This image is the cover for the book Great Game, The Great Game

Great Game, The Great Game

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

Dave Duncan

Dave Duncan (1933–2018) was born in Scotland, and received his diploma from Dundee High School and got his college education at the University of Saint Andrews. He moved to Canada in 1955, where he lived with his wife. Duncan spent thirty years as a petroleum geologist. He has had dozens of fantasy and science fiction novels published, among them A Rose-Red City, Magic Casement, and The Reaver Road, as well as a highly praised historical novel, Daughter of Troy, published, for commercial reasons, under the pseudonym Sarah B. Franklin. He also published the Longdirk series of novels, Demon Sword, Demon Knight, and Demon Rider, under the name Ken Hood.
 
In the fall of 2007, Duncan’s 2006 novel, Children of Chaos, published by Tor Books, was nominated for both the Prix Aurora Award and the Endeavour Award. In May 2013, Duncan, a 1989 founding member of SFCanada, was honored by election as a lifetime member by his fellow writers, editors, and academics. He passed away in 2018. Visit https://www.daveduncanauthor.com/ for more information on the author.

Open Road Integrated Media