Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths ReviewsThe Gilded Chain begins the six book series The King’s Blades by Dave Duncan. (If one includes the companion young adult trilogy The King’s Daggers, then there are nine novels in this fantasy world.) The unique thing about The King’s Blades series is that...
The Riddle of the Goddess Wallie Smith had been dying on another world when the Goddess transferred his mind to the body of the barbarian swordsman Shonsu. Then She gave him the great, magical Sapphire Sword of Chioxin and sent him on a mission. All he had to do was to lead the arrogant band of...
Лира Принт реши да издаде четирилогията "Мъж на честта" в три книги. Прочетох първите две през (брех) 2005 г. и отдавна беше престанало да ми пука кога ще издадат третата. Но когато все пак го направиха през тази година, в духа на носталгията си купих и нея.Всъщност за мен "Мъж на честта" е една ...
Originally published on my blog here in February 2000.The culmination of Duncan's Great Game trilogy, Future Indefinite tells how Edward Exeter does what he has been prophesied as doing, what he has vowed never to do: challenging the god of death himself. This leads his friends to believe that he...
Review circa 2008 Tempted though I was to start this review by anointing The Alchemist's Apprentice my favorite fantasy novel yet, I don't think I can actually do that. For one thing, there are about 35 other Duncan fantasy novels with claim to that title. Duncan keeps getting better and better, ...
Voici enfin le dernier tome des Lames du Roi, trilogie qui nous est décrite par l’éditeur français comme le sommet du talent de l’auteur, Dave Duncan. Chacun des tomes peut être lu de manière totalement indépendante des autres. Toutefois, comme on le verra ci-après, la lecture d’Un Ciel d’Epées o...
This was a book I nabbed from a Humble Bundle long ago and forgot about. One day I dug it up and started reading, not knowing what to expect. I would say I was pleasantly surprised.This is a portal fantasy from the 80s about an engineer named Wallie Smith who is killed by encephalitis. At the tim...
Alya's hunches were never wrong. So the scientists of 4-I were happy to promise her a place in the next offworld colonization team if she agreed to assess the potential of the latest worlds they had discovered. Then she met Cedric, the grandson of 4-I's brilliant and tyrannical director, and for ...
Ah, the end of the King's Blade trilogy. I am truly saddened for it was a fantastic whirlwind of fun, and even learning! Duncan has singlehandedly taught me many new words. I mean, one or two words I don’t recognize in a book is normal, but 6 or 7 per is an experience I haven’t had since I was a ...
The past fifteen years have not been kind to Celebre, the greatest city on the Florengian face of a dodecahedral world. Its walls have been breached and its Doge humiliated by the evil Bloodlord Stralg; all four of its heirs kidnapped and taken over the Edge to Vigaelia; its Dogaressa forcibly im...
[7/10]In this Seventh Sword sequel, the swordsman is no longer 'reluctant' - Wally Smith refers to himself as Shonsu and he has accepted the role of Goddess Champion, even if he (and the reader) is still clueless about what the mission is actually about. All he has is a 'gnomic utterance': a puzz...
He had traveled the far south and seen devastation wrought by dragons. For so young a man, he had visited an incredible list of places. He had been to Faerie itself, bathing on its golden beaches, paying a silver penny for a ride on a hippogryff. He had met gnomes and dwarves and elves. He had ha...
Set on a distant planet, far in the future, West of January tells the story of a world in which time moves very slowly. Because it takes a lifetime for each region of the planet to experience dawn, midday and dusk, the planet's population does not remember the catastrophes that occur as the sun m...
The power-mad dwarf-sorcerer Zinixo had driven Emshandar V from his throne. He had shattered the ancient Protocol that kept tenuous peace among Pandemia's warlocks. And his conquest had only begun.Somehow the deposed Imperor had escaped his clutches -- so far -- but Shandie would soon be found. T...
Zinixo, the Almighty, may have overthrown the Impire and crowned himself, but there was revolt in the land. Next to Zinixo's, their forces were paltry, but each rebel leader carried the flame of freedom and was willing to go through any trial to save his people and his land....
A blizzard savaged the mountain peaks, but at an inn called the Hunters' Haunt, travelers found safe refuge, a cozy room, and a roaring fire. All but Omar, the Trader of Tales -- against whom the innkeeper had been nursing a grudge. But before he could pitch Omar out into the storm, his other gue...
Disclaimer: This isnt as much a review of the book as it is a report on my enjoyment of the book, and its probably more useful as a way to check on my tastes and quirks than to decide whether to read the book[return][return]It's terribly hard to write a book and I am conscious I couldn't even wri...
The legendary Maestro Nostradamus may be able to glimpse the ever-changing future, but even he cannot see the danger that is about to envelop him and his daring apprentice Alfeo when Nostradamus is hired to find a foreign spy by Venice's ruling Council of Ten. The only clues they can offer him ar...
“YOU MEAN THAT wasn’t just a sim, sir?” Vaun stares back wide-eyed, listening to crashing sounds from the woods. Tham chuckles. “No. And there are worse things around than that. Don’t worry, they’re kept pretty much under control.” “By who, sir?” Vaun peers around at the soggy darkness of the j...
Hard boards. Head hurt, oh Goddess did it hurt! Rocking. Voices. His head, his head! What was happening? Spinning… why was the World spinning? Dark. Awful stink. Oh, his head! Spinning. Nausea, need to up-chuck. Voices. Creaking, splashing. Where was he? What had happened? Going to buy boots with...
One of the bathers shot up out of the water like a dolphin. Instead of falling back, he began running over the surface toward the visitors. Rigel’s mind instinctively rejected the image. He looked away, but the scenery seemed as far-fetched and unrealistic as a child’s drawing. The grass was too ...
The crew commandeered a covered litter for her, and she made her way home to Sebrat House unrecognized until Edziza opened the door. News of the great victory had preceded her, so the first inquiries were about Podakan. “No news yet,” she said. “But I am far from giving up...
The following terms shall apply in these regulations and any subsequent amendments thereto. 001.095 master means the person in charge of a landing vehicle engaged in exploratory operations. 035.08 Notwithstanding anything else in these regulations, from the moment a landing vehicle disengages...
Below them, straight as an arrow, the Great East Way ran onward to the horizon, pointing the way to Hub. It was the most welcome sight Shandie had seen in months. The horse's hard muscles moved smoothly between his legs, iron shoes rang on the stones, and the wind cooled his face. At the end of t...
I was surprised, too, although I should have been forewarned by the witless expressions on the faces of the twins, Corrado and Christoforo, who were lurking in the salone outside the atelier door. To start with, Nostradamus was on the wrong side of the fireplace, sitting very upright in one of th...
