Call number
Series
Publication
Tor (1985), Paperback
Pages
290
Description
Herewiss Hearn's son, a young sorcerer, has difficulty controlling the extra portion of Fire within him, until the Goddess helps him to better understand himself. The sequels are The Door into Shadow (Bluejay, 1984) and The Door into Sunset (1993).
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1979
Physical description
290 p.; 6.5 inches
ISBN
0812536711 / 9780812536713
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User reviews
LibraryThing member pwaites
The Door Into Fire is a 1979 fantasy novel set in a world where essentially everyone’s pansexual and same-sex relationships completely common and accepted. Since some great past calamity, Herewiss is the only man to posses the power of the blue flame, but he cannot find a means to control or use
I’m a big fan of Diane Duane’s Young Wizard series, so I decided to finally getting around to checking out her debut novel. You can see seeds of the writer that she’ll become – the themes of the importance of life and fighting against entropy are still in her works – but The Door Into Fire is so much less polished than her other works.
The focus of The Door Into Fire was on the characters. The plot felt lackluster, and I at times felt like the narrative was just moving from set piece to set piece. Now that X is done with, it’s time to move to plot point Y. And so forth. The pacing at the beginning is also rather slow, and it took me a while to get any degree of involvement in the book at all.
Unfortunately for a character based novel, I didn’t have much engagement with the characters. The only character who I really liked was Sunspark, a fire elemental that shows up on Herewiss’s journey to rescue Freelorn. Sunspark’s dialogue practically sparkled, and it provided pretty much the only humor in the novel. Basically, Sunspark is what brought the book to life for me.
That said, Herewiss did actually have a lot of characterization. I could see myself potentially liking him and the other characters more if I read the sequels… but I doubt I’ll read the sequels.
The Door Into Fire‘s main world building innovation is the non-heteronormativity. I’ll also point out that it’s not an especially erotic book, although sex and sexuality do seem threaded through the story. The focus is on the relationship between the characters more than the details of their sex lives. Aside from the normalization of same-sex relationships, most of the fantasy elements were exceedingly familiar, although perhaps it would have felt fresher when it came out in 1979.
However, at heart The Door Into Fire is a happy story, and there’s not a lot of LGBT fantasy books you can say that about, particularly older ones. So while I’m not planning on visiting this world again, I can still see it having an appeal for those looking for queer fantasy novels with happy endings.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
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it. But while he’s struggling to try and forge a sword capable of bearing his power, he receives an urgent summons from his lover Freelorn, a usurped prince trying to gather an army to retake his country. Freelorn is trapped and needs Herewiss to rescue him. And perhaps along the way, Herewiss will finally learn to unlock his magic.I’m a big fan of Diane Duane’s Young Wizard series, so I decided to finally getting around to checking out her debut novel. You can see seeds of the writer that she’ll become – the themes of the importance of life and fighting against entropy are still in her works – but The Door Into Fire is so much less polished than her other works.
The focus of The Door Into Fire was on the characters. The plot felt lackluster, and I at times felt like the narrative was just moving from set piece to set piece. Now that X is done with, it’s time to move to plot point Y. And so forth. The pacing at the beginning is also rather slow, and it took me a while to get any degree of involvement in the book at all.
Unfortunately for a character based novel, I didn’t have much engagement with the characters. The only character who I really liked was Sunspark, a fire elemental that shows up on Herewiss’s journey to rescue Freelorn. Sunspark’s dialogue practically sparkled, and it provided pretty much the only humor in the novel. Basically, Sunspark is what brought the book to life for me.
That said, Herewiss did actually have a lot of characterization. I could see myself potentially liking him and the other characters more if I read the sequels… but I doubt I’ll read the sequels.
The Door Into Fire‘s main world building innovation is the non-heteronormativity. I’ll also point out that it’s not an especially erotic book, although sex and sexuality do seem threaded through the story. The focus is on the relationship between the characters more than the details of their sex lives. Aside from the normalization of same-sex relationships, most of the fantasy elements were exceedingly familiar, although perhaps it would have felt fresher when it came out in 1979.
