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| Ill Met in the Arena | 
 enlarge | Author: Dave Duncan
Publisher: Tor Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $9.54
You Save: $15.41 (62%)
New (40) Used (12) from $8.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 348011
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 0765316870
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780765316875
ASIN: 0765316870
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The nobles of Aureity have been breeding their children for psychic powers for generations. Women’s powers are mental, including psychic control and mind-reading, making them ideal rulers. Men have superhuman strength and can teleport to any place they have previously visited. Consequently, young noblemen make their fortune by competing in psychic gladiatorial contests to display their powers in the hope of being hired—and married—by women of high rank.
When Quirt, an older man with obvious skill but little known record, first enters the arena, the combat circuit is abuzz wondering who he might be. But his mystery is almost eclipsed by the young cub who has been entering competitions anonymously and winning them all. Barely in his teens, full of raw power but short on training or patience, Humate is so horrified when he’s bested by Quirt that he insists on finding out where he came from.
Unfortunately for Humate, the answer reaches far beyond his birth: back to the terrible wrongs done to Quirt’s mother and his new wife by one of Humate’s relatives, and back to Quirt’s sentencing, a doom which takes away his identity until he can bring the culprit to justice. Humate is in deep denial about this familial scandal generations deep, but Quirt must try to covince him to help, compelled by his doom and by the stirrings of a new love that cannot possibly be realized in his nameless condition.
No one ever said revenge was going to be easy.
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| Customer Reviews:
Magical battles in the arena; murder and revenge... September 9, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
engaging investigative fantasy August 20, 2008
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
On Aureity, the female aristocracy breeds men for their brawn including teleportation and women for their brains including mind reading and psychic control. As a side consequence of all this extrasensory breeding, murder and rape are extremely rare.
Thus when Mandragora was killed by unknown adversary, her loyal male gladiator Mudar took the affront personalyl as he should have kept her safe. Humiliated by his failure Mudar vows to avenge her death; by exposing the Enemy once he learns who he is. However, clues lead the amateur sleuth to his father, Piese, who murdered Mandragora to silence her as she named him a rapist. Meanwhile Mudar's half-brother Humate, who is successful in the arena, refuses to believe their sire is a rapist killer; instead he plans to wed Mudar's beloved Tendence once he defeats the ancient unknown upstart Quirt in the arena; but he will be stunned by his opponent's identity.
The feminist preeminence makes for an intriguing world in which an aging antihero looks out at the testosterone warrior segment of the culture with disdain though he is a product of it. The culture comes across as a rigid caste system (India meets Rome), which is why Mudar is in a form of exile unless he can find the culprit and bring the person to justice. One must wonder who sweeps up the messes left behind by the aristocracy. Although the climax seems obvious, fans will appreciate this engaging investigative fantasy as Dave Duncan proves quite a world-builder
Harriet Klausner
 A rare misstep September 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dave Duncan seems to have put a great deal of thought into creating the world - its politics, calendar, measurement systems, and the like. Unfortunately he did not spend as much time on the plot or characters. This is a serviceable (if thin) book and not a bad read, but well below his usual standards.
 Great tale! October 4, 2008
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.
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