I chatted with Matthew O. Duncan recently in the Blue Ribbon Army group on Facebook, since he's pushing an indie author panel at Phoenix Fan Fusion this year as part of an effort to talk those who run the convention into treating indie authors a little better. As one of those indie authors who paid for an Artist Alley table there for years but simply wouldn't ever make close to table at current prices, I wish him every bit of luck he can find in that quest.

After discovering that he has a bunch of books out but I haven't read any of them, even though I bought a couple back in 2016 when he was starting out as an author, it was clearly time for me to pull them down of the shelf. That goes double because, through the quirks of circumstance, I've previously reviewed a couple of short films made by his brother, Mack Duncan, through his CareFree Write production company, Wouldn't Be Love and The Will. Those reviews date back a decade-and-change to when I was covering IFP Phoenix film challenges. I was a judge for one of them as well.

I'm going to point out right off the bat that I thoroughly enjoyed The Warrior's Stone and look forward to diving into the second of The New Terra Sagas next month. And I'll point that out at this point because my first impressions here really weren't good. Rather ironically, what I saw isn't far adrift from what I found with his brother's Wouldn't Be Love, namely a strong film let down by poor production values. This volume follows suit but I must add here that some of this, if not all of it, seems to have been solved in future editions. After all, I have an early printing of Duncan's debut novel. He's clearly moved onward and upward.

The cover art looks great until I realised that it's pixellated. So's the text, on both the front and back covers. The back cover blurb seems rather derivative, suggesting some 'Star Wars', some Alan Dean Foster and plenty of old fantasy tropes. The text inside is justified, at least, but with line breaks between paragraphs and without first line indents. Smartquotes and gaps between sentences are inconsistent. And the proofing isn't great either, with odd little typos and plenty of punctuation where it shouldn't be.

But, and this is crucial, the writing is great, from the very outset. Even in this debut novel, the world-building and character-building is excellent. What's more, Duncan manages to combine a couple of genres with style, initially alternating between military science fiction and pastoral fantasy and then merging them into something that's effortlessly both.

Sure, it's easy to see where some of his major influences are, from 'Star Wars' to Isaac Asimov, via David Brin, because he's transparent with his homages. Is that the Laws of Robotics? Are those the moving sidewalks from 'The Caves of Steel'? And is that an Imperial Star Destroyer? No, it's even better. It's a Super Destroyer! Is that a 'Predator' suit? There's an even an Organa Pass on the planet we spend much of our time. Is Earth's unique place in the Alliance a nod to David Brin's 'Uplift' series? The good news is that Duncan is able to combine all these elements into something neatly original that plays like a movie I could have seen back in the eighties.

We start with the military science fiction. It's 2319 and Earth has moved beyond its atmosphere to forge an alliance with other spacefaring planets. However, a space war has been raging for a long time between the Alliance and their lizard enemies, the Serkens and we're starting to see the tide turn after a decade. However, that's when they introduce that Super Destroyer, and an assault turns into a trap and Commander Roy O'Hara finds himself shot down, along with a trio of the enemy, on an unexplored planet.

And so to the pastoral fantasy, which is already unfolding on that very same unexplored planet. Princess Katreena, only daughter of King Timothy and the late Queen Philissa of the Kingdom of Bryerstone, is taking a well-earned break from her duties as a healer in a secluded spot that was handed down to her by her mother when she discovers Roy's broken body, his ship hidden a distance away. As a healer, who diffuses the sickness or injuries of a patient through the use of magical stones and her own energy, she naturally does what she can to save him.

Unfortunately, he's so hurt that she finds she has to resort to the Boto Stone, handed down the royal line, to do the job and that has the side effect of bonding them together. It does get them past some of the expected language barrier, but it also leads to a night of passion in what they initially think is a dream but turns out to be very real indeed. And so she runs, leaving Roy and a bag of gold with a nearby farmer she knows she can trust. It's with Zohn Greely and his family that he truly learns the language and customs of Bryerstone.

You can guess at some of what follows, I'm sure, but Duncan takes his time to deepen many of these characters, not just Roy and Katreena, and that works wonders to build this land and its people in our mind. It's very much a fantasy world with a Celtic flavour, which we'll eventually learn is for good reason, with its different animals, customs and history, not to forget the many stones that turn out to be far more than we initially think they are.

The way that Duncan whirls a common practice into a mythology into a prophecy into a galaxy-spanning plot device is wonderful and it, above every other success here in a strong debut, tells me that I need to read much deeper into his bibliography than just the trilogy that is 'The New Terra Sagas' trilogy. If he's this good this early, what must he be like now, with a decade more growth to his name and a string of books to exploit that?

Of course, the fantasy and science fiction angles merge. Of course, the Alliance Fleet turns up and so do the Serkens and big and bad things happen. Of course, the good guys take the day in the eventual showdown, at least for now. Given the 'Star Wars' connections, that doesn't bode well for the second book. Anyway, you expected all of that, I'm sure. Duncan handles all that in capable style and, even with overt influences, it never feels as derivative as the back cover led us to expect.

And there's a lot more here than what we expect, though I'll be careful not to spoil where this goes. My favourite scenes were pretty straightforward ones, like Roy's recovery and learning at the Greelys, surprising them when he responds to their questioning in their own language. The prophecies aren't far from cliché but Duncan handles the various responses to them with a touch masterful enough that any reliance on cliché just doesn't matter. I appreciated parallels between Katreena and Roy's relationship and that of her parents. I haven't even touched on a scene with Roy getting drunk on wits alie or the delightful bots Roy uses to repair his ship.

Perhaps my favourite angle is the bond between Roy and Katreena. Again, this isn't something new and it could easily have gone horribly wrong in the hands of a lesser writer. Duncan lets it grow in a way that neither understand, even though Katreena knows a little about it going in. It leads to cool dream sequences that surely aren't just dream, featuring characters from the lives of both Roy and Katreena who are both living and dead. Given the context, I presume it's a way for Duncan to tap into the Force but it plays out very differently indeed. It's powerful.

All in all, there's a heck of a lot here in a book that doesn't reach three hundred pages. One of the things I like most about indie authors is how they can stay true to themselves. Sure, they're often aching to land a bestseller and make this a full-time career, but they're also free from the vagaries of the market that major publishers have to not only watch but follow. Marvin North and I happily chatted about the thoroughly unusual mixture of fantasy and science fiction in his 'Searching for the Eminent' series a couple of weeks ago at Wild Wild West Con, while I picked up his new books. I'm now looking forward to doing the same about this series with Matthew O. Duncan at Phoenix Fan Fusion, while I pick up the third in this series and the rest of his books. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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