However, at heart The Door Into Fire is a happy story, and there’s not a lot of LGBT fantasy books you can say that about, particularly older ones. So while I’m not planning on visiting this world again, I can still see it having an appeal for those looking for queer fantasy novels with happy endings.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bluesalamanders
There are so many things going on in this book, it's hard to simplify it into a quick summary. On the way to get his friend and lover Freelorn out of trouble, Herewiss meets Sunspark, a fire elemental. Instead of going home after rescuing his friends, Herewiss leads them all to a place where he
There is a great conversation between Herewiss and Sunspark when they first meet. Sunspark is so far from human that concepts like sex and death and friendship don't make sense to it and they spend a page or so talking in circles around each other, which really gets across the otherness of Sunspark. Unfortunately, the longer it spends in Herewiss's company, the more human it's thoughts and emotions get, so it's a less interesting character later on.
I liked the book, but it is obviously the first in a series because it's just setting things up for future events without much closure at the end.
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might be able to learn to use Flame, another kind of magic.There is a great conversation between Herewiss and Sunspark when they first meet. Sunspark is so far from human that concepts like sex and death and friendship don't make sense to it and they spend a page or so talking in circles around each other, which really gets across the otherness of Sunspark. Unfortunately, the longer it spends in Herewiss's company, the more human it's thoughts and emotions get, so it's a less interesting character later on.
I liked the book, but it is obviously the first in a series because it's just setting things up for future events without much closure at the end.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
It's a Duane, so of course it's saving the world from the Darkness by figuring out who you are and surrendering to truth. She's about as formulaic as Andre Norton - amazing what variety you can get from something that can be described with a simple formula! The Doors series is somewhat frustrating
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- been waiting for the fourth one for...16 years now? Ah well, it's a good re-read anyway. I like Herewiss. Show Less
LibraryThing member ds_61_12
Herewiss, Prince of the Brightwood, has the power of Flame. In a man this is a very rare occurence. However he cannot control it, and so not use it. He goes on a quest to find out how to control his power so he can help his (male) lover regain the throne.
Not a favourite book. For me it focusses to
Not a favourite book. For me it focusses to
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much on the romantic relationships between the characters. Lot's of implied sex, lots of love and insecurities (often combined), it just doesn't work for me. In it's genre however a good book. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jellyn
I like most of Diane Duane's Wizardry series (minus A Wizard Abroad and the books about the cats), so this has been on my To Read list for a very long time. I finally decided to ILL it. And I do like it. It only seems slightly dated, for having been written in the 70's. Gotta love those drugged up
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70's.It's interesting to see the world of her wizardry books from a different perspective. Not a child, not a cat, not our world. This reads more like fantasy than the other books, which I tend to read as science fiction. I'm ready to read the next one. But if book 4 is still not published and is still in indefinite status, it's really going to bug me when I finish reading the first three. Show Less
LibraryThing member thesmellofbooks
I read this a thousand years ago when it first came out and I LOVED it. I reread it ten or fifteen years later and it didn't hold up so well. If I were to read it now, I suspect I would have another reaction again, somewhere in the middle, perhaps. It really was one of my very favourites then, and
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sure, maybe it isn't high art, but the energy was great and I sure had a crush on one of the characters. Show Less
LibraryThing member SR510
It's pulp fantasy, and the protagonist verges on being a Gary Stu... but you also get to see Duane take her first shot at creating a cosmology in which wrestling with entropy is central.
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
This is a basic sword and sorcery quest, with a Patricia McKillip-style introspective main character. Herewiss contains powerful magic, but he cannot harness it, not even to save his beloved and best friend, an overthrown king. Two very interesting aspects of this book: 1)the culture accepts
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various sexualities without a blink of an eye (even fire elemental/human) and 2)readers of DD's later-written "So You Want to Be a Wizard" series will recognize threads of the same spiritual beliefs (most obviously, a shared fight against entropy). A good read. Show Less