Rating: 
Summary: Sleeping Beauty? I don't see it...
Review: Other reviewers have compared The Gates of Sleep to a retelling of Sleeping Beauty -- frankly, I don't see it. Another installment to the Elemental Masters series by Lackey, I enjoyed this book greatly, although granted not to the level of The Fire Rose or The Serpent's Shadow.
What I enjoyed was that once again, Lackey has created a non-insipid heroine -- insipidness is instead paired with evil or just general nastiness. Whether or not the doctor or the vicar is her best match matters not -- it still has the elements of an intelligent, cunning woman matching wits against evil. I was also intrigued by the world of the pottery painter girls who served as magical sacrifices -- so much so that I started researching it after reading the book.
That's my $0.02; your mileage may vary, some restrictions may apply, some assembly required...
Rating: 
Summary: Plot Devices
Review: Overall the novel was an adequate addition to the many Sleeping Beauty retellings available today. The majority of the pages were devoted to her life before the curse took affect, giving her a little more depth, however the end was a hastily crafted and dissapointing plot device. To 'spoil' the already well known tale, Sleeping Beauty falls in love with her Prince in the last twenty pages of the book, and they live happily ever after. I can only wonder if Lackey had a page limit with her publishers.
Rating:
Summary: Sleeping Beauty as a Magical Suffragette: another take
Review: Sleeping Beauty seems to be the one most favored fairy tale for retelling. Lackey does a superb job as she has with the earlier FIRE ROSE. Her characters are always interesting and the plots do not fail to keep you turning pages until a satisfying end. What is particularly appealing about this book is the exquisite attention to the minutiae of life in Devonshire at the turn of the last century. Some folks really don't seem to care or are even irritated by such detailing, but for this reviewer, the fine points are what make an otherwise rich tapestry flame to brilliant life. This is a fine addition to the ever-growing list of fairy tale re-visionings and to Lackey's impressive and massive oeuvre.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible book!
Review: The Gates of Sleep by Mercedes Lackey is a fantasy re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. It takes place, not in a fairy land or an alternate universe, but in England during the mid-1800's.The premise was that Elemental Magic was practiced secretly by those with the gift--seeing Undines and Fauns and the like--while living alongside non-magical folk, impervious to it. (Yes, I felt there was a blatant borrowing of Harry Potter-isms in the 2002 novel.) Marina, our Sleeping Beauty, has a curse cast on her at her christening and is shuffled off to other Elemental Magicians to protect her until her 18th birthday. If she lives that long, the curse would return to it's castor, her aunt, who (unbeknownst to Marina) practices the evil opposite of Elemental Magic. The first hundred pages were truly dull, detailing her every day life and trying, unsuccessfully, to make the Elemental Magic believable. It picked up a bit with the death of Marina's parents, her introduction to her aunt and the inclusion of pottery factories. I was quite unimpressed with this novel on the whole, and wouldn't have finished it had it not been recommended by a librarian whose tastes I trust. Other reviews I have seen mention that this is NOT Lackey's finest work, so I may try the other one that was also recommended. Regardless, this one should not be on anyone's "to be read" list.
Rating:
Summary: mild and unoffensive
Review: The plot moves slowly, mildly, and, unlike many of the author's previous works, is quite unnoffensive. While I cannot say I truly enjoyed reading this book, it was entertaining enough for my purposes at the time (a long airplane flight). Light reading, I would say, to pass the time. My only real objection is that exactly twenty pages from the end of the book, with no warning or previous development whatsoever, the main character falls in love and gets married. Mrs. Lackey, romance is not your genre, stick to fantasy.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but not great
Review: This book was better than The Serpent's Shadow, but not as good as The Fire Rose. It was an interesting read, but fairly slow at parts. The writing was sometimes repetative and redundant, but it wasn't really difficult to get through. I can't really say the book was good or bad. The biggest problem I had with it was the romance the author added to it. It seemed very tacked on, as if Mercedes Lackey remembered at the last minute that she wanted to have some romance in it and wasn't too concerned about integrating it well. We don't even see the man Marina falls in love with until at least half way through the book, and there is nothing in the way the two of them interact to indicate that there is anything developing between the two of them, except maybe friendship. Still, almost near the end of the book, Marina suddenly realizes she's in love with him and doesn't want to be without him. The tacked on romance and the occaisional problems with the writing make me wonder how much time the author actually spent revising this book, although the book didn't make me cringe as much as The Serpent's Shadow.
