Stricken Field

"The Stricken Field" is the third volume of "A handful of men" which is iself the second of two marvellous fantasy quartets. (Hence this is the penultimate volume in a series of eight books if you take the two quartets together.) "A handful of men" is a direct sequel to Duncan's quartet "A man of his word" and is set about 15 years after the last book of that quartet. The full sequence of eight books is: A MAN OF HIS WORD 1) The Magic Casement 2) Faery Lands Forlorn 3) Perilous Seas 4) Emperor and Clown A HANDFUL OF MEN 5) The Cutting Edge 6) Upland Outlaws 7) The Stricken Field 8) The Living God Each quartet is a full and self-contained story, but in my opinion the eight books work best when read in sequence. The titles of the four volumes of "A handful of men" are taken from Masefield's poem, "Tomorrow." The lines which inspire the titles are "Oh yesterday the cutting edge drank thirstily and deep, the upland outlaws ringed us in and herded us as sheep, they drove us from the stricken field and bayed us into keep, But tomorow by the living God, we'll try the game again!" At the start of "The Stricken Field", Emshandir V has been effectively deposed as Emperor: the ordinary people don't realise this, but all the world's magic users, most of whom have been enslaved, certainly do. The dwarf sorceror, Zinixio, has formed a coalition of wizards known as "The Covin" who are magically compelled to serve him, and proclaimed himself the Almighty. The Emperor's cousin, Emthoro, sits on the Imperor's throne, disguised to look like Emshandir, but he is Zinixio's puppet. The deposed Emperor, King Rap of Krasnegar, and Zinixio's warlock uncle Raspnex are still fighting against the power of the covin, but their position is desperate. Meanwhile Zinixio deliberately provokes the worst war for thousands of years, as both dragons and all the other races of men rise against the Empire of the Imps: his plan being to destroy them all to consolidate his power. Meanwhile Rap's wife Queen Inos and their children face deprivation and danger as they march with the globlin and dwarvish armies. Superb adventure in a consistent and very clever fantasy world: strongly recommended.

Reviews are usually produced by a strong reaction to a book, either positive or negative, so to say that "The Stricken Field" is a powerful book in a dynamic series is still to state the obvious. It would be likewise obvious to mention that "Stricken Field" is actually part of a series, except that it might not be obvious that it is actually Book 7. Dave Duncan began this tale in the 4-book series "A Man of His Word", where he made every word count, every character real, and every incident matter. Duncan is a wordsmith, who savors his story, and treats his reader with honesty -- that means at times things don't go along storybook lines, and the gritty truth must be faced. The realism of Duncan's fantasy makes it far more satisfying than any other fantasy series I have read. The only books that approach his are Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion series and David Eddings' Belgariad -- and Duncan outshines them all. More than that, Duncan did not sell-out, as did Eddings, in writing his second part to the series: "A Handful of Men" is equal to the preceding four books, and takes us farther yet into a world we love and fear, and hate to leave. Read all eight books.

This book picks up where Upland Outlaws left off. We see Garth's progression, as well as Rap's now essentially mudane plotting against Zinixo coming to a head. Duncan's writing is, as usual, superb; the way that he ties in his plots with classical literary quotes brings a delightful sense of continuity to each chapter. Only the fact that this book set owes so much to the first keeps it from being five stars.