Release date: October 26, 2019
Subgenre: Space Opera, Planetary Romance
About The Towering Flame:
From USA Today bestselling author, Robert I. Katz, comes The Towering
Flame, the first book in a brand new series, The Survivors.
Once, long ago, the Empire of Mankind spread among the stars, but the Empire fell into civil war and anarchy, leaving every human inhabited world across the galaxy to go its own way.
Today, after two thousand years of isolation, the Viceroy rules over seven nations on one long-abandoned planet. He alone possesses any vestige of the technology left behind by the vanished Empire and he uses it to rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove.
But below the surface, ambitious men are struggling for power and rebellion is simmering.
Terence Allen is the third son of a wealthy father. Terence is satisfied with his life. He has few responsibilities, fewer challenges and little desire to change.
Terence Allen is an unlikely catalyst for rebellion, but Terence’s destiny changes the moment he sees Thierry Jorge Garcia striding toward him one night at the Summer Fair in Varanisi, the Viceroy’s city. Thierry, the heir to a long-standing military tradition, will let nothing keep him from pursuing Irina Archer, the woman he had known and loved as a young man in far-off Cathay, the woman who is now Terence Allen’s fiancée.
The feud that results will have repercussions far beyond the borders of the city, as the seven nations seethe with conspiracies, rumors and strife. A war that has been brewing for over a century is coming, a war that will upend the foundations of both men’s world.
Once, long ago, the Empire of Mankind spread among the stars, but the Empire fell into civil war and anarchy, leaving every human inhabited world across the galaxy to go its own way.
Today, after two thousand years of isolation, the Viceroy rules over seven nations on one long-abandoned planet. He alone possesses any vestige of the technology left behind by the vanished Empire and he uses it to rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove.
But below the surface, ambitious men are struggling for power and rebellion is simmering.
Terence Allen is the third son of a wealthy father. Terence is satisfied with his life. He has few responsibilities, fewer challenges and little desire to change.
Terence Allen is an unlikely catalyst for rebellion, but Terence’s destiny changes the moment he sees Thierry Jorge Garcia striding toward him one night at the Summer Fair in Varanisi, the Viceroy’s city. Thierry, the heir to a long-standing military tradition, will let nothing keep him from pursuing Irina Archer, the woman he had known and loved as a young man in far-off Cathay, the woman who is now Terence Allen’s fiancée.
The feud that results will have repercussions far beyond the borders of the city, as the seven nations seethe with conspiracies, rumors and strife. A war that has been brewing for over a century is coming, a war that will upend the foundations of both men’s world.
Excerpt:
Prologue
It was
hot on the plateau, but he had endured far worse on the climb through the
mountain pass. Now the outlines of a ruined installation loomed before him,
stone and concrete walls crumbling into the grass, none more than waist high.
Was it
safe? He thought that it was. Flowers bloomed at the edges of the trees, which
looked tall and strong, well nourished by rich soil and ample rain. There were
birds, at least four species, and they appeared to be both abundant and
healthy.
Still,
sickness sometimes hid deep in the soil, and struck a man down, days, even
weeks after exposure. The ancients, or so it was said, had devices that could
detect such sickness, but those days and those devices were long gone.
He
sighed, removed a thin protective garment made of natural polyisoprene from the
pack his mule carried and put it on. The suit would provide at least some
protection, though it made the heat of the day much, much hotter.
No help
for it, though, if he wanted to live.
So far
as he knew, none of his competitors had found this place but where one had
gone, others could follow. He had best be quick. It was a dangerous business,
scrounging for buried treasure in the deep places of the earth.
Chapter 1
A
Child’s First Lesson Upon Entering Scholium:
The
ancient places of the World are perilous and many, filled with ghosts and
golems, illusions and the voices of the dead. It is said that those who wander
into the dead cities, emerge, if they emerge at all, unable to speak of what
they have heard and seen. Most soon perish, aging years in only a few days,
their bones crumbling into chalk, their muscles wasting away. Those few who do
not die, achieve madness, not wisdom.
Avoid
the dead cities. This is the first and most important lesson that you must
learn.
Avoid
the dead cities, and even more important, avoid the mistakes that caused those
cities to be dead.
“Do you like my hat, Terence?” Irina
Archer asked.
“Certainly,” Terence Allen replied. “The
hat is very beautiful. As always, your taste in hats is exquisite.”
Irina Archer gave her fiancé a tiny sniff.
Her horse raised its head from the clump of grass it had been chewing, glanced
at Terence, and, Terence imagined, rolled its eyes.
“Race me?” Irina smiled, a ferocious
smile, full of challenge.
Terence Allen smiled back, though his
smile was one of indulgence more than passion. “Certainly,” he said.
