THE LAST GATE by Elizabeth A. Merz
First in a trilogy
First Books Library -- August 2000
ISBN: 1587219085 -- Paperback
ISBN: 1587219093 -- Hardcover
Also available as an ebook at www.1stbooks.com
Fantasy/Adventure
Location: other worlds
No explicit language, medium violence, mild sexual content.

Reviewed by Jo Rogers
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THE LAST GATE is set on a world very much like our own Earth. Humans dominate the world, but theirs is a world of science, technology and magic. It is actually two stories existing side by side, and interwoven with each other.

On one side are the dakas of Jantideva, a family of monarchs that virtually rule the world through the Alliance of Nations. On the other side is an almost extinct race of people called Ver dala Ven. Cobo is one of the last members of the golden-eyed people who are given the right to serve the Guardian and the Masing Star.

A thousand years before the story begins, one of the dakas, Daka Redd, tried to force the people of Shodalum, to work in the deadly lume factories with no thought to what the chemicals did to their health. The Guardian became angry, and took all the Ver dala Ven, who served the dakas as healers and advisors, except one in every generation. The Masing Star, whose constant song could be heard by all and brought peace to the souls of all the races, fell silent. But Betnoni, the Ver dala Ven who had stopped Daka Redd's attack on the striking Shodites, left a prophecy which no one understood until it began coming true....

THE LAST GATE is the first of a series of three books about this fascinating world of unusual and interesting people. More than seven hundred pages long, it is packed with magic and adventure. It is one I will long remember and want to read again before I read the second in the series, SILENT STAR.

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