It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve read The Death Gate Cycle. So long that I forgot just how much inspiration I sourced from the series! Weis and Hickman are an amazing writing duo.
The most interesting thing when re-reading it, is seeing what I remembered, and what I’d forgotten. Haplo was pretty much how I remembered, but I forgot how much I hated Bane. I’d forgotten all the “endgame” characters and plotlines, I even thought there was supposed to be a fake Haplo or fake Alfred but it looks like I was wrong. I also couldn’t remember if we met Rue or not.
But my goodness, the magic of possibility. The runes, the circles, the wave. The limiting of possibilities. The accursed knife, Hugh the Hand and the Brotherhood, the necromancy…. The description of the perspective flip! That Hugh had died, and nothing could change that, so Alfred “leapfrogged” so to speak to bring him back. It’s a fixed position in time, but if you walk around so that you were behind the fixed spot instead of in front?! I mean I knew I’d adapted that to my story too, but I’d forgotten how I’d first gotten the idea.
I really have to go back and revisit all my worlds, and see just how much influence the Death Gate series had, because it’s such an awesome set of books!