The trail stretched before them, wide
enough for four riders to run abreast, and wound through a carefully tended
section of woods. Through the trees, a lake could be glimpsed, gleaming in the
sunlight. Terence had ridden this trail many times before.
Terence Allen knew himself to be a lucky
man, though he accepted his good fortune with the equanimity appropriate to the
wealthy and the devout. Terence was the third of Lord Allen’s sons, and as
such, he could look forward to a life filled with comfort and some minimal
responsibility.
Irina, on the other hand, was the first
daughter of Lord Malachi Archer. First daughter outranked third son, as Irina
never hesitated to remind her long-suffering fiancé. They were young to be
engaged, he nineteen and she barely eighteen when their parents had signed the
contract, now one year past.
They had known each other as children.
LeClair, the Archers’ family seat, stood next to Briony, the Allens’ grand
estate. Irina Archer was smaller than most girls of similar age but she was
fearless, fighting with children larger than herself over imaginary slights,
throwing herself off cliffs into the lake waters far below, climbing higher
than any other into the trees, giving no quarter.
At twelve years old, Terence had
considered Irina Archer aggressive and annoying. And then she had vanished, for
five years, sent to live with her aunt, a lady of the Doge’s Court in far off
Cathay.
At the age of seventeen, Irina Archer
returned. Terence first saw her when she arrived for classes at the Lyceum. He
was eighteen, still growing rapidly, awkward with a height and length of arm
that changed by the week. Irina had matured, seeming older than her age. She arrived
with two servants, one young and one, a duenna, very old. Her hair was long and
flowed down her back in auburn waves. She wore a dark blue gown meant for
travel, with a tasseled gray hat. She emerged from her coach with her head held
high and surveyed the schoolyard with speculative eyes and a mocking smile, a
queen among her subjects.
Terence saw her, and it was as if he had
never seen her before. He blinked.
He saw her next a week later, at the
audition for a school play, Romeus and Julieta, an ancient translation of an
even more ancient play from an era long lost.
Terence played the part of Romeus,
banished in the end for the murder of Julieta’s cousin, Tybalt, while Julieta,
chastened by the fires of passion, wed Romeus’ level-headed friend, Mercutio,
and lived a long life of discretion, dignity and good-sense.
Irina, it turned out, had a talent for
drama. She could inhabit a persona and make it her own. Her voice was low,
smoky and rich, and carried easily to the farthest reaches of the theater.
Though young and newly arrived, she earned the part of Julieta and her
performance was met with acclaim—though not without criticism, the sly glances
and veiled innuendo she directed at the audience somewhat undercutting the
contrition Julieta was meant to display at having encouraged the headstrong and
unsuitable Romeus.
Irina Archer could not have cared less.
“Hai!” She spurred her horse, a
high-spirited black stallion, and within seconds was three lengths in front of
Terence, who sighed, and chased after her.
Amazon
About Robert I. Katz:
When I was a child, I generally read five or more books per week, and even then, I had a dim sense that I could do at least as well as many of the stories that I was reading. Finally, around 1985, with a job and a family and my first personal computer, I began writing. I quickly discovered that it was not as easy as I had imagined, and like most beginning writers, it took me many years to produce a publishable work of fiction. My first novel, Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future, came out in 2001. It won the ASA Literary Prize for 2001 and received excellent reviews from Science Fiction Chronicle, InfinityPlus, Scavenger’s Newsletter and many others.
My agent at the time urged me to write mysteries, as mysteries are supposed to have a larger readership and be easier to publish than science fiction. Since I have read almost as many mysteries as science fiction and fantasy, and since I enjoy them just as much, I had no objection to this plan. The Kurtz and Barent mystery series, Surgical Risk, The Anatomy Lesson and Seizure followed between 2002 and 2009. Reviewers have compared them favorably to Patricia Cornwell and Robin Cook and they’ve received positive reviews from The Midwest Book Review, Mystery Review Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Lady M’s Mystery International, Mystery Scene Magazine, Library Journal and many others.
In 2014, I published a science fiction short story, To the Ends of the Earth in the Deep Blue Sea on Kindle for Amazon. Since then, I have made all of my previously published novels available for purchase on Kindle. A new science fiction novel, entitled The Cannibal's Feast, was published in July 2017. The next, entitled The Game Players of Meridien, a tale set far in the future after the collapse of the First Interstellar Empire of Mankind, is the first in a projected seven book science fiction series, and will be published on December 16, 2017. The second novel in the series, The City of Ashes, will appear early in 2018. In addition, a fourth novel in the Kurtz and Barent mystery series, The Chairmen, will also be published in the first half of 2018.
No comments:
Post a Comment