The White Light of Tomorrow features a diverse cast of characters working with and against each other to survive in a strange future in which the Earth no longer exists and her far-flung colonies must find their own paths. I’ll detail the setting more in a future post, but tonight I’d like to introduce our cast!
Adrian of Tarsus is a Knight Hospitaler in the service of the Universal Church. Having seen his share of war and crusade, he now serves his Order and his Pope as the Militium Publicanus–military tax collector–aboard Mustafa Ali Pasha’s trading ship, the Miranda. It would be an easy life, were it not for Mustafa’s eccentricities and Adrian’s ever more desperate need to find a cure for his daughter Mariel’s strange affliction.
Mariel is Adrian’s adopted daughter and squire. Brash and inquisitive, she has a knack for slaughtering Adrian’s sacred cows. As the daughter of a knight, her prowess with arms is not to be underestimated, but her true potential lies undiscovered. And it will remain undiscovered unless Adrian can unlock the clues to her past and save her life.
Mustafa Ali Pasha is a Turkish merchant and owner of the spaceship Miranda. Misfortune seems to find Mustafa wherever he goes in the universe, and as The White Light of Tomorrow opens we find the Turk seeking yet again to make a fortune off of the illegal trade in Machina, that is, technology banned by the Church under stiff penalties, up to and including death.
Sabine Isolde Adler owns a public house at Civitate Dei, Christendom’s holy city. She has an affinity for technology, overseeing a thriving black-market trade in Machina. But how much of her illicit activity is aimed at profit, and how much is aimed at Reformation?
Sister Mary Frances is also a servant of the Universal Church: a nun in the secretive convent of the Daughters of our Lady of Sorrows. A favorite of Grand Inquisitor Grégoire Duval, she may be the deadliest arrow in the Universal Inquisition’s quiver, and is certainly the most unstable.
And there are many more! To meet the rest of the Miranda’s crew, Sabine’s motley henchmen, and more evil agents of the Universal Church, please check out the book, available for pre-order at your favorite e-bookseller!
Click here to read the complete first chapter of The White Light of Tomorrow for free!
-DPW