Present Tense: Round Two of the Great Game

Oh man. This series is SO '90s fantasy -- complete with the evil degenerate queer men (but more than one queer man, and at least two of them are bi, so there is that?) and the colonialism and the rape -- plus some weirdness all its own (the main pairing of the entire series is between first cousins who were raised as brother and sister, so, uh, yeah). And yet the worldbuilding is so spectacular that I do not care at all. And it's *religious* worldbuilding, so I am triply overjoyed.

Would I love this series as much if I read it for the first time now? Maybe not. But I would still love it, because at heart I am just a complete sucker for this stuff. And when I first read it, it was pure joy. Still can't put it down.

(However, this is one show more of those series I love but recommend to no one.) show less

Edward Exeter returns from a three-year stint in the magical, alternate dimension of Nextdoor to a WWI battlefield. As the prophesied liberator, Edward is hunted by magical forces and faces destiny in a high-stakes, interdimensional war.

He escapes Nextdoor, a world of ancient magic, and finds himself in another dangerous conflict in our world: the First World War. He is hunted by powerful factions known as the Service and the Chamber, part of the Great Game, a manipulative war played by immortals for their entertainment.

Exeter is marked as the Liberator destined to bring death to Death, a role he reluctantly accepts while trying to survive.

  This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com by express permission of this reviewer.   Title: Present Tense Series: The Great Game Author: Dave Duncan Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 418     Synopsis: Edward comes back to our world, after 3 years in Next Door. Only now, because of his acceptance of the Filoby Testament, he is in greater danger here than he ever was over in Next Door. So his friends convince him to go back. While planning out the steps for returning to Next Door, Edward show more tells them about the last 3 years and what has transpired.   My Thoughts: This time around, the story was all about Edward. There was no Eleal or other secondary character. One storyline was about him in England, the other about him in Next Door.   This was a good solid read. Duncan knows how to spin a tale that is engaging but without a lot of wind and bluster. Nor do you get your heart rate up by screaming at the idiotic characters. Can't stand that when an author does that and thankfully Duncan stays away from it.   The ideas of Free Will & Pre-Destination are mentioned, but they aren't really explored. Edward, his father and others, have all tried to break the Filoby Testament and have only made it happen and in the end of the book Edward seems to have basically given up and just accepted that what it says will happen. The whole FreeWill/Pre-Destination debate has been going on for Millenia, so I didn't expect Duncan to solve it, but I guess I was expecting a little more philosophizing about it.   Finally, and most importantly. absolutely nothing Nacreous ever showed up. I was pleased. " show less

This series just gets better and better! Subtle, intelligent, as broad as it is deep.

This installment in the series was Kind of like a long road trip from the west coast where exciting stuff happens in California and then in Nevada or Arizona or Colorado and then eventually you get to someplace that's all grasslands and strip malls / I will be heading on to book three but there were some doldrums here in book two for me.