Adventures on Erden, a planet like, but not Earth.
THE SPUR is the story of a Prussian Empire army engineer involved in the building of a frontier railroad on Erden, a planet of nineteenth century technology, slavery, and wars between empires. Captain Victor Ludendorff has eighteen months remaining in his military service obligation, after that the civilian job he desires, head engineer at the Berlin Locomotive Works awaits. But only if he first completes the current project to build 240 kilometers of railroad, a tunnel through the east mountain, and bridge two major rivers while a war with the not quite human Ichneumons rages throughout the frontier.
The novel, Spur, is about a young man’s edifying adventure on Erden, a planet like, but not Earth.
THE DEVIL’S SPAWN – The Zircon Empire emerged from the consolidation of the Prussian Empire with three eastern kingdoms at the completion of the first Ichneumon War. The Devil’s Spawn is the true tale of the Uneeda Territory campaign twenty years later, during the second Ichneumon War, as related by Captain Alexander Belcher. The captain with a Zircon Army recon squad confronted the three scourges ravaging the territory, merciless nonhuman Ichneumon army units, marauders, and Oztec slaveholders.
The Uneeda campaign was part of the latest planet wide confrontation between the Zircon and Ichneumon Empires over which species would dominate Erden, the humans or the hemocyanin ichneumons. Past conflicts often ended in an all-out ethnic cleansing of the losing population in the conflict zone. That appalling fate threatened the Uneeda human settlers.
Captain Belcher, a freed slave, and Zircon army officer commanded the troops assigned to protect the Zircon settlers in the Uneeda River valley from the Ichneumon army and human marauders predation. His other mission was to capture the Ichneumon fort at Uneeda where a large inventory of gold ingots had accumulated due to the disruption of the river trade from pirates and the war. The Zircon emperor wanted the Ichneumon gold.
Human greed and fear caused the captain as much trouble as the Ichneumon soldiers in his efforts to accomplish the army’s mission while attempting to accumulate a bit of loose gold for himself.