Victorian scholar and adventurer Richard F. Burton is sought by an unlikely team of time hunters.

It is 1868 and Captain Richard F. Burton, intrepid secret agent, undefeated swordsmen, fierce intellectual and famed explorer wastes away as the British Counsel to Sao Paulo Brazil, unlikely to advance in the service of the Queen due to the powerful enemies made by his outspoken opinions on colonial misrule...

Removing a man of Burton's stature from the historical time-line before his natural death could cause a deadly ripple in Time. Fortunately Burton is known to have disappeared into the wilds of South America from September 1868 until March 1869 with two mysterious adventurers, and uncharacteristically left no written account. Professor Stevenson is journeying 145 years into the past with militant white supremacist Randy Bracken as his 'security operative', intent on their being those two men.

Can a mathematics professor and a fixer for the Аrуаn Brotherhood convince the stubborn Burton to forsake Queen and Country for a ride through Time, even as they themselves are stalked by hunters from their future?

Copyright 2012 James LaFond

A Nerd Church Book

Originally published as an e-book on jameslafond.com in 2012

For more information on the author or his other works go to www.jameslafond.com

For Betty Kern, my stalwart mother

Mom, this is what you get for reading to me.

I know the comma above is debatable usage but I wanted to highlight your maternal status-besides, thanks to Erique at Nerd Curch I am the editor! Now that we have gathered under that latest sign of the End Times, I'm publishing this out of order because I thought this was about the only volume in this series you could stomach.

So that you can jump into the Sunset Saga at any point here are the major story threads by viewpoint character, in the order that they appear along the storyline.

Jay Bracken is a genetically engineered 24th Century time-hunter pre-based in the late 20th Century to be activated by his handlers. He is a deep retrieval asset developed from an executive protection template. Overdesigned to thrive in low tech environments he take sides with the primitives he is intended to harvest becoming a big-though thankfully obtuse-problem.

Charlie Robinson is a quantum physicist who gave up his quest to build a time machine, filed his notes away, and then dropped out to start a science-based church. He is contacted by time-travelers from the future who claim to be his disciples, and to have fabricated his device into two versions: one that 'loops' through Time, invoking the grandfather paradox, and one that splinters Time, forming an alternative 'time branch'. He soon becomes their pawn in a scheme to pillage the past.

Three-Rivers is a language-savant of the Seneca Nation. When some misguided white people come into Mother Earth on behalf of a certain 'Burnt Man' looking for Hiawatha he offers himself instead, unable to resist a journey beyond the Sunset. After discovering what the whites have done to Mother Earth, and that they mean to imprison him, he steals a 'thunder-hoop' which he intends to use as a time-canoeing messiah of the 'natural people' to assure their future.

Randy Bracken is the older 'half brother' of Jay Bracken. A lifetime criminal, cop-killer, alcoholic, drug-user, and white-supremacist leader, Randy manages to make himself invaluable to Doctor Robinson and his handlers, in hopes of using time travel as a means to circumvent drug laws, gun laws, and every other 'bullshit law' on the 'police state's bullshit books'.

Hyacinth White Feather is the widow of a time traveler. As a good woman of the Dine [Navaho People] she is among the first to recognize Three-Rivers as a Native American messiah, and the first to realize that he is a dangerously manipulative youth utterly seduced by his 'thunder-conjuring' abilities and prone to wild fantasies.

Richard Burton is the boldest adventurer, best swordsman and most accomplished scholar in the Queen's service. Yet he wastes away in obscurity at a diplomatic post in South America. Just as he sets off on another of his infamously ill-conceived adventures Captain Burton is contacted by an enigmatic American who claims to be a time traveler. For once Richard Francis Burton has the opportunity to take off in search of the very meaning of life-to safari across Time itself. But will his quest for gnosis ultimately override his loyalty to his Queen, his country, and his wife?

Hyman Maxim resides atop his Stratospheric Tower in 2843 with his consort, a perfect woman of his own design. His generation ship is nearly complete, as he sits infinitely alone at his compact; the last organic member of the human race; the last of his species to trace a life-line back to Ugly little Lucy. The re-teraforming sequence is set in motion and commences in one year. He has enough clones and drones to operate the Endeavor on its interstellar flight. But since those religious fanatics trashed the Genome Vault his last hope for a meaningful company of travelers resides with his Time Hunters.

Discussing philosophy with Aristotle, playing chess with Tamerlane, painting with Leonardo, singing with Hiawatha, drinking with Richard Burton, and enjoying the most distinguished women of a dozen lost worlds would be far preferable to spending eternity with this scary bitch that he designed 300 years ago, when he was too young to know any better.

Seekers of The Sunset World 4

Seven Sunset Saga Story Threads by Protagonist 4

Protagonists in order of appearance 11

Chapter 1: The Giant Face 12

A Child's Price 12

A Vile Fate 13

Holy Water 15

Chapter 2: Mom's Place 19

The 78' Pinto 21

Chapter 3: Sensei 29

A Real Live Inglorious Bastard 30

Chapter 4: Light of My Night 35

Chapter 5: Henry! 39

Welcome to My Nightmare 40

Super-8 42

Chapter 6: June 11th 1868 45

A World without Asphalt 49

Chapter 7: A Savage Valour 53

Chapter 8: Alfonso 63

Dockside 63

In the Doorway 67

A Smoke-filled World 71

Fishing for Americanos 78

Chiquito 85

Chapter 9: Good Air? 89

Chapter 10: Another Town without Proper Sewage 96

The World is My Cup 96

The Confederate Hindoo 102

A Conclave of Amateur Barbarians 110

Picking My Literary Bones 119

The Bound Pages of My Pyre 130

Chapter 11: A Recollection 134

Chapter 12: Whiskey Runners 145

The Roaring Forties 145

Saint Helena 150

Ascension 152

Bobby Shine 154

Chapter 13: Our Pliant Way 157

Dugan's Wharf 157

Timothy Clay 159

Chapter 14: What Rick Wants 165

The Endowment 165

Rudyard Hayes 169

Chapter 15: Mister Darwin's Magic Carpet 172

Breakfast 172

A Court of Honor 181

The Initiate 187

Chapter 16: Colossus 192

A Horseless World 194

Chapter 17: The Perfect Freak 199

Chapter 18: The Manufactured Man 208

Automaton 208

Mrs. Shelley's Man 211

Chapter 19: Eternity Minus a Memory 220

Chapter 20: Time's Captain 223

Chapter 21: What's Up Doc? 226

Fine Linen of My Soul: An Epilogue 229

The Dream 229

The Promise 231

The Song 234

The World is Our Widow: An Epilogue 243

1. Richard F. Burton, Victorian scholar and adventurer

2. Randy Bracken, career criminal and time-hunter

3. Jan Stevenson, mathematics professor and time-traveler

4. Wilfrid S. Blunt, poet, political advocate and horse-lover

5. Bessie Humbolt, homemaker and mother of three

"Man has always worshipped one thing, himself, and himself only, either in the flesh or in the ghost-that is, in the non-flesh or the objective nothing-till he arrived at the transcendental Man, the superlative, the ideal of Himself."

-Richard F. Burton, Trieste, 1883