Boom isn't supposed to be a safe cracker. Sure, her nickname comes from her talent with dynamite, but she has an honest job. For almost as long as she can remember, she and her grandfather have worked the Transcontinental Railroad with the other Chinese. But when a friend of the foreman shows up and buys out her contract, she soon finds herself crossing half the continent for a job that's anything but honest.
Miles Anderson's old army chaplain is offering spiritual absolution for Miles' dirty work for the Union. All it requires is one last act of reparation: cracking the safe of a riverboat casino before it gets to New Orleans and donating the cash to an orphanage. With over 1000 miles between Miles and his destination in St. Louis, he's short on time to find a blastman for the job. A 16-year old Chinese girl isn't what he has in mind, but it's the best he can do on short notice.
When Boom learns what she's been hired to do she faces becoming a criminal for charity or a very long walk home. Taking a riverboat south brings Miles closer to the sins of his past and vigilantes out for his head. Then there's the little matter of breaking into the monstrous casino safe without ending up in prison or at the end of a noose.
BOOM is a western novel, complete at 71,000 words.
Showing posts with label Western. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Western. Show all posts
Mar 18, 2013
May 9, 2010
QUERY - FAITH AND A .45
June, 1850. Again.
For two hundred years the silver monorail of the Midnight Train has been a silent reminder of a bygone era where Gunslingers, Outlaws, Ostrich Hunters and Redskins roamed the storm wracked flatland of the tornado plains.
Dust in her hair and lye soap burning the creases of her washtub hands, farmhand Faith Gale fears that her life's ambitions will end with her trapped as the trophy wife of a corn farmer -- until she sees the smokestacks of the black train rolling into an abandoned station on the far edge of the farming town of Topica.
A lone passenger disembarks, hiding knowledge of the past, the present and the many parallel lines of the future behind metallic green eyes.
Beaten and raped by Jebediah Green, Faith is held hostage by his bulletless guns and the temptation to follow him as he cuts a pathway of brutality and murder into Topica's rural bliss on a quest for an artifact he thinks can return him to his home. Wherever, whenever, that may be.
Pursued by a trio of gunfighters, Jebediah and Faith ride the twisting rail of the Midnight Train to the wall at the edge of the world -- and beyond -- as Faith takes gun in hand and becomes the villain of her own life story.
Faith and a .45 is a 90,000 word Sci Fi Western in the spirit of Stephen King's Gunslinger novels.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
-Philip Hansen
philip.hansen@gmail.com
For two hundred years the silver monorail of the Midnight Train has been a silent reminder of a bygone era where Gunslingers, Outlaws, Ostrich Hunters and Redskins roamed the storm wracked flatland of the tornado plains.
Dust in her hair and lye soap burning the creases of her washtub hands, farmhand Faith Gale fears that her life's ambitions will end with her trapped as the trophy wife of a corn farmer -- until she sees the smokestacks of the black train rolling into an abandoned station on the far edge of the farming town of Topica.
A lone passenger disembarks, hiding knowledge of the past, the present and the many parallel lines of the future behind metallic green eyes.
Beaten and raped by Jebediah Green, Faith is held hostage by his bulletless guns and the temptation to follow him as he cuts a pathway of brutality and murder into Topica's rural bliss on a quest for an artifact he thinks can return him to his home. Wherever, whenever, that may be.
Pursued by a trio of gunfighters, Jebediah and Faith ride the twisting rail of the Midnight Train to the wall at the edge of the world -- and beyond -- as Faith takes gun in hand and becomes the villain of her own life story.
Faith and a .45 is a 90,000 word Sci Fi Western in the spirit of Stephen King's Gunslinger novels.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
-Philip Hansen
philip.hansen@gmail.com
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