest. His second goal is to ascertain the whereabouts of the Patryn's ancient enemies, the Sartan.

These two races are considered mythical and even godlike. The Sartan defeated and imprisoned the Patryn and then after enacting the sundering they disappeared. The Patryn are now loose and on the move.

This is the interesting part of the story as you wonder who is Haplo and what form will the Patryn's revenge take. However, the book strings in 2 other storylines involving human politics and a Dwarven revolution.

The human story is led by the chracters Hugh the hand, prince Bane, and his chaimberlin Alfred. Hugh is an assasin hired by the king for a plot that revolves around the mystery of the prince and the clumsy Alfred who protects him. Hugh is an interesting rogue with whom you spend much time in his thoughts and becomes the most fleshed out character in the story. The prince is basically just a plot device to move things along. He has a few scenes where he commands the flow of the story, but ultimately much of his character is told to you rather than shown. This is exemplified by how the book tells you he is smart or clever, but doesn't show it until some major plot development can be tied to it. The boy isn't allowed to develop beyond that. Alfred is constantly hinted at being a mystery that book refuses to elaborate on until later, but still seems to grow more.

The Dwarven, or geg their own language, story is the weakest part of the plot. The world of Arianus is afflicted by a scarcity of water. The geg control a machine known as the "Kicksey Winsey" that produces water. The dwarves are chained down by a tradition of working on the machine and supplying water to the elves, who are lying to them, in attempt to be judged worthy of heaven. What holds this story back is the character Limbeck. Limbeck asks the question "why?" to everything. He also writes speaches. There really isn't anything else to him, and it's all the other characters use him for as he watches his people become upset with their lot in life. He just needed more to him. Again, just a plot device rather than a character.

The overall story revolves around characters slowly realizing the shackles that have, are, and will hold them back. They struggle to break free. Freedom is a large theme. The Patryn escaping their prison, an assasin who can't escape death, a dwarf held down by tradition, and a man held down by failures of the past. Each person is seeking a way out of their particular kind of chains or prison.

At the end the book teases and reveals a lot of plot lines pushing into the next book that are quite interesting and likely to have bigger payoffs there than they did here. This book is good, but only excells when taken in the scope of the larger story it begins.

I first read this series years and years ago. At the time, I had to hunt down the individual books in second hand book stores across Ireland and the UK. At the time, the series made a major impact on me, I was lost in Haplo and Alfred and their journey.

10, 15 years later I still recommend the Death Gate Cycle as my favourite series ever - so I thought I better go back and reread. I'm happy to report after reading the whole series through again on Kindle my recommendation still stands. This is one of the best series of all time. Do yourself a favour and read it!

Weis and Hickman have a defined style that is all their own. The perfect blend of gravity with funny, great characters, incredible worlds, fantastic magic, and just general page turning amazingness. The best part is you will fall in love with the characters, and you will desperately miss them when they are gone.

In regards to Dragon Wing in particular, it is a great start to the series. Although you start in a narrow storyline in relation to all the storylines that occur throughout the series, it is the fundamental lynch pin of the story. I love book 1 Haplo :) Don't want to give away any spoilers, but the journey and growth of the two main characters throughout this series is one of the most convincing and enjoyable I have ever read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone considering. Even if this isn't normally what you think your 'thing' is, I honestly believe the Death Gate cycle is one of those transcendent series that rises above genres. It's really about the human story.

very good series by very good authors. the complex characters are a lot of fun to see evolve. great read

Book came in excellent condition and had it's jacket cover. I have the complete book series now. Definitely will buy again from seller! Thank you!

The Death Gate Cycle is without a doubt the best series Hickman and Weis have written since their original Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends. The story presents an orginal theme of a fantasy world split into four elemental worlds bound my magic and a darker past that comes to the surface as the reader goes through the books in this series.

Dragon Wing as a stand alone novel holds its own in presenting some new characters and without giving away any spoilers it introduces us to some old favorites in a creative and surprising way. The book is well written and the characters are interesting enough to keep you reading as you discover along with the main character what has happened to a world left to its own devices and the warring nations that fight to control it, oblivious as they are to the forces at work behind the scenes.

