Portal of a Thousand Worlds — Dave Duncan

The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy.

Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth century -- an Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion era -- with a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled years in the Good Land.

Ten centuries have passed since the last time the Portal of a Thousand Worlds opened, bringing chaos, upheaval, and radical change to the then-ruling dynasty, and now the mystical gateway is rumored to be on the verge of opening once more. Only the Firstborn -- he who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learned -- knows what the future holds, but he has been imprisoned for refusing to comply with a repressive imperial government's wishes.

Now, those hoping to seize the opportunity for wealth and position are hatching sinister plots. And as the cold-hearted dowager empress closely guards a fateful secret, and a rebel army led by a fanatical zealot gathers strength under the Bamboo Banner, the cataclysm approaches....

A sprawling epic with a colorful cast of royals, thieves, prostitutes, gods, warriors, dragons, assassins, merchants, and mages set against the backdrop of a volatile alternate Asia, "Portal of a Thousand Worlds" is a magnificent work of invention from one of the premier fantasists of our day.