Rating: 
Summary: The Gates of Sleep
Review: This is the third book in Ms. Lackey's series of retelling fairy tales with sensible, modern women who happen to be Elemental Magicians. In this "Sleeping Beauty" adaptation, Marina Roeswood has a curse put on her in infancy and is sent away to live with three Elemental Masters, the closest friends of her parents. She grows up, as all of Ms. Lackey's female heroes do, a liberated, educated woman of the early 1900's, this time in the English countryside. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes and Marina is taken away to live with that same aunt who put the curse on her in the first place. The Fire Rose had too much plot and not enough story--The Serpent's Shadow had too much story and not enough plot. The Gates of Sleep finally strikes a balance between the two and the result is horrible. The writing is repetitive, the sentences never end. There's none of the fun love story that we got in Serpent's Shadow or even in Fire Rose--instead, Marina realizes about five pages from the end that "she must have fallen in love with him without realizing it." The plot itself is predictable and populated with shallow characters. Marina herself, supposedly the embodiment of a well-educated and liberal woman, goes contrary to many things that Ms. Lackey has spent several books establishing. And speaking of contradictions, the errors here are blinding. It's as though Ms. Lackey, as she has gotten more and more involved in her "real-world" doings with Magic (formerly spelled Magick, a contrivance now abandoned), has made up new rules that fly in the face of the old ones. It's as though Ms. Lackey made no effort to keep track of things she wrote in earlier novels before writing this one. For example, in Fire Rose Jason Cameron makes a big deal about the fact that Masters of the same Element have difficultly living together. Rose wonders, at the end, if, now that she is an Air Master she will have problems with the local Earth Master because their Elements are opposites. In Gates of Sleep, all four Elements live in harmony. The only difficulty one has with "antagonistic" Elements seems to be in sending messages. Another example--in Serpent's Shaodw, Peter's first lesson to Maya is instruction in layering sheilds, each using their respective element. In Gates of Sleep, we are told that Masters of one Element cannot instruct mages of another Element in the construction and layering of shields. Ms. Lackey, I am a long time fan of your work, but I really wish that you would pay attention to these things! It steals a lot of my enjoyment from what should be pure, unvarnished fantasy. If one insists on placing all the characters in the same world, all the characters should adhere to the rules of that world and not make them up as they go along. Have a little more fun with the characters--I loved the references to previous books, such as the presence of the Circle of Masters in London and Lady Almsley's helping Andrew Pike with his sanitorium. The only thing more fun would have been for Dr. Maya and Peter Scott to show up while Marina was in London! I give it 2 stars simply because I am a long-time fan. Loyalty has to count for something.
Rating:
Summary: magical romantic fantasy
Review: When Marina Rosewood is born, her parent Alanna and Hugh, throw a party. They invite many masters of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth to gift the little baby who is going to become a powerful Air Master when she grows up. Before the last gift could be given, Hugh's disgraced sister Arachne arrives and places a magical curse on the child. The last guest mitigates the curse somewhat with her gift.
If the child lives to the age of eighteen, the curse will be returned to its sender. To protect their daughter, John and Alanna send their child away to the home of artists they trust. When Marina is seventeen, her parents die and her aunt takes custody of her. Marina intuitively hides her magic from Arachne because she senses the woman has a hidden agenda. Eventually, the two women face each other in a magical showdown where the winner will barely survive.
This romantic fantasy takes place in the same universe as THE FIRE ROSE and is every bit as magical as that wonderful tale. Mercedes Lackey has the uncanny ability to write adult fairy tales that appeal to the child in all of us. The heroine of this work is a beguiling and bewitching sweetheart who trusts her instincts to keep her from being swayed by those around her. Ms. Lackey has crafted another best seller in THE GATES OF SLEEP. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: good twist on "Sleeping Beauty"
Review: With Gates of Sleep, Lackey mixes fantasy and history to create a 19th century England rich with Elemental magic. The historical backdrop to the story makes it more convincing than your average pure fantasy novel, and Lackey does a good job of incorporating cultural superstitions of "magic" with the fantasy world she creates.
However, while the book starts out well (Lackey does an excellent job of setting up Marina's relationship with her three guardians and depicting her childhood prior to her eighteenth birthday), it unravels somewhat in the end. Lackey makes 17-year old Marina a little bit too clever, mature, and powerful to be fully convincing, and Marina's aunt Arachne and her son Reggie as evil occult Satanists are a bit much.
Arachne's motives for wanting Marina dead are also somewhat muddled (upon finding Marina, she doesn't kill her straightaway but brings her home to Oakfield first; she wants Reggie to inherit Oakfield but has no compunctions about double-crossing and killing him if need be). The ending also feels a bit too similar to Lackey's "Serpent's Shadow."
Despite these flaws, Gates of Sleep is still an enjoyable read. Marina is a likable heroine, and Lackey's twist on the Sleeping Beauty tale is original enough to keep you hooked. She even manages to toss in themes of suffrage and strong women, and nature versus technology (though subtly-- she's not blatantly preachy).
For those of you disappointed by some of Lackey's recent work (like "Shadow of the Lion" or "Take a Thief"), don't worry. While Lackey is still not at her best, Gates of Sleep is definitely a decent read, and a pleasant way to pass some time. Just don't expect to be blown away.
Rating:
Summary: A Little Jewel
Review: You must realize that a 4 star Lackey book is better than 90% of the rest of what's out there. And this book is only a 4 star book in comparison with the previous one in this loose series, "The Serpent's Shadow." While that book is a genuine 5 star masterpiece, "The Gates of Sleep" is a little jewel. Don't let this confuse you. It is quietly full of marvelous things, like the description of the faun at the shrine of Pan in the garden, or the description of Marina's bedroom frescoes. This loose series of books is based on fairy tales...this one is Sleeping Beauty, the last one was Snow White, and the previous one to that was Beauty and the Beast. But Lackey hasn't done a "retelling" rather she has written a terrific story using the plot of the fairy story. The "environmentalism" in the story feels just a tad too "modern" to be Victorian England, and the character of Marina becomes a little too grown up a little too fast without fully developing her, and the ending is a bit abrupt, even though the fairy story is, too. But these are minor quibbles, small kvetches. The characters are drawn well, three-dimensional, and realistic, even the villains. This book keeps Mercedes Lackey on my must-buy list. Bananaslug. at Baen's Bar
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