IRON SCEPTER

About the Book

Nearly five hundred years in the future, Earth’s Hegemony over her widespread colony worlds is threatening to fragment. More important to Political Officer Major Karel Novacek is the resurrection of his career. Under official censure for disobeying a superior officer, he has been posted to the fringes of the Hegemony, to the desolate world of Lenore, with the task of reintegrating Lenore into the Hegemony. His job isn’t easy. Only recently rediscovered, Lenore’s technology lags 150 years behind Hegemony norm; more crucially, three hundred years of independence have made the Lenorans determined to keep their freedom at any price.

A hard, duty-bound man, Novacek seems the perfect choice for the task. At first, his mission seems destined to succeed. But the situation changes drastically when Lenoran separatists resist Novacek’s hard-line approach and strike his headquarters. He seizes hostages in reprisal, among whom is Allison Kinnaird, a well-educated, attractive materials manager. Novacek is intrigued by the young woman and releases her. Kinnaird, however proves to be more than she seems, and she challenges Novacek to change his perspectives.

To make matters worse, deep in interstellar space first contact has been made with an alien race, the Gara’nesh. Lenore is chosen as the site for initial negotiations. But Novacek’s new superior orders him to provoke a war with the aliens in the hopes that this will unify an increasingly splintered humanity against a common foe. Despite his reluctance and doubts that bring him into conflict with his own past, Novacek has no choice but to accede to the orders.

But seemingly primitive Lenore holds a deadly secret for the Hegemony. And Novacek’s position is far from secure. Can he trust Lt. Jeremy Pritchard, his security chief, whom he suspects of being assigned by his superiors to spy on him? Or his second in command, the beautiful but ruthless Lt. Maria Sabatori? What about Peter Brock, a far-too-helpful Lenoran resister? And what is Allison Kinnaird not telling him?

 Novacek’s plans to initiate war go seriously awry. In the network of tunnels beneath Lenore’s capitol city, and on an orbiting space station Novacek is forced to play a deadly double game with his superiors. Waiting there too, is betrayal from those he least expects.

But with his knowledge as a historian, and based on memories of his own troubled past, Novacek realizes that war is not the way to unite humanity. Perhaps the contact of aliens and humanity is a test of racial maturity - an offer of peaceful co-existence. As both Lenore and the Hegemony teeter on the brink of war, Novacek realizes that peace, even if costly, is the better way. But is it too late to prevent conflict? As three war-fleets jockey for supremacy in the Lenoran system, Novacek gambles his life and Allison’s in a desperate ploy for peace.

Iron Scepter is the story of one man’s redemption in the face of a hostile government and interstellar conflict. In our own era of conflict, Iron Scepter is a reminder that for peace to become a reality, each individual must play a role. It is also a warning that difference is not an excuse for hatred.

About the Author

Andrew M. Seddon is a native of England who writes both fiction and nonfiction. A member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he is the author of the science fiction novel Red Planet Rising (Crossway Books, 1995), and Imperial Legions, a novel of the Roman conquest of Britain, which was released by Broadman & Holman Publishers in April 2000. His short stories have appeared in Dreams & Visions, Lost Worlds, Galactic Citizen, Startling Science Stories, Dusk & Dawn, Mediphors, and Physician Magazine. He has written numerous non-fiction articles on both medical and non-medical topics, is a regular book reviewer for Ethics & Medicine, and editor of articles and columns for Christian Library Journal. He is a staff physician at the Deaconess Billings Clinic in Billings, MT. His hobbies include classical piano, tennis, biking, and hiking with his two Samoyeds.