I have previously posted on F. Paul Wilson‘s works that make up his interlocking series called the Secret History of the World, including the Repairman Jack series as well as the Adversary series, the ICE trilogy and more. I had thought he was more or less done with this, but found he had done further works. I recently looked at The Hidden, a two-novel series, as well as a shorter work. Now I look at his other duo series: the Duad pair.
The Duad duology is made up of Double Threat and Double Dose and is set in “Year Zero” in the overall Secret History sequence, a few months before the events of Nightworld. They came out in 2022 and 2024, and are published by Crossroad Press.
The Secret History has a lot of H.P. Lovecraft concepts. We learn that our world is a battleground between two rival forces in the cosmos, but it’s a very insignificant world to these forces. One is the Ally, the nominal “good guys,” and the Otherness are the “bad guys,” who would “Change” the world and destroy it in the process.
The battle here on Earth is done through proxies. The Adversary represents the Otherness, opposed by the Sentinel. There is also a mysterious Lady who appears in most of the books, always in a different form and always with a dog. Who and what she is is a mystery you will discover, though she doesn’t appear in this pair. Nor does the Septimus Order. And as to this “history,” we learn of past people and civilizations, and secret occult works and more.
Way back in 1976, Wilson wrote The Healer, set in the future in his LaNague series. There, Steven Dalt encounters a creature called an alaret, and picks up a symbiont called “Pard.” Due to this, he is effectively immortal and can now heal people. In this series, Wilson basically gives us a modern version of Dalt and Pard with Stanka Daley and Pard. Daley is a grifter living in Southern California.
After picking up Pard, she finds herself the target of a strange cult that sees the prophesized Duad as a threat. This cult seems tied to the Secret History as the scrolls they follow come from that, seemingly on the side of the Otherness. This group is made up of a set of linked Welsh families, and so are usually just called the Family. They have also built their own Tesla Tower. They hope to use it to open up the Veil to the Void, allowing the Visitors they believe in to return. But it’s clear they are, without knowing it, piercing the Veil to the Otherness. See the novella Wardenclyffe.
There are other matters. The neighboring family of Native Americans has a wind farm, but we find there are some strange things with that. Also, there is more to this group than it seems, and they are more closely linked to these Visitors and the scrolls used by the cult then anyone realizes. People are also being affected by something called “the horrors.” This seems to be related to all of this, but how?
Daley and Pard find they can address the horrors, but how can they do so without being noticed?
And the Family is planning on really firing up its Tesla Tower in a couple of weeks. How do Daley and Pard deal with this? And what does the future hold for them as they quickly approach Nightworld?
I’m not sure what might come next with Wilson’s Secret History series. Both these recent duos have setups that could lead to further stories. But from what I’ve reading on Wilson’s website, this may be it for the Secret History. Which is kind of sad. I was hoping to learn how these characters get thru what is coming.
Add Comment