Lion in the Wind

Title:	Lion in the Wind
Cover Artist:	Don Semora
Genre:	Scifi/Fantasy
Series:	The Land of the Lions
Publication Date:	August 2012
Media Types:	Ebook
ISBN:	978-1476429960 (ebook)
Followed By:	Lion of the Earth

Lion in the Wind is the first book in the Land of the Lions novel series and introduces the character of Tgegani and his family of sentient, cybernetic lions who play a key and pivotal roll in the history of their world, and the survival of their people amidst a war of good and evil the likes of which their tiny, isolated world has never seen before.

Summary

The book begins with a scientist named Edias Burgon, a student at a regional science and technology college with an incredible aptitude for robotics and cybernetics, who is sought by Ferrel Black, the owner of Cybergenics Incorporated, a powerful and highly successful robotics company located and doing business primarily within the prairie nation of Yigzan. At first Black tries to bribe Burgon with an easy doctorate degree in exchange for his agreement to work for Black. But, being a moral and principled man, he refuses, instead choosing to complete his doctorate the proper way. Later on, after graduating with high honors, and the highest in the college even, he instead chooses to work for the college's own commercial cybernetics lab under the watchful eye and expert leadership of Dr. Visnel. Even so, Black keeps a close eye on him. Ten years pass and Burgon is still working at his same job at the college. It is during this time that, through a fellow coworker, a biologist by the name of Rose Sehgtra, that he is introduced to a lovable and unique little tigress he later names Persia. He is at first surprised when she talks, but it's soon revealed to him that she's part of a now completed genetic modification experiment, which is what has given her both speech, and full sentience. He happily accepts her into his life as something equivalent to a daughter of sorts.

Not long after this, Burgon, who'd been working on a proposal for a life long project of his, the giving of full sentience to a cybernetic lifeform, goes before the college's appropriations board, but is shot down hard as his project is flat out rejected by the board with no option for appeal. The next day, when he enters is office, he finds a letter on his desk with a business card in it from Ferrel Black, and a small note that reads, "In case you lost your other one." Burgon is surprised that Black would still be interested in him and his project and he contacts Cybergentics Inc and is invited to meet in person with Black who reveals that he's still interested in having Burgon work for him, and especially in his robotic sentience project. So Burgon quits his job at the college and goes to work for Black. Elsewhere, Captain Delgra, and his NCO Sergeant Odevion, both of whom are seasoned military recon solders, are deep in Gorg territory getting intel on recent Gorg military movements and come across some disturbing details about a possible planned future invasion of the Yigzan nation. He takes this back to his commanders. However, they take issue with this and, instead of acting on this intelligence, they instead reassign him and Odevion to jobs elsewhere where they can't rock the boat.

Meanwhile, Black, who was partially responsible for the Gorg's increasingly militaristic stance, calls the Gorg general whom he put in place for just this exact purpose and tells him to halt what he's doing as he's moving too soon. However, the general reveals that, while he appreciates Black putting him in power, he's now betraying him in favor of better opportunities. Angry at this, he calls in a hit against the general to delay the planned Gorg invasion by getting rid of the traitorous general, while at the same time creating plans to strengthen the Yigzan military to withstand the inevitable Gorg invasion when it does come. His plans for the Gorg are to create an incident that encourages the Yigzan to fund his research into sentient, cybernetic fighting machines that he plans to use to later on exterminate both the Gorg, and the Sattazin, and enslave the Yigzan people under his tyrannical thumb. But, to do that, he needs time to develop a weapons system that can make that possible, and with the Gorg attempting to move so early, well ahead of schedule, he's ill prepared. So he needs to find ways to buy him some time.

Back in his laboratory, Burgon is busy building the prototype body for Tegani while the young Persia sits on the floor nearby doing her classroom studies as she learns to read and write Yigzan, despite being a snow tiger. She does this on Burgon's insistence, and even surprises him with how well she does at it.