The thing is...sometimes it feels like I am reading a book that has been tamped down intellectually. But in a strange way that just makes it more "real" and enjoyable. And of course it is not always like that. The characters and their growth is really well done. The story is complex and interesting. Though magic plays an important part; it is not overbearing. The personalities and interactions are what I like. I might have given the series a 4.5 but that is a good read.

Overall I enjoyed this book for what it was: A short, breezy, uncomplicated fantasy story. But, and this might be the biggest criticism of all, as I reflect back on the story I find very little to actually say about it. What, really, was the plot? The setup is simple enough: A reluctant assassin is hired to kill a boy, but that really is just the basic setup.

There are simple minded, subjugated dwarves(here obnoxiously called Gegs), slapstick servants, a late game protagonist whose motives are mysterious to the point of being indecipherable, and in case we forgot we were reading a traditional fantasy story some elves show up to the party.

Sadly, none of it adds up to much, and just because this is a setup novel doesn't mean there couldn't have been a more satisfying or complete story. Really, only the dwarf significantly changed over the course of the book, and the extent of every character's development is a very brief flashback. Haplo and Hugh are nearly indistinguishable from one another white, older, mysterious gruff men(and it doesn't help that both of their names start with "H".) The climax is so quick and clean you could almost picture Weis and Hickman waking up one morning and realizing they had 24 hours to finish their Dragon Wing novel.

Still, I'm giving it 3 stars. The premise was certainly engrossing (an assassin tasked with doing the unthinkable), and the setting is mysterious and fascinating. I imagine a few decades ago the whole islands floating in the ether setting was a lot more unique than it is today, but it was still fun to read something not set in a purely European style medieval fantasy setting. It all pulled me in enough that I immediately started the second book in the series.

What I hope for in the future:

-More character development. The characters were OK, but there just wasn't much to them and no one other than Limbeck changed very much at all

-Less baby talk. I really got sick of the "gegs" and the way they spoke. There was one short paragraph where the phrase "kicksey-winsey" showed up FOUR times. I pushed through even though it honestly made me want to put the book down.

-Better story structure. For a story to really be engrossing you have to establish what is at stake. Put your characters through some bad stuff and have them come out the other side better, worse, just different than they were at the start. You can't introduce a villain, his motives, and the resolution to all of it in the last 100 or so pages.

The concept of a fantasy series that focuses on a different version of reality in each book is enough to draw me in, but I am hoping it all improves somewhat going forward.

Mon commentaire sera bref car j'ai juste envi de vous dire "lisez Dragon Wing, vous ne le regretterez pas".

Je découvre les auteurs avec ce premier volume de la série The Death Gate cycle (je lis toujours les éditions en anglais) et tant mieux s'il y a 7 tomes.

On accroche dès les premières lignes, et il suffit de se laisser entraîner dans le sillage des personnages (tous intéressants) et de leurs destins croisés.

Cette histoire de monde fractionné est très complexe et on n'y voit pas très clair, même à la fin de l'ouvrage, mais ce n'est pas gênant. On sent bien qu'il ne s'agit pas d'une faiblesse de l'écriture et que les voiles seront levés en temps voulu.

Arianus est un monde très curieux qui défie les lois de la physique, le voyage en vaut la peine.

Alors... bonne lecture!

Esta es una serie de libros de las mejores de literatura fantástica qué yo haya leído, aventuras, intrigas y todo una serie de mundos tan extraños qué solo pueden leer emocionado todo lo que presenta Arianus.

Un libro emocionante y que pone las bases para una gran serie de libros. Altamente recomendado.

Loved this. I’m on the 4th. Ok now. Sooo good and the saga gets better with each book.

I read Weiss & Hickmans Dragonlance Chronicles way back in the 80s. To this day it’s still my favourite fantasy saga. This series is just as good. The quality of their writing is very high. Riveting.

Book was delivered promptly and in excellent condition.

Thanks

Le condizioni del libro corrispondono alla descrizione e per quanto riguarda il soggetto dico solo una cosa: chi è appassionato di fantasy non può non leggere la saga di deathgate.

Me gustó mucho