Threshold
Tor Books
Science Fiction / Fantasy
September 1, 2003
ISBN-13: 0312876874
Available in: Hardcover
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Threshold
by Sara Douglass
Over the hot southern land of Ashdod looms the shadow of Threshold, a massive pyramid which the Magi of Ashdod are building to propel themselves into Infinity, a plane of existence that holds the promise of technological magics and supposedly unimaginable power. For decades, thousands of slaves have lost their lives in the construction of this edifice. Now that this construction is almost complete, the Magi need only to add the finishing touches, and they will let nothing stand in the way of achieving their desire. The Master of the Magi, a young and ambitious man, ready to do anything for power, sees the glassworker slave Tirzah as a plaything, a trifle to relieve the tensions of the day. He senses that under her placid façade Tirzah is hiding something, but try as he may to see beneath her surface, she remains an enigma. What he does not know is that her secret is the knowledge of forbidden magic. That she senses the inherent power in glass and can communicate with it-and that the glass in Threshold screams to her in pain. For it knows what neither Tirzah nor any of the Magi suspect. That something waits in Infinity, watching, biding its time, and when the final glass plate is laid and the capstone cemented in blood, it plans to use Threshold to step from Infinity into Ashdod...
Other Books by Sara Douglass
Sara Douglass' Bio
I can't remember learning to read, or picking up my first book. I have always read, and I have always loved books. I was born on a small farm some twenty-five miles out of Penola in South Australia. It was called Gundealga, 'peaceful watering hole', and its names, and its woods and deer, are remembered in The Axis Trilogy. The farm had no electricity, so I remember reading my first books by the gentle glow of kerosene lamps, hiding behind the living room couch so my parents would think me already in bed.
When I was about seven we moved to Adelaide, and somehow the household books bred in the process. I remember my father nonchalantly propping up a bucket to catch the drips from a leaking roof with seventeenth-century volumes that he said were so mouldy anyway they wouldn't mind a bit of extra dampness (I was horrified. I rescued them and carefully dried them out and now they rest, splotched and blotched but still readable, on the mantelpiece above the fire in my writing room).
I started writing as soon as I felt competent, about nine or ten, and my teachers and parents regarded me indulgently, as if to say, "She'll grow out of it". But I didn't. I kept writing. When I was about fourteen I received second prize in a nation wide essay competition. When I left school my writing ceased for some six to seven years as I got involved in the world -- My first career was as a nurse.
An escape finally presented itself when I applied to do a Bachelor of Arts at Adelaide University. Suddenly I found myself back in a world that encouraged creative thinking and processes. I was enthralled. I started writing again by keeping a detailed diary. I found myself a new career as an academic, teaching medieval history at La Trobe University, Bendigo. This new job I found incredibly stressful, and so, just for myself, no-one else, I began to write in the evening and weekends. I loved it! Writing became for me the perfect way to relax and escape the stressful world of academia.
I never thought of writing fantasy until one day ... one day when I just sat down and started writing BattleAxe. I knew almost immediately that this was going to be my best chance at getting published. I wrote virtually the entire trilogy, thought about it, and then sent BattleAxe off one day to an agent.
I knew that I would have my best chance with an agent. I picked up the Melbourne Yellow Pages, and looked under agents. — Australian Literary Management was picked because they had the magical word 'literary' in their name. And so off it went and here I am, all due to the intervention of a tiny iron axe that gave me the idea for BattleAxe and the help of the Melbourne Yellow Pages.