Danny North is a young boy growing up in a family of mages. He knows that as he grows up his own abilities will start to appear, but as he ages and his cousins start to be able to show off their abilities and nothing seems to work for him, he knows that he is a drowther, non-magical, even though both of his parents are very strong mages. So Danny starts to run, he runs to get away from his family, his status and his home, but he tries very hard not to run the same way twice, because if the adults of the North family find out he's leaving the family farm, he will be in big trouble. Soon Danny realizes that his running is really creating gates that only he can go through, so he's not really a drowther, he's a gate mage. Not that that's really any better. The last gate mage was a trickster and sealed up all of the gates in the whole world, so the magical families have all sworn to kill any gate mages that are born into their family lines. Danny tries to keep his being a gate mage a secret, and it works for awhile, but unfortunately he's found out. Surprisingly he learns that his family has known the whole time that he was a gate mage and they had been protecting him so that he can eventually make gates for them. But Danny must now go it on his own and he must also learn about his gates. I didn't love this book. I read it because it was a Whitney nominee, but the story was way to fantastical for my taste. I didn't love the language or the sexual references in this on either. Labels: Orson Scott Card, Whitney Nominee
