Duncan Silver’s Great War never ended; it was only the enemy that changed. After he got back from France’s mud, Duncan took up arms against the Fae to rescue children swapped with changelings. In No Man’s Land, by Richard K. Morgan, Duncan takes on a job to find yet another stolen child. This job will be deadlier and more complicated than any other mission Duncan’s taken yet.
The job is simple to describe but can be almost impossible to successfully execute. Destroy the changeling before it has a chance to fully replace the real child in a mother’s heart, then find and retrieve the human child from the Forest. This Forest—which sprang to life during the Great War and now covers most of the known world—deserves a capital because nothing humans can do can make a dent. The trees are alive with spirits and roamed by creatures from the darkest folk lore we have. Duncan is one of the few men who can reliably finish the missions he’s hired for. Unfortunately for our protagonist, forces larger than he ever anticipated are about to get in his way. And Duncan really, really hates it when things get in his way.
The first thing to get in Duncan’s way is a British officer who gets right up Duncan’s nose. This officer offers Duncan a well-paid job down in London, but only if Duncan drops his rescue job and leaves right away for the capital. Duncan, of course, replies with a vulgar denial and heads out for the Forest. The next time he emerges, Duncan is shot with very mundane and not-at-all Fae bullets and his charge is kidnapped yet again. A normal person would give up, stay warned off, but we know that Duncan is not the kind to give up. He’s used to people (and other things) trying to kill him. The only thing that has changed are the kidnappers. As long as he’s still breathing, Duncan is still on the job.
The plot races over the course of a few short weeks, with a truly astonishing number of fights to the death featuring our protagonist and various mystical and human enemies. By rights, Duncan should be laid up in a hospital more than once even though he manages to survive all these fights, plus the chases and magic and betrayals. Morgan also manages to pack a ton of backstory, worldbuilding, and scene-setting into this book without bogging anything down. There’s also a lot of gore in this novel; it is very different from a lot of the current wave of romantasy and historical fantasy. Readers who’d like to see an author do something original with old fairy tales might like this action-packed adventure. I really enjoyed what Morgan did with Queen Mab, who gets to twist the tale one more time before the curtain falls on the story.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.