Sara Douglass is my comfort author; I always know exactly what to expect from her books, whether I’ve read them before or not, yet they never come across as a retelling of the same story, and still manage to make me feel like I’ve not waisted some valuble time that I could be reading something else.

I first picked up Threshold a few years ago, and this has been my first re-read since then.

It’s a story told from the point of view of a girl who got sold into slavery because of her father’s debts. Both her father and her are glassworkers, and have been bought to work on a great pyramid that the religious group of the area are trying to construct, but there’s something very, very wrong with the pyramid. The pyramid was created to tap into Infinity, but those who have commissioned the building don’t realize that there’s something else waiting to come into the world once the building is completed.

The main hero is almost the exact same person in quite a few of her books and series’. A man brought up in a certain religious sect, taught to fear and loath another religious group or race of people, until he realizes that he is a part of this group of people that he hates. He must learn to accept who he is, only to distroy the first group that he was brought up in. (Sounds typical of a number of heros in fantasy and sci-fi, if I think about it.) Her main female characters, I always thoroughly enjoy. They’re just strong female characters. None of that flaky female type that is so evident in most popular fiction these days. (Not that I don’t enjoy those characters from time to time, but… too much really annoys me.)

And there is, of course, the fact that this book, Beyond the Hanging Wall and her Axis Trilogy and Wayfarer Redemption series all take place in the same world. I do almost feel badly for the people of this world. Even though not everyone is directly affected everytime something evil happens to one race or one area, still! The number of bad things this world has had to deal with in a short period of time? Man!

What I’m really looking forward to is Douglass’ Darkglass Mountain series; it brings back a number of characters from all of the aforementioned books and series’, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what has happened with some of my favourites. (Slight squee-age: I love it when authors have maps for their books! Ashdod is where Threshold takes place, but it also includes the areas from Beyond the Hanging Wall and the Axis Trilogy/Wayfarer Redemption.)