Book one in a 7 book series. I LOVE the series. Let me say this, if you think 'oh no it's just another fantasy series', think again. Yeah it sure seems that way, till you get further in... and you start realizing some of the plot, and the timeline... just WHEN it happens will interest you! Some books drag, some are better, but the last 2 books are my favorite.

Book 1 however is action packed and hooks you in quickly.

Dragon Wing is a pretty typical fantasy book (in that there are seven billion sequels, and also footnotes – I can’t tell you how much I hate footnotes in fiction!! Just stop being clever and tell the bloody story!!!!1). I have to get the negatives out of the way first. The writing was pretty rough at times - the book is littered with typos and lots of words that mean the same thing - “he fought and battled”, “solitary and alone”, he lay there “stiff and rigid” - I feel like each of the authors m More...

The Death Gate Cycle is probably my favorite fantasy series. The settings are unique and engrossing. The characters are deep and complex. Haplo is the most interesting fantasy character I've come across.

A breathtaking, innovative fantasy creation set within a most extraordinary world

Bestselling authors, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have come together to produce an exciting new fantasy series ~ the death gate cycle. Published the year I was born, Dragon Wing was one of the first fantasy books that I read as a child (alongside JRR Tolkien, Mervyn Peake, Anne McCaffrey and Barbra Hambly) to name but a few. An eternal love for this genre was formed, as I discovered tales from far-away lands whe More...

Pourquoi le lire : trame narrative pleine de surprises, complexité de l'univers, richesse des descriptions, personnages attachants mais complexes.

Faiblesses : rien de majeur

Mes impressions
Les portes de la mort, une série de 7 ouvrages épiques ou les talents de Weis et Hickman se marient pour donner un nouveau souffle à une collaboration déjà fructueuse. Bien sur, les personnages sont archétypaux, un lecteur de longue date de ce duo s'y reconnait facilement. Cependant, la prose de ces auteurs dé More...

I'm re-reading the Death Gate Cycle because it's been a long time and it seemed like a good summer series. The first book is amazingly spry in that they don't bog it down with endless details and make it carry the entire world-building burden. Plus they are pretty sneaky by starting the reader off with a main character (Hugh the Hand) who isn't really the main character at all, yet he makes a good entry point for the reader. You think you are getting some pretty standard fantasy/medieval realm s More...

Dragon Wing is book 1 of 7 in The Death Gate Cycle. The Death Gate Cycle is set in the far future, a post-apocalyptic world that looks a lot like traditional fantasy worlds—full of humans, elves, and dwarves. The difference are two races, Patryns and Sartans (demigods in their own minds). Their war led to the Sundering of the world. The Patryns were imprisoned in the hellish Labyrinth and the world was split into four—one for each of the old elements. The Death Gate Cycle follows a Patryn escape More...

Another fantasy novel that was given to me by a friend who told me that it was good so I should read it, and I did, a long time ago. Back in those days I really did not have huge amounts of money, so would generally borrow books from the library or borrow them of friends. The problem with borrowing books from the library is that you generally have between two to four weeks to read them, which is not really a problem if you can devote your time to the books. If you, like me, end up borrowing mor More...

OK ok ok, any fantasy lover should truly consider reading this book series. It is the perfect example of what real fantasy is, as it should be, rather then this odd fad with writing bad fantasy. In my Mytholoy class we studied fantasy and there are six rules that Tolkein set for the genera and if those rules arent fallowed then it is not fantasy. Now what I am saying is not that there are rules on writing, which there should never be, but when LOTR what written there were six elements that made More...

I tried rereading Dragon Wing while at the beach on vacation this summer. The Death Gate Cycle of which Dragon Wing is the first volume, were some of my favorite books when I was a teenager, along with the Dragonlance Chronicles (also by Weiss and Hickman). After coming across my old copies of the series (sent home with me from my parents house after they moved),I wanted to see if had the same effect so I grabbed Dragon Wing figuring it would be good beach reading.

I still really enjoyed the sto More...

Great book, alittle slow and hard to get through but has a very compelling story.

A little too much like every other fantasy story that these two authors write, I read a few different ones right after this one and I am now finding hard to find which one is which. I do like how Weis and Hickman always pick a very prominate main character but again that main character is very simular in all of their books. I also think it's funny that most of their books are based off of D&D like games that th More...

I decided to re-read my favorite fantasy series of all time, The Death Gate Cycle. I was recently telling a friend and her husband (and you know who you are, Emily) how wonderful these books were, and as I was talking to them, I managed to talk myself into re-reading the books.

Hundreds of years ago, the Sartans (a magical race) Sundered the world, dividing it into four components (air, stone, fire, and water) in order to prevent their enemies, the Patryns, from gaining control of the earth. The More...

hands down, my all-time favorite series. it's starts a little slow... you have to make it to the point where haplo is introduced, the main character in the series. from that point on, the series is amazing. this isn't just some wierd fantasy series for dorks, like trekkies or something. there are a lot of philosophies and ideologies presented throughout the course of this series, plus the story is wildly creative and interesting. there's nothing like it.

If I was reviewing this book as if this was the first time that I've read it, I would give it probably four stars. However, in the fifteen or so years since I've discovered this novel, I have read it AT LEAST twenty times. I love every book in The Death Gate Cycle, but this is one of those books that I love to revisit again and again.

Maybe it's the characters. Even though some of them are supposed to be evil or just background beings, I love every one of them. I can't recall not liking any chara More...

Finally I read this book (which has been floating around my bookshelf for years), and now I want to read the series.

I don't know why it took me so long to read it--I loved the Dragonlance series by the same authors. Maybe I was worried it would be too different than those books, which I adored. Or maybe time got in the way. Whatever it was, I'm glad I read it now. It sets the scene for a struggle between two races of demigods, the Patryns and the Sartans. Other races featured in this book are el More...

