Threshold by Sara Douglass
Rating: 7 out of 10
Summary: Over the hot southern land of Ashdod looms the shadow of Threshold, the pyramid which the Magi of Ashdod are building to propel themselves into Infinity.
Over the years, thousands of slaves have given their lives to the construction of Threshold. Now construction is almost complete; the Magi need only to add the finishing touches.
The Master of the Magi knows the glassworker slave Tirzah is hiding something, but he would never guess her secret is forbidden magic. Tirzah can communicate with glass-and the glass in Threshold screams to her in pain. For it knows what neither Tirzah nor any of the Magi suspect:
Something waits in Infinity, watching, biding its time, and when the final glass plate is laid and the capstone cemented in blood, it plans to use Threshold to step from Infinity into Ashdod…
Commentary: This is a re-read; I first read this novel a couple years ago. I remember enjoying it a lot and recently it popped back into my mind and I put it on hold at the library. Then I stopped by the local Borders store and saw it was in stock and picked it up there instead.
Threshold involes serious world-building and lots of magic and the usual fantasy fare. Douglass based her world on a sort of medieval/middle-eastern template, and it worked out pretty well. The pyramids, the middle east, hot desert sands, the obscure and mystical, polytheistical religion of the Egyptians… except with magic. Nothing super-spectacular.
I didn’t expect it to be so romantic when I first read it–in fact, I had my doubts about how Douglass would navigate this tricky situation. Boaz and Tirzah start on opposite sides of the story as deadly enemies. There’s abuse and pain and ugly happenings–but somehow, the author made it work out in the end and had it make sense and be romantic at the same time. No small feat considering how the two characters began.
I definitely enjoyed the first half a heck of a lot more than the second. The latter half was just a bit of a letdown… like the climax has already happened and we were just wrapping up loose ends.
Overall a good read–I would have given it a higher score except that the ending sort of let me down.
