No Man's Land
By (Author) Richard Morgan
Orion Publishing Co
Gollancz
28th October 2025
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fantasy
Dark fantasy
Historical fantasy
Adventure / action fiction
Paperback
496
Width 153mm, Height 234mm
The Great War was supposed to be the war to end all wars-and maybe it would have been, had an even greater, otherworldly foe not arisen to extinguish the conflict. Overnight, as guns blazed away in France and Flanders, village after village in the quiet British countryside were swallowed by the Forest. And within the Forest lurk the Huldu-an ancient fae race, monstrous in their inhumanity, who have decided that mankind's ascendency over the world can endure no longer.
Enter Duncan Silver. Scarred by the war, fueled by a rage deeper than the trenches in which he once fought, Duncan is determined to show the Huldu that the world is not theirs for the taking. Armed with a cut-down trench gun filled with iron shot and a deadly iron knife, Duncan will stop at nothing to return the children the Huldu have stolen from the arms of their families. No matter how many Huldu he may have to slaughter along the way. But when he is hired by a mother to return her four-year-old daughter, Miriam-taken by the Huldu six months past and replaced with a Changeling-all hell breaks loose. Miriam is a pawn in a much bigger game for dominance than Duncan ever expected, and several long-buried secrets from his past are about to be violently resurrected.The Dark Defiles is best of the series. Morgan built a fascinating world, dirt and all, and populated it will heroes that were also real people. Morgan dissects the idea of hero and looks at it from every angle. Our three protagonists aren't anti-heroes they are just flawed. While they deal with their flaws they realize that in the end heroes don't get to live happily ever after. * Buzzy Mag *
Super fluid action thriller... amped-up Chandler in space. * GUARDIAN *
A hugely entertaining and smartly written book. * SFX MAGAZINE *
A sheer pyrotechnic triumph: wonderfully imaginative, written in overdrive, mercilessly violent... A twisted conundrum and a hell of a ride! * CRIME TIME *
Richard Morgan was, until his writing career took off, a tutor at Strathclyde University in the English Language Teaching division. He has travelled widely and lived in Spain and Istanbul. He is a fluent Spanish speaker. Winner of the Athur C. Clarke, John W. Campbell and Philip K. Dick Awards his books are published around the world. He lives in Norwich with his family.