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Rating: 
Summary: TENSION ... that makes you beg for more
Review:
This whole series, consisting of "Gate of Ivrel", "Well of Shiuan", "Fires of Azeroth", and "Exile's Gate", is my favorite of any author's, and I've read A LOT.
Cherryh's style is clean and dry, but at the same time very intense and passionate. Instead of using flowery words and melodrama to spoon-feed emotion to the reader, she uses common words and short, almost aggressive phrasing. The tension and passion and danger are drawn with a sharpness and clarity that is almost painful. A deceptively simple word or glance between these characters, whether friends or enemies, will at times bring that tension to a breathless peak, but without the expected release afterwards.
This is not an easy, exciting Harlequin-esque roller-coaster of peaks and valleys. This is a sharp ridge on a bare mountain with an occasional rock slide.
This is not a graceful Puccini aria that makes you want to weep and feel melancholy. This is avant-garde jazz where a single painfully high note is drawn out in the background for so long that you find yourself begging for a release that you fear may never come but then again do you really want it to?
It's exhausting, but in the best sense.
And about the 4th time I read the series, I found that it was funny too! It is, of course, a very dry humor, but it's there. And not a joke or eccentric comedic bit player to be seen.
It's easy to fall in love with these characters. They're very different from each other, but they're both excruciatingly familiar!
Cherryh creates the perfect male characters for a straight female audience. Cherryh's men are the kind many of us would create for ourselves. (Which is very different from the men male writers create.) Cherryh's men are capable of great valor and honor, but also of very deep emotion and affection, and self-reflection.
Also, her men often feel strong love and affection and respect for other men, without there being any sexual element to it. This is not only unique, but very difficult. The ability to create tension between male characters who love each other without it reading like sexual tension or a Sunday night "family drama" is something I rarely see. I appreciate it when I do.
My circle of friends has a shorthand way of expressing our reaction to this exhausting mix of physical danger and emotional tension, just by groaning "AAAAAHHHHGHHHHGHGHHHHHG!!!". If one of us starts off a conversation this way, another might say "Are you dying, or did you just finish a Cherryh?"
Rating:
Summary: not for fantasy fans only!
Review: I am not usually a fan of fantasy novels, but this novel and the three that follow it are one of the few exceptions to this. The most interesting aspect of the novel (and series) to me is the way both of the major characters, Morgaine and Vanye, are bound by their oaths to paths they would not otherwise have chosen. This novel deals more with Vanye than with Morgaine, and this reluctant warrior who will above all else honor his oath makes an extremely interesting character. Morgaine's character will be more fully developed in the novels to come; this first one belongs to Vanye. This is very human fantasy, a heroic reflection of all the things we do because we have said we would.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, Heartfelt, Intense...and one EXTREME sword!!!
Review: I have been a fan of fantasy for years now. The Morgaine Cycle is my favorite. It's an intense epic and I still get giddy at my favorite parts. There is more feeling and tension in one of C.J. Cherryh's conversations than I have read in some 6-book series. She creates worlds with these amazingly real characters stuck right in the middle. Morgaine and Vanye are very well matched as comrades, with a twist or two... I love that Ms. Cherryh gives them so many facets and even insecurities. I find it refreshing that even world-weary Morgaine doesn't have all the answers. And Vanye is easily the most convincing male character that I've ever read. The swordfights are breathtaking and it's easy to tell that Ms. Cherryh knows her horses. She has such incredible attention for details. It may sound pathetic, but as a potential writer, my ultimate goal is to write a series half as great as this partcular C.J. Cherryh original.
Rating: 
Summary: Unassuming intro to a great series.
Review: I love the Morgaine trilogy, but this comparatively slow-moving adventure story doesn't really compare with the high quality of the next two. It's not bad, but the style is frankly a little dry. This coupled with the book's brief length (under 200 pages) makes it almost like Hemingway tried to write a fantasy novel. But the book slowly improves over the course of several chapters, as we learn more about Vanye's culture and family, which Cherryh does explore in intense detail. Interesting, and worth reading if only because you get to read the next two, truly excellent books in this series.
