Publisher Description
Arcane America
A new world. New magic. New history.
After Halley’s Comet was destroyed in a magical battle in 1759, the backlash separated the entire New World from the Old in an event known as The Sundering. Now isolated from the rest of the globe, America has become a very different place, where magic works and history has been changed forever.
It is 1803—a new 1803. Young Meriwether Lewis, footloose and intrigued, goes to hear a lecture in St. Louis by the venerated old wizard Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s talk is disrupted by the attack of a winged fire-breathing beast, much like legends from Lewis’s own Welsh heritage. In the aftermath, Franklin tells the young man that he knows of a great, growing evil that lurks in the uncharted Arcane Territories west of the Mississippi.
Using his own vast fortune, Franklin commissions Lewis and his own talented partner William Clark to embark on a remarkable voyage of exploration, to meet and document the indigenous tribes, to find a route all the way to the Pacific Ocean—and perhaps beyond the magical veil to Europe again—and to stop the growing evil that is filling the American West. For while the Sundering separated the rest of the world and granted the original colonists unexpected magical gifts, sorcery inspired by native legends has also been ignited. And the Arcane Territories may hold unparalleled dangers for the expedition, both natural and magical.
Accompanied by the brilliant shape-shifting sorceress Sacajawea, Lewis and Clark set off on an unparalleled adventure across a landscape that no European has ever seen.
At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Anderson (Eternity's Mind) and Hoyt (the Darkship series) join forces for this whimsical "muskets and magic" alternate history of Lewis and Clark's voyage through an American West populated by an array of scary creatures and mystical beings. The 1759 appearance of Halley's Comet created the Sundering in the Atlantic Ocean, a barrier separating Europe and America. Magic has resurfaced in the New World. In 1803, the great centenarian wizard, Benjamin Franklin, commissions herbalist Meriwether Lewis and Army Captain William Clark to travel west to the Pacific and find passage to the Old World. The expedition's ambitious and resourceful men discover a resentful entity in the form of a fire-breathing dragon that is terrorizing Natives and white men alike by summoning zombies, a fire demon, a river serpent, and even a reanimated T. rex. Helping the expedition is courageous Shoshone teenager Sacagawea, who encourages Lewis to tap into his latent magical powers and joins him on a journey through the land of dead. History and mythology meld admirably, leading to a satisfying conclusion. This hardy adventure establishes a world ripe for many more rousing stories.
