Dave Duncan

Taken to a hospital Wallie Smith regains consciousness only to learn he has been mysteriously transported to a magical world and the body of a barbarian swordsman

The Reluctant Swordsman

When the Goddess transfers the mind of dying Wallie Smith into the body of the barbarian swordsman Shonsu and gives him the magical Saphire Sword of Chioxin, he must battle the sorcerers and their Fire God, forgetting past defeats.

The Destiny of the Sword

Rescued by the Goddess and endowed with a warrior's body, Wallie Smith is called upon to battle the Fire God's land-claiming sorcerers, but his magic sword may have met its match

The Coming of Wisdom

When her idyllic life in her father's kingdom is disrupted by the appearance of a god strongly advising that she wed soon, Princess Inos leaves her friend, Rap, exiling herself to the Impire where she begins her training for marriage.

Magic Casement

"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 Firstborn--he who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learned--knows 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..."--Amazon.com.

Portal of a Thousand Worlds

On a dodecahedral world in thrall to the tyrannical, war-obsessed Hrag dynasty, no one could stop the Bloodlord from sending troops to Florengia, invading its major cities, and offering them a choice between strict colonial rule or immediate and total destruction. When the doge of Celebre was faced with this ultimatum, he gave his children up as hostages so that the rest of Celebre might live. Thus the four young Florengians were taken back over the Edge and scattered across the Vigaelian face. Fifteen years later, when Celebre suddenly takes on crucial political significance, one of the siblings must return home to serve as Celebre's puppet ruler and the others must be eliminated so that there are no rival claimants to the throne. It's going to be tough enough finding each other, let alone deciding whether enough kinship remains after fifteen years apart that the siblings care enough to help each other out of their respective predicaments. If they're feeling particularly altruistic, the Celebres might even take on the bonus round: trying to save Dodec from the culture of death and war imposed on it by its evil warlords. One thing's for certain: the Celebre children are going to have a lot of adjusting to do . . Children of Chaos is the start of a stirring, politically-charged quest duology by acclaimed fantasy author Dave Duncan.

Children of Chaos

As unwanted and rebellious boys, they find refuge in Ironhall....Years later they emerge as the finest swordsmen in the realm—A magical ritual of a sword through the heart binds each to his ward—if not the king himself, then to whomever else the monarch designates—with absolute loyalty.And the greatest Blade of them all was—and is—Sir Durendal. But a lifelong dream of protecting his beloved liege from enemies, traitors, and monsters is dashed to bits when Durendal is bonded till death to an effete noble fop at his king's orders. Yet Destiny has many strange and inscrutable plans for the young knight—for a mission, a contest, and, perhaps, a treasure await him in a faraway land. But he soon finds himself enmeshed in treason and foul intrigues, compelled to betray the king he had hoped to serve. The Blades have ways to protect their own, but death and madness haunt the path to salvation—and few ever return unscathed. As unwanted and rebellious boys, they find refuge in Ironhall....Years later they emerge as the finest swordsmen in the realm—A magical ritual of a sword through the heart binds each to his ward—if not the king himself, then to whomever else the monarch designates—with absolute loyalty. And the greatest Blade of them all was—and is—Sir Durendal. But a lifelong dream of protcting his beloved liege from enemies, traitors, and monsters is dashed to bits when Durendal is bonded till death to an effete noble fop at his king's orders. Yet Destiny has many strange and inscrutable plans for the young knight—for a mission, a contest, and, perhaps, a treasure await him in a faraway land. But he soon finds himself enmeshed in treasonand foul intrigues, compelled to betray the king he had hoped to serve. The Blades have ways to protect their own, but death and madness haunt the path to salvation—and few ever return unscathed.

A Tale of the King's Blades

The Gilded Chain:

In this masterful sword-and-sorcery epic, “Duncan has created strong and moving characters . . . and a world as rich and layered as our own” (Iceberg Ink). For fifteen years, the truce has held. Swordsmen of the Tryst of Casr have kept the peace and extended the rule of law over half the world, but now sorcerers have started killing swordsmen again, and swordsmen traitors are aiding them. Shonsu—who was Wallie Smith before he became a swordsman of the seventh rank and liege lord of the Tryst—must once more gird on the seventh sword of Chioxin, and this time he rides out to fight the war that he hoped would never come. As he leads his army forth, its two most junior members are Vixini, son of Shonsu, and Addis, son of Nnanji, who has an oath of vengeance to fulfill. Their failure or success will determine the fate of the world for the next thousand years.

The Death of Nnanji

Queen Inos was badly shaken. Loyal, trustworthy Rap, who was supposed to have died, appeared to her. With this as a sign, Inos knew that she would serve her people, no matter what. But Rap was alive, and he would do whatever he could to help, even as his life took a turn for the worse....

