DOORS: THREE DOORS, THREE DIFFERENT ADVENTURES. WHICH DOOR WILL YOU CHOOSE?

I felt it would be best to write a review that encompasses all three books, given that each of the three books start at the same point, with about 20-25% being repeated in all three books. They are quick reads, but being told the same thing in all three books until a certain point became repetitive and a bit annoying.

The books had a great world building but I can't shake the feeling that some of the impact of the stories might have gotten lost in translation (literally). All three stories are mainly character driven rather than plot driven.

I loved the concept "what if I had chosen this path instead?".

To avoid the repetitiveness, I think all three stories would have worked better in one book with a common start and then you could read each different 'path' from where the stories diverged.

Nonetheless, they're interesting and enjoyable.

This is a common review for all three Doors boos, Field of Blood, Twilight and Colony. Each of the tree books start with at the same point, with about a quarter being told the same in all three books. I read the first two fairly close together and this annoyed me as I knew this bit of the story.
The books themselves had fabulous world building but being a translation, seemed to have lost some of the story impact. Across all three of the books it seems that the stories are very much character driven rather than plot driven.
Overall I loved the concept of almost, what if I went this way instead? It might have been better if the three books were combined as an anthology with a common prologue.

What a brilliant book! I have never read a 'choose your own adventure' novel, especially one like this.

The plot was very interesting and while all the 'magical' or 'supernatural' elements were quite confusing and never fully explained, it was appropriate as the characters never found out either. The shocking ending was very unexpected, however, I liked how realistic it was.

The characters were well thought-out and getting a small glimpse into their pasts and what lead them to be employed to rescue Anna-Lena was great. Their group dynamic was intriguing and their development and true character reveal over their time with each other and the doors were intense.

I am thoroughly looking forward to reading Colony and Fields of Blood and seeing what else I can find out about the characters and the mystery surrounding the doors.

The idea behind the Doors books is that of three different versions of a story with a shared beginning, but the stories diverge when the characters go through one of three (actually five but two are ignored as far as I'm aware!) doors. A team of people, each hired for their own area of expertise, are tasked with rescuing a rich German man's daughter who has wandered down into the mysterious cellar of their former family home, where a series of doors are believed to lead to strange new places.
The first quarter of these books is identical, with the damsel in distress being introduced and the team coming together and being given their tasks. At this stage, there is next to no organisation around their approach, it really is simply a bunch of people heading into the unknown and being drastically under-prepared. When the team quickly find the missing and take her back to the surface, the reader is left somewhat taken aback at the speed with which it was resolved. This is nothing compared to how the reader feels when the team go back looking for the real missing woman, simply based on their employer's assistant's momentary mistake that the woman's eyes were the wrong colour. This is not challenged by anyone in the team, who head back downstairs. It's a bigger WTF moment than the Batman vs Superman 'Martha' fiasco.
As with some of Heitz's Dwarves books, I think this suffered from fairly poor translation, as a number of phrases and words just are not clear. At no point did i really know where the team were heading, forwards or backwards, which door they went through etc.
And the promise of heading into the future was very much an empty one. Some members of the team briefly find themselves in near-future Frankfurt and there is a short section of the book which adds no value and has no connection to the rest of the book whatsoever. Thereafter, there is just some cliched mysterious dark maze adventures, with some unexplained conspiracy around the use and beginnings of the doors and their purpose. (I am currently around 80% of the way through the 'Colony' book, having mercifully skipped the first, repeated, quarter, and am starting to realise that there is likely to be an overall story arch that only becomes clear once the reader has read all three books).
This book, and the series as a whole, offered so much potential and teased so much, but this one at least completely failed to deliver for me.
Advance copy received from NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

I decided to go for a common review for the three books as there are similarity and I struggled a bit with these three stories.
The concept is fascinating even if I would have preferred one book with a common introduction and three different parts.
I found the three books entertaining and there's plenty of potential but I assume it's one of those "it's me, not the book" i couldn't get into the story and it fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this arc, all opinions are mine

Over the next three days, three reviews will stand before you. Read them in any order, some elements will be the same, others quite different. If you would like to go straight to the segment unique to this review, please start with paragraph 4.

Drafting a book must be like standing in front of a series of doors, which one do you step thorough? Each option will make the novel a vastly different read, characters could be good or bad, the world may implode or explode. Like parallel universes, these differences are infinite, each option creates more options. An infinite library of books never quite written. Markus Heitz decided to experiment with this idea with his three Doors novels. Each starts the same, but then diverges.

Walter van Dam’s daughter has gone missing within a series of underground tunnels and he will do anything to see her return. He is rich enough to hire some of the best to find her; a Professor of Geology and a couple of cave explorers make sense, but why also have a bodyguard, paranormal expert, and clairvoyant? It seems that these tunnels are not as they first seem. Gravity seems to fail, and monsters stalk the dark. Strangest of all are the doors found deep below the surface. Which door will our rescuers open?

In Twilight the team decide to open the door with the X Inscribed on the front. This time, rather than taking them on an adventure into a specific time, they instead visit various locations including the future, a mysterious wood and the cave system itself. Unlike with the other two outings Twilight can write its own destiny – the future is unwritten, and the cave system is pure fiction. In this novel we learn the most about what these mysterious Doors are all about.

