The Sword And The Dragon

The Tale of the Five #1-2 omnibus

by Diane Duane

This is an omnibus reprint of Diane Duane's first two titles in this series, The Door into Fire and The Door into Shadow. In The Door into Fire, Herewiss, Prince of the Brightwood, is the only man in centuries to possess the Power of the Flame, but he cannot control it. Even though he cannot control the Power of the Flame, he does have a talent for sorcery and with the help of Sunspark, a fire elemental, he is able to free his best friend Freelorn, the Prince of Arlen. Now Herewiss must make a choice. Does he go with his best friend to aide him in his fight to regain his kingdom or does he follow Sunspark to an ancient castle where there are 'doors' that lead to other worlds? Places that he can go to earn to use the Power of the Flame. Dare he walk through the door into fire? In The Door into Shadow, we are at a time that the royal magics are failing. The Reaver armies are massing and with them is the Shadow-destroyer off all that is good in the Goddess's creation. Between them and humanity stand a few brave souls-Herewiss, the first man in decades to have the Power of the Flame; Freelorn, the prince of Arlen; Sunspark, a fire elemental; Eftgan, the warrior queen of Darthen; and Segnbora, sorceress and swordwoman who speaks with the tongue of dragons. Can they overcome their own past and differences to unite in this fight, or do they fall prey to doubt and distrust which leads to the door into shadow?

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Fiction

514 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Diane Duane has been a writer of science fiction, fantasy, TV and film for more than forty years.

Besides the 1980's creation of the Young Wizards fantasy series for which she's best known, the "Middle Kingdoms" epic fantasy series, and numerous stand-alone fantasy or science fiction novels, her career has included extensive work in the Star Trek TM universe, and many scripts for live-action and animated TV series on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as work in comics and computer games. She has spent a fair amount of time on the New York Times Bestseller List, and has picked up various awards and award nominations here and there.

She lives in County Wicklow, in Ireland, with her husband of more than thirty years, the screenwriter and novelist Peter Morwood.

Her favorite color is blue, her favorite food is a weird kind of Swiss scrambled-potato dish called maluns, she was born in a Year of the Dragon, and her sign is "Runway 24 Left, Hold For Clearance."

(From her official website)

Reviews

[Freyavenlyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

so, I had a really great review of the book, but alas, my firefox crashed and took it all away.

to sum it up, I liked the two parts of the Tales of the Five.
Didn't like the switch in view from one main character to the other (it's just me, i don't like switches)

don't know what happend at the end between herewiss ans freelorn, you'll know what I mean, because of the switch to segnbora. but okay.

Had a few to nice resolutions to problems to really give those books more an three stars. but compared to the Astreiant books form Melissa Scott I read before, they fall a little bit short.
It's three and a half stars for me.

[Mjhancock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a pleasant surprise. For me, Duane's best work is her Wizardry series, and this earlier series clearly has a lot of strands she'll be using for the Wizardry stuff later. And it's also very good on its own. It's actually a compilation of two books: The Door Into Fire, and the Door Into Shadow. The Door Into Fire tells how Herewiss, Prince of Brightwood, attempts to master and control the Power of the Flame, and the Door into Shadow describes how Segnbora, "sorceress and swordswoman" allies with Herewiss and his group to rebind the Royal magic against the Reaver armies and the Shadow. And while that may sound big and ponderous in the way that only fantasy stories can, Duane keeps the high fantasy elements well-balanced with very human and personal connections. I thought the first book was stronger than the first, but both are worth reading for fans of Duane or fantasy in general.

[Meg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadful. The plot is convoluted and difficult to track, the characters entirely unlikeable. The one saving grace is the little snippets of folklore and poetry at the start of each chapter; they're strangely endearing. I checked out the sequel from the library at the same time, but I'm not going to even bother to read it.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

If this had come my way in the fifth/sixth grade, around the time I was loving the Sword of Shannara series, this probably would have been great. As I am only making the attempt now ... pass, sadly.