Dave Duncan recently passed away, which made me very sad. In honor of him, I decided I would reread this series, as I think it is the only one of his older series's that I have not reread, mostly because this one is so memorable (whereas typically I forget a lot of what I read). The magic system, and even the plot, in this series, is one of the most clever I have ever read. Granted as the first book in the series, this book is mostly setup for the rest of the story, so I feel bad for the other reviewers who gave up on it, but I can kind of understand their frustration.

To add to my enjoyment I am reading/listening to a biography on Winston Churchill which takes place in the same time and place as our main character Edward Exeter. Leaves me wondering if Churchill was actually a stranger... ;) ( )

Enough fun here that I am on to [b:Present Tense|57686|Present Tense (Great Game, #2)|Dave Duncan|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1170476056s/57686.jpg|1738748]. ( )

  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: Past Imperative Series: The Great Game Author: Dave Duncan Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 444     Synopsis: One young man, by name of Edward, gets mixed up in a prophecy from another world, learns that his father and mother are from there, goes to the other world, meets with a young actress, who is also in prophecy and basically is the pawn of the gods of that world.   Thing is, Edward hates God, all gods and every form of institutionalized religion. And now,in this other world, he has the power to be a god. Will he survive, take his place in the pantheon or try to destroy the existing order?   My Thoughts: Slow. This starts out very slow, with a story in our world following Edward and another story in World2 about Eleal, the little cripple actress. Each storyline takes its time to grow and mature, allowing us to see what makes the characters tick and just to see the worlds as they are. They converge probably at the 75% mark and things actually start to happen then.   Sometimes a "slow" book doesn't work for me. I want to rush in, growl, shake the plot like a rat and then rush off again. However, just like in his King's Blades  books, Duncan is a consummate writer and I was glad to take it slow. It was nice to mosey along with the characters and not feel impatient to get to the end.   Edward is a stupid, honor ridden, young english chap, so that got annoying. But he was very well balanced out by Eleal, a curious 12 year old girl who gets into trouble and eavesdrops at the drop of a hat.   A very different book, in terms of plot, from his King's Blades books but enjoyable nonetheless. Looking forward to the rest of this trilogy. " ( )

I've had this book for at least 10 years. It looked like fantasy but not the standard elves and dwarves Tolkien ripoff and that intrigued me. Obviously it didn't intrigue me enough because I never got around to it until I found it on Amazon in audio as part of the all-u-can-read buffet program (can't remember what it's called). I didn't know ANYTHING about the book when I started (because I usually like to be surprised). It was decent but not great for me. It definitely was NOT a Tolkien ripoff but I can't say that it really grabbed me.

It seemed to be too long for the number of things that actually happened. It really is just the first 3rd of a trilogy and its length makes me not want to invest the time to read the other two. There is intrigue with many factions but not many answers as to who the good guys are. There's some action but not a lot. There's lots of talk about gods and one or two actually show up. Wingless "dragons" are used like horses. BUT none of this really peaked my interest. Maybe I'm just old and jaded. I probably would have loved this when I young and I definitely would have finished it but now that I have less time to read I find myself less willing to use that time to read books I'm lukewarm about. ( )