*This review does contain some minor spoilers about the ending, but nothing serious enough to hide the entire review*

Dragon Wing is a book that I really enjoyed, but I can understand how other people may not. As far as its content, it is a solid, if not particularly original, addition to the fantasy genre. That’s not to say that Weis and Hickman have contributed nothing of value; they have many unique twists and contributions that make the saga their own and, in my opinion, have an interesting t More...

I accidently started this series on the third book some 14 years ago, and loved it. The problem was I loaned the book out and the recipient moved, taking my book with her and I couldn't remember the name of the series.

I finally figured it out through one of the lists here on goodreads, and was ecstatic. The disappointment is that I purchased an ebook from Barnes & Noble for my nook and it isn't very good quality. There are blatant misspellings, inappropriate spacing breaking a sentence into More...

I say I don't read fantasy, but fantasy titles do keep popping up here occasionally. It's my husband's fault. He reads the stuff, and sometimes he gets on me to read certain titles too. However, this is leading me to the conclusion that my husband has excellent taste in fantasy, because anything he has recommended to me (and he certainly doesn't recommend it all to me - he's never suggested I should read any of the vast array of roleplaying novels out there, for example) has actually been very g More...

It got better as it went along. This is from the Dragonlance authors, which was why I first read this series upwards of 20 years ago. There's a lot of setup and world building in this one. Tolkien set the mold for fantasy after a teaching career spent neck deep in myths, languages, history, and religion. Later fantasy writers dropped the meaty context and historical backdrop that Tolkien provided and doubled down on the action, the dragons, the magic spells, and the swords. This book at least pa More...

While I have memories of enjoying the DeathGate cycle a decade ago, I've found re-reading Dragon Wing to be a tiresome experience. Maybe it's familiarity with the two authors' works which is very similar in feel and style regardless of the actual series that has left me with a less than enthusiastic feeling -- I might not re-read the entire series after all... The premise is somewhat unique but the characters and their presentation have that touch of having been run through a gamut that consists More...

Dragon Wing is the first novel in the Death Gate series by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. The story starts out with the execution of an assasin by the name of The Hand or Hugh the Hand, when he is saved at the last moment by a messanger from King Stephen himself. The Hand soon learns the king wants to hire him for a special mission. The Hand struggles with the morality of a mission such as this. He strives to find out the truth behind the young prince and why there are those who would want him More...

I've had this book on my 'to-read' shelf since I was 14 (since like 1995). I've heard nothing but good things about it from friends and family and it's written by the guys who wrote DragonLance (which is crap, but crap that I like). This book, though. This book is crap crap. I kept thinking this was fanfiction of Game of Thrones, but it can't be because it was written half a decade earlier than George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy amazarama. It's possible that Weis and Hickman magicked Tasslehoff More...

This is the first volume of an epic fantasy (with some sci-fi elements) saga, that spans four worlds and deals with most of the themes and motifs of the entire fantasy genre. The first book introduces us to the world of Arianus, the World of Air. Long ago two factions of powerful sorcerers warred for control of the Earth. One of the factions tore the world into multiple component worlds based on the classical elements: the World of Air, the World of Fire, the World of Earth and the World of Wate More...

I did not expect to like this one as much as I did. Sure, I'd heard good things about the series, and had always kinda meant to read it, but just about everyone who raved about it (or about any of Weis and Hickman's combined work) would talk about how amazing said books were when read at a relatively young age. So when I found this one used and cheap I was in a mood for epic fantasy, but wasn't considering much more than fun.

Now don't get me wrong, "fun" is probably the best word to describe Dra More...

Review originally posted over at Inklings Read

I really, really like the concept behind this book. It is a truly unique fantasy world that Weis and Hickman have created. Dragon Wing contains quite the crazy combination of genres/themes: post-apocalyptic, classic fantasy, and a fusion of technology and magic. They managed to seamlessly combine all of these genres into a unique, innovative world that readers will find addicting.

With that said… I loved the first half of this book, then somewhere alo More...

I loved the universe of this book. I thought it a very unique and fascinating fantasy world. There are surprises and new truths to learn about the characters at every turn, and the characters themselves are interesting and complex. Other than Sinistrad, it's really hard to say who is a 'bad guy' or a 'good guy'. The story is interesting and engaging.

However, I could have done without the prologue. I would have much rather learned the truth about Haplo gradually, as with the rest of the characte More...

I first encountered the Weis/Hickman duo while in junior high and immediately became enchanted. Older and 'well' read, I decided to go back and read the Death Gate Cycle, which I had somehow missed. My first impression was one of disappointment. The writing style is hacky, character's perceptions of each other and of themselves don't line up, and some segments feel unfinished and due for proper editing. BUT, all that aside, the plot is compelling.

Will I continue to read through the Cycle? I hav More...

This is certainly an example of 'thinking out of the box' as far as world building is concerned. I'm not too sure how to approach a review of this book. I've never read the Death Gate Cycle before, and I must say that this book left me intrigued. I did, initially, have a struggle wrapping my mind around the world of Arianus and the different realms. The maps and diagrams in the front of the book certainly helped. One or two of the characters left me cold, but that didn't really alter my reading More...

An executioner name three chop Nick waits impatiently the cleave through the blood and bone of everyones favorite character right on the first page. The writing style the makes bile rise and the heart beat at whim controls the victims of this series. Authors Margaret Weis and Tray Hickman play with Maslow's needs while the reader looks at dinner and says, "But I only have one more chapter." This is a book of utter "umph" for lack of a better word. Grunting and cheering. Slamming fists. Symptoms More...