Perilous Seas

Rigel has always known he is not quite human, but the only clue to his origin is the otherworldly bracelet he has worn since childhood. His search for his parentage leads him to the Starlands, where reality and fantasy have changed places. There he learns that he is a human-starborn cross, and his bracelet is the legendary magical amulet Saiph, which makes its wearer an unbeatable swordsman. Fighting off monsters, battling a gang of assassins seeking to kill him, Rigel finds honorable employment as a hero. He knows that he must die very soon if he remains in the Starlands, but he has fallen hopelessly in love with a princess and cannot abandon her. Through the imaginative landscape of the Starlands, Rigel s quest leads him to encounter minotaurs, sphinxes, cyclops, and more fearsome creatures in Dave Duncan s latest fantasy series."

King of Swords

After defying the king they are sworn to protect, Raider and Wasp quickly find themselves hunted by their former colleagues, elite "Blades" who serve as loyal bodyguards to the crown. Reprint.

Lord of the Fire Lands:

***A FINALIST FOR THE 2018 ENDEAVOUR AWARD***/b> A lowly enchanter finds himself entangled in a plot to assassinate the king in a new historical fantasy series set in twelfth century England. Medieval magic, murder, and mayhem! It is 1164, and for a hundred years England has been ruled by the Normans. A young Saxon boy named Durwin, crippled by a childhood accident, had caught the eye of a Norman sage teaching at a rural school of magic. Realizing that the boy had promise, Durwin was made stable boy, and eventually allowed to attend classes. Now twenty, Durwin is proficient enough that he is assigned to teach, but the other sages refuse to promote him and he is hassled by the Norman juniors for his disability. But those troubles turn out to be the least of his worries when he manages to corrects errors in an ancient corrupted spell, which promptly prophesies murder. Sure enough, word soon reaches the school that one of the local count’s house sages has died, perhaps slain by black magic. Durwin is whisked away to the family’s castle, only to find that one death was only the beginning. The young sage quickly learns of a dizzying plot to assassinate King Henry. Dropped into the middle of the complex politics of England’s royal courts, can Durwin stop them in time?

The Enchanter General, Book One

Ironfoot

A princess and a stableboy? It sounds like the worst sort of hackneyed formula romance. Think again, for A Man of His Word may well be the most original fantasy you ever read. The magic is unique and applied in unexpected ways, some of which the late Lester del Rey admitted he had not met in fifty years as writer and editor. The world itself is unique--there are no humans in Pandemia, only imps, elves, gnomes, jotnar, and many more, all of whom you will recognize as human. When Inos was abducted through the magic casement and Rap tried to follow her, they arrived in places very strange--and very far apart...

Faery Lands Forlorn

West of January

"It is Midsummer Day, the beginning of the year 700, in the city of Benign. All the children born in the year 684 celebrate their joint sixteenth birthday by passing in front of the statue of the blind goddess Caprice--but only one will become the Chosen and join the Seventy who govern and guide the city. Much to her surprise, Irona Matrinko, one of the many children of an impoverished fisherman, is chosen. Irona 700 moves into the palace and, with the help of a new mentor, recognizes and cultivates her great talent for guiding wars: strategy and tactics, leadership and inspiration"--Page 4 of cover.

Irona 700

The Adventures of Ivor

Siblings Rollo, Mandy, and Brat, who still follow the kingdom of Albi's old religion, the Church of the Mother, take different paths to avenge the destruction of their family home by followers of Albi's new dominant religion, the Church of the Light.

Against the Light

Foretold to help the beleaguered natives of Nextdoor overthrow their oppressive godlike rulers, Edward Exeter must destroy the god known as Zath, whose source of strength is in human sacrifice.

Future Indefinite

Cursed

In the midst of the horror of the first World War, a stranger falls from nowhere into the mud and death of the Flanders battlefield - bruised, babbling, and stark naked...with a remarkable story to tell. Welcome to the second round of The Great Game - the timeless diversion of human gods, created to relieve the tedium of immortality. A ruthless contest of treachery, magic, betrayal and manipulation - a melange of created histories, abused powers and obliterated lives - it weaves through the centuries and across the dimensions, ensnaring warriors, wastrels, kings and commoners in its lethal web. After three unaccounted years, Edward Exeter, wrongly accused murderer and fugitive from the law, has reappeared on this Earth - bearing scars and secrets from a place he calls Nextdoor. He has crossed over from a war of spears and arrows to do service in one of heavy artillery and poison gas. But powerful forces on both sides of a guarded mystical border have other plans for the young patriot. And there are ancient prophecies to be fulfilled. For, in a very different realm of godly intrigues, Exeter is Liberator - the one who is to "bring death to Death." It is a prophecy Edward wants no part of - as, in the company of loyal comrades, he races across a bomb-ravaged Britain, fleeing murderous pursuers from two separate worlds.

Dave Duncan

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