In a place called Nextdoor--the farthest flung outpost of British imperialism--earthborn mortals possess the power of gods. Young Englishman 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...

The Great Game of Gods is afoot in a world on the brink of madness . . . In the summer of 1914, a young man of reputation beyond reproach awakens under police guard-grievously injured and accused of heinous, impossible murder. And in a strange, distant place, the youngest member of a penniless acting troupe has been taken prisoner by the loyal minions of a corrupt, vengeful goddess. For an ancient prophecy has divided the realm's ruling deities into warring factions-a prophecy that mentions the crippled captive child and a youth recovering from inexplicable wounds in a British hospital bed....

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. Dave Duncan, born in Scotland in 1933, is a Canadian citizen. He 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 still...