Overview

I must admit that of my published novels, Gold, a tale of the California gold rush, is in many ways my favorite story. This is in part because of personal, sentimental reasons. I greatly enjoyed researching it, discovering how much literature I could find on the subject of sidewheel steam ships, and the sea route to California. Gold was an Eppie awards finalist for 2009. Imagine you're living on a small, isolated planet where you have to work twelve or sixteen hours a day just to earn enough money to stay alive, and where it's freezing cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. You're sharing rooms with maybe several other people you barely know; the future seems to offer only more of the same. Suddenly you're given a chance. You can travel to a far distant world, if you can come up with about two hundred dollars for the ticket. This new planet is warm all the time, uncrowded, with limitless opportunity. And you can become fabulously rich by just picking up gold off the ground. Why, even the servants there are rich. Oh, there's a couple of drawbacks: You will have to travel in a ship using radically new and untested technology. You will be crowded in with a thousand other passengers and crew, but out of contact with the rest of humanity for weeks at a time. During the passage you will be eating mainly dried meat and beans, no fresh fruit or veggies. Oh, and one other thing: the ship might possibly explode at any moment. That was the situation emigrants to California found themselves in when they shipped aboard a steam ship from the east coast. Thousands more traveled that way than came by wagon train. Gold is the story of a few of these emigrants, and how their lives were changed by the journey.

Full Product Details

9798215574546

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

"About the author: Following a previous life, he has turned his attention to telling stories about the Old West during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He has discovered there are thousands of untold stories to be found in old newspapers, magazines, and sometimes even history books. The stories he writes are mostly made-up fiction, but then so are a lot of history books. He has learned that what people most value are not the bare bone facts of the past, but the stories we tell about them. Steve (whose friends mostly refer to him as ""Bart"") derives his idea from listening to people, walking around old neighborhoods, and a lot of reading. As for his previous life, he had an undistinguished career in civil service. His first actual job was in the U.S. Army. Someday he may write a book titled ""All I Need to Know I learned in the Army."" He now lives in a rural part of northern California, where he likes to listen to folks and look at trees."

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available