Book Review: Mother of Lies by David Duncan

I have a long commute.  One way that I pass the time is—obviously—by catching up with my Dungeon Mastering or D&D character work.  The other thing that I do a lot is read.  Last week I read three books.  My favorite was Mother of Lies by David Duncan.

Storyteller’s Playbook Official Book Review: Mother of Lies by David Duncan

David Duncan is one of my favorite pulp fantasy authors.  His stuff is consistently tight, well-plotted fiction, and for that reason it rarely disappoints.  Lies is the second of a two-book set begun with Children of Chaos, a book which for some reason the Sci Fi Channel picked as an “essential read.”  Whatever that means.  I suppose it’s a marketing gimmick, and if so then it was successful in the sense that I got the book and read it.  ‘Course I got it from my local library, so no money changed hands.  But still…

Anyway, the first book, Children of Chaos, follows the three sons and one daughter of the doge of the fabled city of Celebre after their home city’s conquest by evil invaders from hated Vigelia.  The children, then aged 2 to 11, are taken as hostages for their father’s good behavior, and wackiness ensues when the children either fall victim to the machinations of their Machiavellian captors or come under the influence of one or another of their home world’s dark, scheming deities.  Mother of Lies is thus a sequel book, picking up with the children once again united and on their way home to meet their respective destinies.

I generally don’t like end-of-the-world-type fiction, especially when it involves overt manipulation by the gods and/or the hands of Destiny, but in this case I’ll make an exception.  In Lies, Duncan takes care to establish a balanced pantheon that’s active in the world without ever becoming overt or less mysterious for their involvement—rather, I think, like the ancient Greeks would have viewed their gods’ influence on the world.  Where the Greeks saw their gods in forces of nature that were beyond their understanding, the inhabitants of Dodec, Duncan’s fantasy world, have a more personal interaction, an interaction that’s all the more mysterious for its power and its inherent lack of guidance.  The other thing that works in the series’ favor is the fact that Duncan lets the plot go completely away with him.  Mad-capped twists and turns abound in these books though the story is still miraculously readable and the interactions and motivations clear and concise at all points.  No mean feat there.  A lesser author would have lost his way in all that labyrinthine plotting.  However, in this case the whole two-book Dodec series clocks in at not much more than 600-pages, so bottom line, you could fit almost three of these books into any one novel out of the Wheel of Time and see about quintuple the action!

I don’t know if Children of Chaos and Mother of Lies are my favorite David Duncan novels, but they’re both very good, very satisfying, very easy reads, and they’re collectively more fun than a box of puppies.  And that’s a really great thing because after a hard day at work, sometimes the last thing a guy wants to do is to sit down and be forced to really focus on some uppity fool’s obtuse fiction.  Here, Duncan keeps it simple without letting it become simplistic.  Honestly, it’s an awesomely impressive feat of writing.  I recommend these books whole-heartedly to fantasy fans of all stripes, especially those that like to play Clerics.