Rating: 
Summary: Great, then fell off
Review: The first 2/3 of Threshold are wonderful. The progression is unstoppable, the evil is encroaching, and the author creates a great sense of horror building up to a climactic scene. Then the tension just disappears. The solution isn't as hard as it should be, and the emotional involvement the author built in the first part just fizzles. It's still worth reading, but the end was a serious disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Just read this
Review: THIS BOOK WAS AWESOME!!! Sara Douglass catches your attention on the first page and holds it through the entire book until the very last page. The characters are so well written I began crying when something bad would happen to any of them I got so attached. Its wonderful how she never lets you know Tirzah's real name until the very end. It keeps you reading just so you will find out her name!!
Rating:
Summary: This is a great read
Review: This is a great read- it is enjoyable and quite diverting. The characters were well drawn out and the plot interesting and an interesting twist on several classic fantasy themes...Ms. Douglass writes clearly and has a way of drawing the reader into the story so much so that it keeps one turning the pages to find out what happens next. I highly reccomend it.
Rating:
Summary: I absolutely love this!
Review: This is one of those books which I re-read; something I don't do that often. Though most of the plot was rather predictable, Ms. Douglass writes with a certain measure that kept me totally hooked. When Boaz left to destroy Nzame, I cried (literally). If you don't like romance, then don't read this. Emotions are played upon vastly throughout the entire book. I hope the author can come up with more like this, or I will!
Rating:
Summary: An Ancient Egypt That Never Was
Review: Threshold is a fantasy novel about a civilization much like ancient Egypt. Threshold is a pyramidal object designed as a conduit of magical power. It has been under construction for eight generations and is close to completion. Although the ruler, Chadd-Nezzer, has provided the money, materiel and labor, the project was initiated, and is supervised, by the Magi. In this novel, a northern girl and her father are sold into slavery to pay back his gambling debts. Since both are excellent glassmakers, the slavers take them south to Adab in En-Dor. There they and other skilled slaves are sold to a factor for the Magi and then transported to Ashdod, where they sail south on the Lhyl river, first to Setkoth and then to Gesholme, where Threshold is being built. In Setkoth, they encounter the Magus Boaz, who refuses to believe that the pair are worth the amount paid for them. When told that the girl can cage, he insists that she demonstrate her talent with a piece of fractured glass that has been discarded. The results definitely show that she has glassworking skills, yet Boaz accuses her of being an Elemental, changes her name to Tirzah and her father's to Druse, threatens her -- which is characteristic of him and most other Magi -- and then allows the slaves to depart. When they arrive at the construction site, the slaves are taken to Ta'uz, the Magi site master, who assigns Tirzah and her father to the workshop managed by Isphet. Druse is lodged in the tenement for men supervised by Yaqob and Tirzah is assigned to Isphet's tenement. When Ta'uz accompanies the girl to her lodgings, he detects that one of the slave women is giving birth to a girl-child, takes the infant away from the mother, and dashes the baby against the wall. Only the One is allowed to breed at Threshold. The Magi have harnessed the magic of numbers. One is the key number, since it has only a single factor, and is therefore also related to infinity. Since infinity equates to eternity, the Magi believe that the magic of One will allow them to tap infinite energy and eternal life through Threshold. Every aspect of Threshold has been calculated for this effect. In the center of the pyramid is the Infinity Chamber -- with equations carved everywhere within the glass walls -- where the actual connection to infinity will be made. The Magi are relatively new in Ashdod, having developed the power of numbers only a few centuries before. Prior to the Magi, the magic of Elementals was paramount, working through glass and metal, but the Magi began persecuting their rivals with the initation of the Threshold project and now many Magi believe that there are no more Elementals. Unknown to the Magi and herself, however, Tirzah is an Elemental. While aware that her talents allow her to hear the thoughts and feel the emotions of glass, metal, ceramics and, to a lesser extent, clay, she is not aware that others have had the same abilities. This talent augments her skills, yet also convinces her that something dark and evil is happening in the Infinity Chamber, for the glass lining the room overwhelms her senses with their cries of foreboding and terror. The ancient Egyptians invented mathematics and treated it as a sacred language. According to the legends, when Pythogoras stole their secrets and fled to Greece, he and his followers also treated mathematics as sacred. The more secular Greeks, however, soon separated the practical from the mystical and went on to develop mathematics as an alternate means of describing the physical universe. This book speculates about the consequences of a society in which numerology can produce definite results through magical associations. Such magic is described as cold and calculating and the practitioners are hard and heartless people, as best exemplified by Boaz's torment of Tirzah. Yet at the center of this magic is an overlooked, and deadly, flaw. This book is a fascinating depiction of an exotic culture that might have existed on our planet several millennia ago. At the same time, it is a cautionary tale against over dependence upon logical and analytic reasoning, for such processes assume infinite and complete knowledge. As might be expected, this book tends to defy logic. The various plotlines are being tended offstage by the Soulenai from within the Place Beyond. Thus, most things happen according to their script, to which we are not privy. However, the Soulenai have not completely eliminated chance and the random factor, for several events surprise even them! Recommended for Douglass fans and for anyone else who enjoys stories of strange magic in exotic locales with strong and interesting characters.
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