The Dandelion Farmer

From the day our kind set foot on Mars, strife and bloodshed has followed in our wake. At first the wars of conquest against the Martians, and then the continuing strife between the colonies of the old Earthbound Empires. Though independence promised us a dream of a brave new world, the path to it has been choked in blood, as age-old enmities, we should have abandoned back on Earth, seek to claim our future.And Mars itself, holds no tenderness nor succour for us, the children of Terra. This is not a world to be called home. It is but the bloody altar of an ancient War God, upon which we are sacrificed.FRIAR GODFRIED, SERMO AD POPULUM, PUBLISHED, AMENTHES, MARS.1890.Steampunk meets Science Fiction adventure on the Wild Western Frontier of Mars. The Dandelion Farmer is a Victorian style Science Fiction novel set in the Martian colonies twenty-five years after they threw off the rule of the old Imperial powers. Edwin Ransom is a young, idealistic botanical fuel grower, the eponymous Dandelion Farmer, who is barely scratching a living out of the red earth. Edwin's quiet life is intruded upon by the henchmen of Eleuthère Du Maurier, a ruthless fuel industrialist who wants to drive Edwin off his lands. As tensions mount, Edwin encounters Adam Franklin, a wandering amnesiac with a terrible secret. Intrigued by Adam's mechanical hand and the mystery surrounding his lost memory, Edwin decides to try to help his new friend. However unknown to Edwin there is far more to Du Maurier's desire for his land than just his craving for real estate and dandelions. As events spiral out of control, Edwin and Adam find themselves on a race across Mars for the very survival of mankind.