F/SF

Dit boek heeft echt een duisterder sfeer dan de eerste twee boeken. Er zit wat meer diepgang in het verhaal en je krijgt heel wat te horen over het verleden van de Sartanen op deze wereld. Dat maakt het voor mij tot een ietsje beter plot dan de vorige twee boeken. Verder is het met dezelfde vaart geschreven, maar met een wat serieuzere toon. Dat hoort ook absoluut bij deze sombere en claustrofobische wereld. Maar ik mis Zifnab en de draak. Op naar deel 4. ( )

Book 3 of the Death Gate Cycle is an action packed, and sometimes intense, romp through Abarrach, the Realm of Stone. The world building is deliciously original, with a rather interesting take on zombies. ( )

Loved this book! The story really starts taking off with the third book in the Death Gate Cycle series. Great interactions with Haplo and Alfred. There were scenes that had you at the edge of your seat. ( )

The continuing adventures of Haplo and his seemingly indestructible dog. This time they're visiting the world of Stone, which unlike the world of fire, has lots of fire in it - some great magma seas.

Life is hard here with acrid air, and harsh temperatures, the mensch have all died out, but instead there's lots of Sartans. Which comes as a bit of a shock. A quick bit of investigation proves that these seem much diminished from the opponents Haplo knows, even compared to the hapless Alfred who's turned up again. They do have one thing going for them though, they've learnt necromancy, which would be of vast assistance to his Lord's plans to conquer the four worlds. If only Haplo could trick the secret from them. Alfred doesn't seem so keen on this idea, knowing that the concept had been forbidden for good reasons. Maybe this is why the Sartan on other worlds had died out - their soul's recycled into the feckless dead of Abbarath.

Albert knows full well there's something suspicious about Haplo's dog, after it gets chucked in a pit of magma and then manages to turn alive and well a short time later. Strangely Haplo himself doesn't question this, although he as being poisoned at the time, in a battle to wrest information from him as he seeks to understand the necromancy. He is considerably weaker here than we've previously been led to believe, and starting to doubt both his purpose and his Lord. Another not at all subtle reference to higher Powers might mean there's more going on than it first seems, which would cast all of the Sartan's "benevolent" actions in a very different light.

Wasn't so convinced by this one really, contained nothing of the Labyrinth and the mysticism doesn't really fit. We do learn a bit more about Haplo and Alfred though. ( )