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Dave Duncan

The complete WWI alternate reality trilogy, featuring a realm where humans can be gods, and an Englishman is called to be a liberator.

Past Imperative

 In the summer of 1914, Edward Exeter, a young English gentleman, awakens under police guard—grievously injured and wrongly accused of his friend’s murder. Meanwhile, the youngest member of a penniless acting troupe has been taken prisoner by loyal minions of a corrupt, vengeful goddess in the alternate realm of Nextdoor. The two are part of an ancient prophecy in Nextdoor that has divided the realm’s ruling deities into warring factions. It’s all a game—a deadly contest of skill and manipulations that ruthlessly creates wizards, destroys human pawns, and transforms ordinary men, women, and children into something more . . . 

Present Tense

 In the midst of the horror of the First World War, a stranger falls from nowhere into the mud and death of Flanders battlefield—bruised, babbling, and stark naked . . . with a remarkable story to tell. The Great Game—the timeless diversion of human gods, a ruthless contest of treachery, magic, betrayal, and manipulation, created to relieve the tedium of immortality—goes on . . . 

Future Indefinite

 Young 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 well—and he intends to play it boldly to its shocking, worlds‑shattering conclusion . . . 

Praise for The Great Game trilogy

“Duncan has a wonderful knack of conjuring up wacky scenarios and making them believable and fascinating.” —Kirkus Reviews on Past Imperative 

“It features gritty, well-developed characters, several of whom change and grow believably in the course of the book.” —Publishers Weekly on Present Tense
“The conclusion of the trilogy The Great Game resembles its predecessors . . . in being tightly written, intelligent, and original.” —Booklist on Future Indefinite

Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy

The Great Game

The Great Game: The Complete Series

First in the WWI alternate reality trilogy. “Duncan has a wonderful knack of conjuring up wacky scenarios and making them believable and fascinating” (Kirkus Reviews).

The Great Game of Gods is afoot in a world on the brink of madness … In the summer of 1914, a young man of reputation beyond reproach awakens under police guard—grievously injured and accused of heinous, impossible murder. And in a strange, distant place, the youngest member of a penniless acting troupe has been taken prisoner by the loyal minions of a corrupt, vengeful goddess. For an ancient prophecy has divided the realm’s ruling deities into warring factions—a prophecy that mentions the crippled captive child and a youth recovering from inexplicable wounds in a British hospital bed. The game weaves through worlds and dimensions as it has since time immemorial—a deadly contest of skill and manipulations that ruthlessly creates wizards, destroys human pawns, and transforms ordinary men, women, and children into something more.

Past Imperative

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 battlefield—bruised, babbling, and stark naked . . . with a remarkable story to tell. The Great Game—the timeless diversion of human gods, a ruthless contest of treachery, magic, betrayal, and manipulation, created to relieve the tedium of immortality—goes on.

Present Tense

First in the WWI alternate reality trilogy. “Duncan has a wonderful knack of conjuring up wacky scenarios and making them believable and fascinating” (Kirkus Reviews).

 The Great Game of Gods is afoot in a world on the brink of madness . . . In the summer of 1914, a young man of reputation beyond reproach awakens under police guard—grievously injured and accused of heinous, impossible murder. And in a strange, distant place, the youngest member of a penniless acting troupe has been taken prisoner by the loyal minions of a corrupt, vengeful goddess. For an ancient prophecy has divided the realm’s ruling deities into warring factions—a prophecy that mentions the crippled captive child and a youth recovering from inexplicable wounds in a British hospital bed. The game weaves through worlds and dimensions as it has since time immemorial—a deadly contest of skill and manipulations that ruthlessly creates wizards, destroys human pawns, and transforms ordinary men, women, and children into something more.

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 battlefield—bruised, babbling, and stark naked … with a remarkable story to tell. The Great Game—the timeless diversion of human gods, a ruthless contest of treachery, magic, betrayal, and manipulation, created to relieve the tedium of immortality—goes on.

The “tightly written, intelligent, and original” fantasy epic of interdimensional war comes to “a decisive and satisfactory end” (Booklist).

In a place called Nextdoor—the farthest flung outpost of British imperialism—earthborn 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 well—and he intends to play it boldly to its shocking, worlds‑shattering conclusion.