GATEWAY TO HELL'S FURY
The Union of Arcana has expanded through the portals linking parallel universes for over a century and a half. In that time, its soldiers and sorcerers have laid claim to one uninhabited planet after another—all of them Earth, and in the process, the Union has become the most powerful, most wealthy civilization in all of human history. But now the Union's scouts have discovered a new portal, and on its far side lies another human society, Sharona, which has also been exploring the Multiverse, and the first contact between them did not go well. Arcana is horrified by the alien weapons of its sudden opponents, weapons its sorcerers cannot explain, weapons based upon something called . . . science. But Sharona is equally horrified by Arcana's "magical" weapons. Neither side expected the confrontation and each thinks the other fired first. But as the initial disastrous contact snowballs into all-out warfare, both sides can agree on one thing. The portal which brought them together is Hell's Gate itself!
"Magic and high tech collide in this exciting military SF novel from bestseller Weber and Evans, the first of a new series. . . . The authors treat both societies sympathetically and realistically, with human vices and virtues evenly distributed."—Publishers Weekly
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Product ReviewEven though I read the comments before adding this to my rading of Hell's Gate and knew there'd be a cliffhanger, I bought it. And read it.
Good read. Even the cliffhanger's not all that bad (clue: IMO, the answer to the cliffhanger's in Chapter 36 of "Hell's Gate"... and elsewhere. Just sayin' :-))
On other plot points, wouldn't it be nice if Jathmar and Shaylar's idiosyncratic "problem" could be solved by... chocolate? :-) (Although, I'd prefer either coffee or beer to be the magic potion.)Posted on
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Product ReviewThe book is great, but, I should have expected the ending. Cliffhangers suck! Now I have to wait for the next in the series...there could have been a warning!
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Product ReviewExcellent sequel; I'm not surprised at the slower pace, as there are obviously some deep-laid plans going on in the background which will take a while to build up to. For example, if the other book (books?) ever come out, I'm really interested in finding out what's going on with the cetaceans. And that's just a minor part of the story.
My complaint is the dratted cliffhanger ending. Aside from loathing them in general, it always makes me wonder if I'll ever actually see the continuation. Especially with the glaring example of co-author Evans' "Far Edge of Darkness"; published in 1996, ends in a cliff-hanger scene, and have we ever heard a peep about the sequel or further? No.
There are far too many other examples out there of cliffhangers which never had sequels - or took 20 years to get them published - for me to be comfortable with the idea. And with an e-book, we don't even have the option of checking the end of the book to make sure it isn't a cliffhanger before we buy it. Not to mention these have such abrupt endings that it's totally jarring, and tends to tick people off. It's a practice I certainly hope Baen doesn't intend to start depending on. If they are going to publish a lot of cliffhangers, it'd be nice to have some warning. These aren't the days of serializing Dickens! If the entire series is going to be like this, I'd like to know ahead of time, and have some assurance that the rest of the books *will* be published. Unreasonable, maybe, considering how the business works, not to mention acts of god in the lives of the authors; but what good is a partial series to a customer? I'd rather wait until all the books are safely out, then buy them.
Of course, one might not sell so many books that way...Posted on
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Product ReviewExcellent Continuation of a fabulous story.
Sadly if you don't like cliffhangers do not buy this product, the end is on of the biggest cliffhangers in any book I've ever read, which is quite unlike Mr. Weber. I can only assume it comes from Ms. Evans and that's a real shame.Posted on
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Product ReviewThe names, number of character, and separate plot lines, made things a bit of a challenge at first. The characters and plot were definitely good. Once things got going, I could hardly put it down. This is a nice fun read.
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Product ReviewAlthough Mr. Weber is one of my favorite authors, I was a little disappointed in this offering. I think the series will be a good one, but I have to agree with Hanley that this one sets the stage but outside of a few action sequences, it tends to drag.
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Product ReviewDon't buy it until the next volume comes out. It adds little to the first volume in terms of character development or story line. What we get is a few rock'em sock'em actions and too many predictable and cardboard good-guy/bad-guy caricatures. And the cliff-hanger ending is juvenile beyond belief, not to mention very very annoying; it appears the authors hit a deadline and simply decided to end it literally in mid-chapter. This is at best 80% of what it should be, what I paid for, and what I would expect of Weber and Evans.
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Product ReviewJust what you would expect from this type of series and Mr Weber. Lots of politicing making poor desision beliveable (or at least credible). Lots of battles. Characters you have begun to like dying or surviving by chance and an all round good read. When is book 3 due?
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