Description
Natural resources have run out and the world has gone backwards. In the Divided States the Wild West has risen again and the Peacemaker is law. Tech is prevalent, but belongs only to those with the knowledge to wield it. Natives, cowboys, gunslingers and a new breed of biomechanically enhanced people called prenats fight for survival amid future frontiers. Set in a time when science becomes a religion with Enlight parishioners and religion becomes radicalised by armies of Godlies a clash of ideologies is inevitable, but where will it end? And is it true that in wartime everybody's intentions become so immovable they are ironclad? After the last battle of the lengthy Second American Civil War has ended three battlefield scavengers, known as vultures, challenge each other to tell a story. There judge is a lowly deserter. The Great Sonoma Powwow, The Martyrdom of Annie Todd and Showdown in Frisco are the stories they have to tell in this riveting steampunk Western novella. This novella is a frame narrative that encloses a short-story cycle set in the state of Cali and all based around the Second American Civil War. Part of the same verse as Dawn in Death Valley.
Chapter 1: Moonshine by Firelight
