Gold Rush
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| Title: | Gold Rush |
| Cover Artist: | Don Semora |
| Genre: | Christian, Scifi, Survival, Adventure |
| Series: | The Offworld Chronicles |
| Publication Date: | TBA |
| Media Types: | Print (paperback) and Ebook |
| ISBN: | TBA |
| Preceded By: | Dragon's Gambit |
| Followed By: | The White Mountains |
Gold Rush is the third novel in The Offworld Chronicles series and picks up the story of Simon's Team, The Dragons of Offworld, The Syndicate, and many others, while also adding a new team into the mix, lead by Arthur Holland, and will become the greatest challenge that Simon and his friends have faced thus far.
Summary
The book starts with a flashback to a hundred years earlier in a village to the east of Donville. It is here that a prophecy is given by Reverend Kinson telling of the future fulfillment of an earlier prophecy given 400 years earlier, and the signs that will indicate that they are closing on the end of the race and their eventual freedom. The story then returns to modern day Donville and the shop of Arthur Holland, a master woodcrafter and artisan as he works on a special project made out of Mahoy wood for the city's mayor. He's soon joined by his best friend and business partner Dexter Dramond, after which the two men talk about the project and the general lack of business they've been suffering lately, some of which is being caused by a bad economy, and some by the unusual calmness of The Reaping Sea over the past months. Deciding to seek out answers, Arthur heads down to the dockyards and meets Captain Ebenezer on his way. Arthur is surprised, yet happy to see him alive, given the rumors of his death on The Reaping Sea. Arthur then goes down and speaks with the dock master and asks if they've been withholding work from him, or giving it to another ship. The dock master informs him that they haven't. There just hasn't been anything to give him. The two part company with a friendly goodbye.
Elsewhere Chester Westman meets with Adam and Martha and is brought up to speed on recent events in the area, including the fall of Ruby. Sheobaal, and his master Azazel meanwhile look in on Simon's team, still bent on destroying them, but find that they're too well protected by a LARGE angel army, so they satisfy themselves with just watching them for now. As they do, Aria and Trevor spend a little time together on one of the many observation ledges on the side of Kestrel Weyr and talk about each other, but mostly about Trevor's past, some of what he owns, and some of what he has done, not all of which the young man is interested in talking about, and much of which he regrets. Back in Donville Arthur meets with the mayor, an annoying, penguin like man, and shows him his carved Mahoy commission that is to be the accent piece on a new bed he's recently had made. Afterwards Arthur goes for a walk for some fresh air. As he does, a local paper boy comes by shouting about the latest headline, which is about the fall of the Four Kingdoms. This in turn sparks a memory by Dexter of the previously mentioned Kinson prophecy. Realizing what this means, Arthur decides to go speak with the Mayor.
Back on Adam's farm, as he worries how they're going to survive the winter given that none of their crops have ripened, he discovers that God has blessed him and his farm by literally enlarging his barns to over twice their original size, then doubling, and sometimes even quadrupling his herds, and filling his now enlarged barns to the roof. While they're taking this in, Jack Lundy and Agent J take some time at a local pub to discuss current events on the race course, including God's seemingly miraculous intervention in recent events. Back at Kestrel Weyr, Garloond and Maggy take some time out during Garloond's busy day and go for a romantic flight and get to know each other better. And, while Garloond still doesn't consider Maggy to be a sufficient candidate to be his eventual mate, she does begin to slowly change his mind as she continues to grow on him, as does his interest in her. And, while she didn't turn out to be the amazing warrior she was touted by so many others to be, he is both surprised and greatly impressed with Maggy's incredible flying skills, much of which was learned from her Aunt Karuth.
Back in Donville, Arthur takes the news about the Four Kingdoms to the mayor, who grows irate at this news for no apparent reason and throws Arthur out of his office. Elsewhere, Fallon appears to his grandfather, Weyr Master Zek, and warns him that their master, the controllers are growing wise to his plans, and as such he needs to back off for a while until things blow over. Over in Donville Captain Ebenezer is greeted by an agent of Section 17 and asked to begin working behind the scenes to get people moving because, with the Four Kingdoms gone, the path forward is clear, and it's the will of Section 17 and, their currently temporary partner, Section 9 to get as many racers to resume the race as possible, of which Ebenezer agrees to do. In the former city of Ruby, now called Renata, Chester wakes up one morning to find its devastated, burned down buildings and raged streets filled with hundreds of tents as far as the eye can see. He learns that word has spread far and wide of Ruby's fall, drawing people up from the south to the former city of sin to take advantage of this opportunity for a new start, work, and possibly riches in the newly opened and accessible northern territories.
Over at Mongangro Weyr, Zek, Akhur, Shuman and Fallon gather in a specially created room that hides their words, plans and actions from their masters. Once there, they discuss the current state of the race, Simon's team, their plans and more. They then decide they need to create a diversion to draw away the attention of their masters from Simon's team, who they still trying to protect, despite recent setbacks. They will also need to become hands off with Simon's team for a while to remove the attention from them to keep them safe.
(be patient, this entry is a work in progress)
