Ill Met in the Arena [Hardcover]

This is a fast-paced, adventure-filled, fantasy with a revenge plot. Quirt finds himself back in the arena where young men compete using their psychic powers, moving objects and porting themselves in contests of strength and skill (and sometimes danger and death). The youths who participate in these gladiatorial-type games are high-caste/nobles who hope to gain attention and find a good match in this matriarchal country of Aureity. Quirt is a good ten years older, but powerful back in his time, and now very experienced. He's out to trap the man who raped and left his mother lost in madness--his father.

Quirt's story is fascinating. His efforts to bring a killer to justice are more difficult than they should be in a society where women rule by psychic abilities that supposedly make it impossible for killers or psychopaths to remain in any high position--proving that while magic may make it harder to murder and deceive, it all depends on humans who are fallible; whether the supposedly more brutish and less civilized men (whose powers are those of strength, speed and teleporting) or women (detecting lies, able to read minds, cast illusions), who are viewed as rulers who can keep violence and wars and criminality from occurring.

The culture is interesting, with its strict castes and politics and magic and views on men and women. The battles in the arena are exciting and suspenseful. I wish the thoughts and feelings and relationships between the characters were elaborated a bit more. The pace was nice and fast, but I wouldn't have minded a bit more about all the characters. The relationship between Quirt and the very arrogant, powerful, young contestant, Humate, was fascinating... and I'd loved to have seen it developed a bit more in the book. But if you're more into the action and the plot, there's enough here to satisfy. This is a stand-alone that has innovative world-building and action and adventure, with an exiting and moving and intricate plot that nicely wraps up with a grand climax. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Dave Duncan is a master at creating new worlds, each with an internally consistent social structure and system of magic. In "Ill Met in the Arena," Duncan creates a world where psychic (male) gladiators battle for rank and status, while women pull the strings. Duncan creates suspense in small encounters (individual battles in the arena) and large (the protagonist is psychically bound to revenge a great wrong done to his family). As a loyal Duncan reader, this book reminds me most of the "Children of Chaos" series. This is a fast-paced blend of action, mystery, and fantasy, and blessedly (compared to the Robert Jordan School of never-ending books) the story wraps up in one volume!

This is a fast-moving tale that was tough for me to put down, and I've been reading sci-fi and fantasy for a long time.

Duncan tells this story in the first person. That approach is very tough to sustain for an author but, when it is done well as is the case here, it produces a very immersive and suspenseful story.

The author weaves the story amidst a complex society built on some very fresh premises of psychic power along gender and genealogical lines. Psychically gifted men can teleport and lift objects, while the women can remotely communicate, and can read the minds and control the bodies of those they touch. The strongest men can teleport the furthest and lift the heaviest, and the women similarly.

The story itself is one of redemption and vengence, but is freshly told becauzse it is simultaneously a murder mystery and a coming of age story. The action scenes in the arena are riveting, and the combats outside the arena are even better.

Best of all for me, was that the ending was very satisfying.