The initial part of the book promised any number of adventures, but in most cases the Doors books concentrate on one scenario. Twilight explores the idea of what happens if you leap from door to door, dimension to dimension. Imagine the finale to Monsters, Inc, but in this case the monsters want to eat your face off, rather than just scare you.

The movement from one place to another allows for a series of entertaining little novelettes. Heitz can create an interesting and believable future and also manages to create some stalking horror elsewhere, within the same story. The element of the book I found the most alluring was the sections set in our own reality. Time is spent in the tunnel system itself and the horrors on our Earth. For anyone who reads all three books, it is this outing that reveals the most about what is going on. It is also the book that reveals many of the character’s secrets. It is funny to think that I did not know the rescuers at all until the third time I followed them.

As a series I feel that the books can be read in any order as they are all different in style. Twilight is more mystery and horror; the others are alt history. I am glad that I read this last as it revealed to me a lot of the hidden elements teased in the other books; a mysterious voice that is hinted at in different outings plays a more pivotal role here. Twilight is more forgiving towards its characters as well and you get to know them even better. If you are planning to dive into the series, the best thing to do is read them all one after the other. They are different enough to feel like their own book, but if you have the previous books fresh in your mind you will see so many more of the tendrils that link one to the other.

This book was interesting. The mash if genres was a little overwhelming at times but overall, worked. The characters were diverse but lacked that connection a reader craves. The world building was epic and the tale was exhilarating.

Overall, this book had a mix of good and bad qualities, but was entertaining.

Doors is a concept that gives the readers a tiny bit of control over how the story will evolve. It all starts with Walter van Dam hiring a number of people for a lot of money. Their task is to find back his missing daughter Anna-Lena. She descended into an underground cave system which is located in van Dam’s extended back yard under their old house, and she has since then gone missing. It makes sense that the people van Dam hired include a speleologist for instance. But why did he also look for a clairvoyant, a bodyguard, or someone from the German Special Forces? Is this really a simple search action or is there more to it? When the group descend, they encounter five antique doors with symbols carved in them. Three of the doors have been marked with an exclamation mark, one with a question mark, and one with a cross. Through which door did Anna-Lena enter before she vanished? Doors gives its readers the opportunity to choose. If you pick the “!”, you are set for an adventure in the early Middle Ages. “?” brings you to the early 1940’s in which the Nazi’s were immediately defeated and the U.S. have taken control over Europe. “X” beams the protagonists into the future. Depending on your choice, you need to buy another book.

In the English version, the first 96 pages of each book contain the common introduction, which is around a quarter of the total book. Two small chapters in this intro focus on the whereabouts of Anna-Lena. You don’t learn much, but they are exciting. The rest of the intro is divided in two. The first part is the introduction of the main characters when they meet each other for the first time at the airport. This part doesn’t really throw you into the story. It’s long winded, comes across as somewhat stiff and lacks emotion. Most of it could simply be reduced to a short introduction when they meet their temporary employer. Although this is supposed to introduce the characters, you learn nothing about them. The second half of this common part is the descent into the caves, up to the point where the group encounter the doors. The description of the descend is not high level. Several group member do stupid things, nobody seems really capable of working together, they question everyday things but don’t seem to be disturbed very much when mysterious or impossible events happen. This part of the book is quite average, not really the beginning that keeps you reading.

I chose to read about door X, and the premise of a good futuristic story is what kept me reading. You kind of expect your characters to choose door X as well then, but it was very disappointing that this didn’t immediately happen. Actually, the group chose almost every other door first, whilst running through corridors, being engaged more in opposing each other than in co-operating, and being chased by people and monsters that weren’t supposed to be here, but which didn’t seem to distress the group much. In the meantime, as a reader, you keep (silently) yelling at the book: “Go through door X! Please enter door X! No, not door !, I want X!” It didn’t happen until at page 225. Finally! Everything I had read before, seemed so useless because I wanted to go to that promised future behind door X. Before that, no future events happen, except for a short passage in 2049 with modern variants of smartphones and cigarettes, but the dumb behaviour of the characters ending up there spoils it. They are supposed to be grown ups, but their general act is anything but mature, which rapidly becomes annoying. Furthermore, during the entire book none of the personae showed any development and many of them are interchangeable. In an attempt to add some depth, a few sudden memory flashes pop up in some of their heads, but they feel very artificial. It seems like they are there because the author realised he needed to give the reader some sort of justification for why they are actually present at all.  Heitz swiftly kills characters that have become redundant, but still too many remain.

Once door X is open, you get some kind of Hunger Games on your plate, but the question where it all leads to, remains mostly unanswered. The complexity and intrigue never exceed the level of a children’s book (while many children’s books have better plots). The large amount of running around and being chased will certainly appeal to readers who like action, but it doesn’t hide the fact that not a lot happens and coherence is missing. Some choices the author made never get explained, there are many loose ends left, and the author’s attempt to mingle suspense genres unfortunately fails. I have never been disappointed in a book by Heitz before, but this one was a major disillusion. I have no desire at all to read any of the other two books.

I'm so glad my wish was fulfill and that I received this book. I jump into it as soon as I got it and I just finish it. It was awesome. The premise of this trilogy is fascinating and after the second one I think I understand a bit more of what is going on but I'm really curious to see what the third one will bring. I'm also a bit unsure if I read them in the right order of if there is a "best" way to read them... Anyway this series is awesome, cool and original you should really look into it!!