Crown Duel

Crown Duel

First edition of the single-volume release, 2002
Author	Sherwood Smith
Cover artist	Victor Lee
Country	US
Language	English
Genre	Young adult fiction Fantasy literature
Publisher	Harcourt, Firebirds
Publication date	June 2002
Media type	Print
Pages	471 pp
ISBN
Preceded by	A Stranger to Command

Crown Duel is a 2002 young adult fantasy novel written by American author Sherwood Smith, originally published as two separate books, Crown Duel (1997) and Court Duel (1998). Both stories take place in the fictional land of Sartorias-deles, a fantasy world Smith has written about since her youth. The first book follows the adventures of young Countess Meliara "Mel" Astiar of Tlanth as she and her small group of forces rebel against the greed of King Galdran; along the way the mysterious Marquis of Shevraeth aids her, though she distrusts him. With the king now dead, the second part focuses on Mel's journey to the court in Remalna-city, where she must navigate court intrigues surrounding Shevraeth's rise to power as king. In 2008 Smith also published a prequel about Shevraeth: A Stranger to Command.

Smith invented Sartorias-deles as a fantasy world that gradually became populated by humans over a number of centuries; these new arrivals were influenced by the world's indigenous beings enough to better themselves, largely eradicating societal problems like disease and overpopulation. She originally wrote Crown Duel as a twenty-year-old, and when she returned to rewrite the story later in life, she sought to maintain the story from Mel's young perspective. As a result, the novel's intended audience are young adults. As Smith's most popular YA novel, both parts of Crown Duel received generally positive reviews. Reviews of the 1997 publication of Crown Duel highlight the character of Mel and Smith's worldbuilding as positive elements. Critics assessed Court Duel as generally the lesser of the two.

While Sherwood Smith originally wrote Crown Duel as two separate books entitled Crown Duel (1997) and Court Duel (1998), she considered them as "one story." Both novels explore the fictional land of Sartorias-deles, the world she has been writing about since her youth. Smith grew up wondering why "[her surroundings were] the way [they were]" for instance observing, "Why were the cities so clean, I wondered when I was a kid. I knew about sewers, etc. Why is it safe to drink from a stream there, and not here?". She conceived Sartorias-deles as a world where, over the course of several centuries, humans of many different races entered through "worldgates" and were influenced by the culture of its indigenous beings. According to Smith, while her invented world was not perfect, it contains fewer problems than Earth has endured, such as disease and overpopulation. She wrote,