A novella.
Locus Award nominee 2013.
Mark Twain was one of the
greatest minds of his time, torn between the brilliant persona he had
forged for himself and a life of wrenching tragedy. Nicola Tesla was an
unworldly genius capable of insights that defied the wildest
imaginations. Their secret history is rife with friendship and betrayal, human tragedy and unearthly danger.
Drawn by his curiosity, Samuel Clemens escapes the grinding toil of
being Mark Twain by cultivating what seems an innocent friendship with
the greatest scientist of the age. As he grows closer to the powerfully
eccentric Tesla, he begins to sense another, stranger intelligence that
may be coming into being. The inventions of Nicola Tesla — alternating
current, wireless communications, death rays, robot weapons — become
puzzle pieces that take shape under Mark Twain’s eyes. Has Tesla somehow opened the gateway to a profoundly alien intelligence, or is it Tesla
himself that will bring the world to Armageddon?
And with every tragedy in his family — buffeted by the deaths of his
wife, daughter, brother, and son — Samuel Clemens is moved to ask the most important question of all: Why is the world worth saving?
