Orson Scott Card has pretty much made his career writing about amazing kids in space, in America, in Europe and in the future. So, it’s absolutely no surprise that his newest book, The Lost Gate, is about an amazing kid from a family of gods. Card has written magic before in his Seventh Son series, but this is more of mythology based than that series. It is fairly reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, but with a slightly different focus. So, let’s go find that gate.

Danny North comes from a family of Gods…literally. Back in the old days, the Gods were able to hone their powers by focusing on the area where their powers led them. A rockmage would be able to do things with rocks. A watermage can move water around. A manmage can control other men. And they can also all project out their outerself into a golem-like being called a clant, except Danny. He doesn’t seem to have any powers whatsoever. And since he is the child of two of the more powerful mages of recent memory in the family, that is quite a surprise. But Danny is very smart, good with languages and very athletic. He slowly realizes that he does have a power, he is a forbidden gatemage. He can create gates that work like wormholes, the gate will transport people from one place to another.

In this world, these gates have special powers. Going through gates can heal people and a Great Gate can lead the Gods to Westeril, their ancestral home and place where their powers can be amplified. But centuries ago, Loki closed all the gates in the world and ever since then, whenever a gatemage tries to create a Great Gate, a Gate Thief comes and steals their power. Since a gatemage will throw off the balance of power in the various families, it’s been decided that any and all gatemages will be killed. But when Danny’s power is discovered, he’s told that the family will silently let him live if he leaves and keeps a low profile until he can control his powers better. The family wants a gatemage for the power, but can’t outwardly let them live. So Danny must leave the only family he knows to go out into a world that doesn’t know about magic and learn to control his forbidden power.

There is an interesting story here, but I think Card focused on the wrong place. The book focused too much time on Danny running around being a homeless thief and not enough time on the interesting mythology and history that is within the families. Danny is a brat and a smartass, traits associated with gatemages, but just because it’s in his nature doesn’t mean that I’m interested in reading about it. There is barely any time spent on the family and that’s somewhat disappointing. In addition, there is a secondary story about another gatemage and his relationship with an unwanted queen. It’s not that interesting and doesn’t tie into the main story at all. It leaves me wondering why it’s in the book at all. This is the first of a series and I might be willing to read others in the series. But I’d hope they focus on the more interesting pieces of this universe instead of the a bad teenage road trip. Mildly recommended.