Rating: 
Summary: Hrmmm......
Review: It wasn't that bad, but first let me note that the other 7 reviewers here have read this entire series (some more than once) and for the most part, they each seem to be lumping all the books into one review here. I, however, as a first time Cherryh reader, found this book to be rather dry. The premise, setting, description, and characters were decent enough and it was quite unlike most other fantasy I've read. But it didn't really capture my imagination as it had theirs. Still, I hope that when I continue the series with WELL of SHIUAN, it will pick up as they have alluded, but for now -I am not sold on this one. Time will tell!
Rating:
Summary: On a scale of 1-10, this is a twelve.
Review: This was my first Cherryh book. I read it and promptly read it again. I was flabbergasted by the power of it. I read it again. What it is that Carol Cherryh did, I am not certain. I can describe it as powerful,yes, heavy, profound, clever, astute, but I am not yet getting close. I've often thought of the role of a modern writer as the same as that of the ancient tribal mythologist, the preserver, interpreter and creator of frontal lobe symbol-stories that hold a culture of creatures such as us together, thrill us and explain our urges and dreams. This book reads like that. Joseph Campbell with his heroes and Carl Jung with his archetypes would have much to say of it. But it is also a damn good read. The style smacks slightly of the best of Tolkein with a strong dose of Old Testament, maybe. Good writing anyway. I was glad there were other "Gate" books to continue with though none whacked me in the head and heart like this one. Of course I have gone on to all the other Cherryh books, I have a shelf that is as long as I am tall that won't contain them all. She is master of "worlds" and master of her own unique style of "steam of consciousness." She's now tops in straight S.F. as well. She's changed a lot since Ivril, but she went way back there once to do another Morgaine book, and I wouldn't be surprised if she did it again. When I was a kid, the Lone Ranger was number one, but he never made mistakes. The whole point of most of Cherryh's books are the mistakes that people make. My reader's Tee-shirt reads "Morgaine Yes' as per C.H. Cherryh." and most everything else by her too.
Rating:
Summary: beginning of one of the finest SF series I've seen
Review: _Gate_ is a great beginning to the Morgaine novels. Morgaine is an excellent heroine, breaking a lot of the lame stereotypes that lesser writers have fallen back on when it was too much effort to create a strong, unique female protagonist. If you appreciate a heroine who is all business and only fleetingly vulnerable, Morgaine is the genuine article. Vanye makes the perfect foil to her: fallible, afraid, loyal, and very human. To give just one example of Cherryh's descriptive talents without spoiling the book, if you close your eyes and visualize when Morgaine draws her primary weapon, a shiver will probably go down your back. Rare indeed is the author who can scare you without resorting to grossness. You could save time by ordering _Well of Shiuan_, _Fires of Azeroth_, and _Exile's Gate_ at the same time you order this one. If you order this one you are going to want the other three anyway.
Rating:
Summary: beginning of one of the finest SF series I've seen
Review: _Gate_ is a great beginning to the Morgaine novels. Morgaine is an excellent heroine, breaking a lot of the lame stereotypes that lesser writers have fallen back on when it was too much effort to create a strong, unique female protagonist. If you appreciate a heroine who is all business and only fleetingly vulnerable, Morgaine is the genuine article. Vanye makes the perfect foil to her: fallible, afraid, loyal, and very human. To give just one example of Cherryh's descriptive talents without spoiling the book, if you close your eyes and visualize when Morgaine draws her primary weapon, a shiver will probably go down your back. Rare indeed is the author who can scare you without resorting to grossness. You could save time by ordering _Well of Shiuan_, _Fires of Azeroth_, and _Exile's Gate_ at the same time you order this one. If you order this one you are going to want the other three anyway.
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