Bøker av Dave Duncan

When one life ends, another begins.After forty years as the village school teacher in the idyllic valley of Greenbottom, Agatha is looking forward to a quiet retirement. Instead, an enigmatic stranger arrives to drag her through a long-closed portal to another world.Confronted with a completely foreign culture steeped in magic and violence, Agatha finds herself a crucial pawn being played between rival factions. The only way forward through the rigid traditions and convoluted politics of the Archons of Otopia is to remain true to herself and her Greenbottom ideals.

"They know the world is dying, but they hope not in their lifetimes. Meanwhile, they're top dogs and will do anything to stay that way."Doig Gray is fifteen when his father is killed in a mining accident, which Doig comes to realizes was no accident. Torn from his mother and sister, Doig is sent off to college, his every movement monitored in case he has inherited his dissident father's unacceptable attitudes . . . or passwords. Doig has nothing but his own sense that there's something desperately wrong with the world-and a last name that evokes the assumption that he's destined to be the next traitor-hero.The Traitor's Son is a science fiction novel about a colony world where everything that could go wrong already has. Stuck on the wrong world at the wrong site, with the wrong leaders, the colony is doomed to extinction unless immediate steps are taken to correct-everything. But 500 years of hiding from the reality of their situation has created an unchallengeable status quo-and the Accident Squad, determined to ensure it remains that way.The Traitor's Son is a fast-paced SF adventure in the best tradition of Duncan's Hero, West of January, and Eocene Station.

The mightiest swordsmen in the relm, are bound by magic to defend their noble wards...to the death.The King's Blades The unloved child of the unscrupulous King Ambrose,Princess Malinda learned at an early age to fight for what was rightfully hers. Now, with the Kings abrupt death, civil war has become her grim destiny. Making her uncertain way through the blood labyrinth of schemesand betrayals, Malinda can trust none but the Blades of the Royal Guard. But the Blades themselves are in grave peril. And the young Queen faces the most crucialdecision of her life: a choice that will either redeem her kingdom from chaos...or bring ultimate destruction down upon it, her Blades, and herself.

The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy. Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth centuryan Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion erawith a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled years in the Good Land. Ten centuries have passed since the last time the Portal of a Thousand Worlds opened, bringing chaos, upheaval, and radical change to the then-ruling dynasty, and now the mystical gateway is rumored to be on the verge of opening once more. Only the Firstbornhe who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learnedknows what the future holds, but he has been imprisoned for refusing to comply with a repressive imperial government's wishes. Now, those hoping to seize the opportunity for wealth and position are hatching sinister plots. And as the cold-hearted dowager empress closely guards a fateful secret, and a rebel army led by a fanatical zealot gathers strength under the Bamboo Banner, the cataclysm approaches.... The recipient of two Aurora Awards and numerous Locus and Endeavour Award nominations, Dave Duncan is an acknowledged master of sword-and-sorcery adventure on par with George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. A sprawling epic with a colorful cast of royals, thieves, prostitutes, gods, warriors, dragons, assassins, merchants, and mages set against the backdrop of a volatile alternate Asia, Portal of a Thousand Worlds is a magnificent work of invention from one of the premier fantasists of our day.

As WWI rages on, two immortal enemies engage in a war between alternate worlds in book two of this epic fantasy series. In the midst of the horror of the First World War, a stranger falls from nowhere into the mud and death of Flanders battlefieldbruised, babbling, and stark naked . . . with a remarkable story to tell. The Great Gamethe timeless diversion of human gods, a ruthless contest of treachery, magic, betrayal, and manipulation, created to relieve the tedium of immortalitygoes on.

The ';tightly written, intelligent, and original' fantasy epic of interdimensional war comes to ';a decisive and satisfactory end' (Booklist). In a place called Nextdoorthe farthest flung outpost of British imperialismearthborn mortals possess the power of gods. Young Englishman Edward Exeter has spent five years trying to escape the magnetic and powerfully magical pull of the Great Game, which has designated him as its most important player. But war and bloodthirsty intrigue rage on both sides of magical portals and across worlds, and Exeter can resist his destiny no longer. He accepts the mantle of Liberator that has been thrust upon him, and the decision turns old friends into foes and old enemies into acolytes as he is surrounded by murderous plots and betrayals. But this is not the uninformed Edward Exeter who came naked into this hidden realm years ago. He has lived the Game and learned it welland he intends to play it boldly to its shocking, worlds shattering conclusion.

A sword-and-sorcery classic from the Aurora Awardwinning author of the King's Blades series. Wally Smith, having died on Earth, finds himself reincarnated as a swordsman in another world and entrusted by the presiding goddess with a mission that has no appeal for him at all. Can he bring together all the swordsmen to finally defeat the sorcerors and their terrible technology? Wally is not quite convinced he should, but goddesses can be very persuasive . . .This is the third and final exciting book, afterThe Reluctant SwordsmanandThe Coming of Wisdom, in the Seventh Sword Trilogy.

A barbarian warrior faces the forces of the Fire God in this thrilling adventure from the acclaimed author of Children of Chaos. Wallie Smith is staring death in the face; only a miracle can save him. And then one does! The Goddess appears to preserve his soul, but she does much more than that. She promises to bestow upon him a new and powerful body, and, more important, to endow him with the fabled Sapphire Sword of Chioxin. But nothing in this world or any other comes without a price. The Goddess demands that, for her services, Wallie become her champion. It will be an honor to serve such a presence, to have the chance to be victorious over all challengers. But Wallie and his sword quickly find themselves outmatched in a world of high stakes magic. Even the Goddess's priests cannot offer any resistance to the invading sorcerers and their quest to conquer souls for the Fire God. Wallie will need to find in himself and in the world the powers that will save all mortals. He will need to find the Coming of Wisdom.