The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

Finally finished reading a book, woohoo!  It was on hold at the library, so I had to hurry up.  ‘Twas The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card, one of my favourite writers.  ‘Twas a fun read.  Not quite Ender’s Game, but hard to put down nonetheless.  Makes you want to be a gatemage.  Makes you look forward to Portal 2, coming out soon!  Now I look forward to the sequels, for this seems to be the first book of a trilogy or something.

There are two quotes I liked.  First, from page 106:

Besides, it just felt . . . wrong.  Inelegant, perhaps, as Auntie Tweng used to say of kludgy solutions to math or programming problems.  “Yes, it works,” she would say, “but it’s not elegant.  Truth is simple and elegant.  That’s how you know it when you see it.”

Those last two sentences.  “Truth is simple and elegant.  That’s how you know it when you see it.”  Almost Occam’s razor-ish.  I’m not sure if it’s true (for it can’t explain the truth of itself), but I like the idea.

Also, in the afterword, on page 382:

I tell my students in my writing classes that suspense comes, not from knowing almost nothing, but from knowing almost everything and caring very much about the small part still unknown.

Great little writing tidbit.  Mystery can still come from not knowing much, but it’s not suspenseful (or nearly as interesting) until the focus is on that one last answer, that one final piece to the puzzle.  Search your feelings, you know it to be true.  (Plus, it’s simple and elegant.)

Oh, it’s also a fun book if you know your mythology.  Which I don’t, but I’m just assuming.