This is a re-read after many years of the first in the Morgaine series, and at first I wondered if I would enjoy it as much as last time. The beginning, an extended info-dump that gives the background to Morgaine's mission to close the inter-planetary and time travelling gates because the temporal anomalies they caused led to disaster, is by today's standards an old fashioned way of story telling. But focus soon switches to the character of Nhi Vanye, a driven young man who has been raised as a charity case by his father, head of clan Nhi, and tormented for his whole life by his two legitimate half-brothers. Vanye has killed one of them, swearing they were trying to kill him, and maimed the other, almost as great a sin in a warrior-centred culture.

He is cast out as an outlaw and doomed to wander till he dies, either of starvation, exposure, being murdered in revenge or being killed by one of the strange creatures which Thiye, a clan leader with a reputation for using the evil magics of the past, has brought through the major gate, which he controls. Vanye's only hope to win back his honour and cancel his outlaw status is to find a lord who will accept his oath of service for either a year or to carry out a task, though surviving such service is not easy.

The story switches to his plight a couple of years later when, half-starved and freezing in the winter, he tries to shoot a deer with his bow, but succeeds in driving it through the pillars of what his people regard superstitiously as the Witchfires - a minor gate linked to the main gate on their planet - on a hill which is normally shunned but where he has accidentally wandered too close. The deer's entry displaces Morgaine, trapped within the gate for a century. She and her surviving comrades came to the planet to destroy its gates, and raised an army among the various clans, but disaster struck and Morgaine was blamed. Pursued, she had been forced to ride into the gate and been trapped there in stasis ever since. Her distinctive appearance - she is nicknamed Frosthair - indicates her identity, but Vanye, forced to shelter with her and share the meat from a deer she kills with one of her fearsome weapons, tries to tell himself it was only exhaustion which led him to think she rode out from between the stones. He then finds himself forced into swearing an oath of allegiance to her for a year's service or to complete her mission if she is unable to, and his problems really begin. The only mitigation is that, as a sworn follower of his lord - and Morgaine has lord status from her previous dealings with the indigenous people - he is in theory protected by her, but he soon meets members of various clans, including his surviving half-brother, who have different ideas.

Things become complicated when these various clans make demands upon Morgaine, trying to use her and her technology for their own ends, and it transpires that she is not the only individual with a knowledge of gates. For there are a number of villains in the story, greater and lesser.

When shelving this book, I elected to put it under both science fiction and fantasy, because the background is SF - interplanetary timetravel, ray weapons, a 'sword' which taps the power of the gates and has the power to pull living things through - but the setting is classic fantasy, with warriors and a warrior culture which is slightly reminiscent of the Japanese Samurai. It falls into the genre category of 'science fantasy' for these reasons.

The story is told from the fairly close third person viewpoint of Vanye so we never enter Morgaine's viewpoint and can only see her through his eyes. She is honest about the fact that she will abandon him at a moment's notice if it serves her mission, and she is totally focused upon the need to destroy or close the main gate at Ivrel, which is controlled by Thiye. Vanye, meanwhile, is torn by the deeds which his oath condemns him to perform, and a lot of the book concerns his angst at the rift with his surviving half-brother and his conflicting loyalties. The one weakness is really the geography - it becomes difficult to envisage how the various clan territories impinge and why travelling in a particular direction would bring him back within the grasp of his brother, for example. The edition I was reading did not have a map, and that would have helped. But I enjoyed the book and am rating it 4 stars. ( )

I read Gate of Ivrel long ago and was fascinated by the story. Would the story of Morgaine and the ilin (think Japanese "ronin") Vanye resonate still, even after the 1981 original publication? The answer is a resounding "Yes!"

The qhal created a mess, and it is up to Morgaine to fix the problem by shutting down the source: gates that link various times and places. The illegitimate Vanye, tossed out on his ear for accidentally killing one legitimate son and maiming the other, ends up giving his oath to Morgaine. Will they stay together? (Well, this is a trilogy!) Will they succeed in Morgaine's quest? Stick around and find out.

This classic sword-and-sorcery book with a hint of SF background stands the test of time. Read it if you haven't already! ( )

Sembradas por la Galaxia, se encontraban las Puertas espacio-temporales de una raza extraterrestre que, habiendo desaparecido, no había sido olvidada. En su momento, mucho antes del nacimiento de las civilizaciones nativas, habían aterrorizado a cien mundos. Pero no por maldad, sino por insensatez, por jugar con vínculos que mantiene el universo unido.
Ahora, la misión era destruir esas puertas, eliminar su capacidad para el mal, arrancar el horror de las manos de los pocos que ansiaban alcanzar el poder a través del uso maligno de las Puertas.
Esta es la historia de una de esas puertas y de uno de esos mundos.

One of my all time favorite books. I love the whole series but this one is my favorite. Lovely world building and character developement. Awesome sword. Chilling sacrifice and dedication. My biggest regret is that I just can't get my sister to give this a try. ( )

Not bad but not as great as Andre Norton says on the cover and in the intro. [Update, December 2, 2013: I came to like this series more than I realized. While Cherryh's prose can be a little difficult to follow at times, it's still a very good story. And I went on to read all the sequels.] ( )