Solar Minimum Read online



  Revised paperback edition 2013

  Edited by Kim Mercer

  Copyright © 2013 Greg T Meyers

  All rights reserved.

  This document contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  Self-published by the author in the USA

  ISBN: 1493656752

  ISBN-13: 978-1493656752

  For Shelley,

  my Veronica. Thank you for saving me.

  

  Acknowledgements

  i

  Maps

  Lord Guiscard’s Journey

  ii

  Toprak World

  iii

  England

  iv

  The Battle of the Thames

  v

  1

  Chapter 1

  1

  2

  Chapter 2

  13

  3

  Chapter 3

  29

  4

  Chapter 4

  45

  5

  Chapter 5

  63

  6

  Chapter 6

  79

  7

  Chapter 7

  95

  8

  Chapter 8

  113

  9

  Chapter 9

  129

  10

  Chapter 10

  149

  11

  Chapter 11

  165

  12

  Chapter 12

  179

  13

  Chapter 13

  197

  14

  Chapter 14

  213

  15

  Chapter 15

  229

  16

  Chapter 16

  253

  17

  Chapter 17

  267

  18

  Chapter 18

  285

  19

  Chapter 19

  303

  20

  Chapter 20

  323

  21

  Chapter 21

  345

  22

  Chapter 22

  369

  23

  Chapter 23

  391

  24

  Chapter 24

  417

  25

  Chapter 25

  433

  26

  Chapter 26

  445

  27

  Chapter 27

  457

  28

  Chapter 28

  469

  29

  Chapter 29

  485

  30

  Chapter 30

  495

  Book Club Discussion

  515

  About the Author

  519

  Character Glossary

  521

  

  Special thanks to all those who have gone before and left such great anecdotes of living both in the positive and the negative. The rich history of all of our ancestors who toiled through centuries of hardship, disease, war and evil. Their examples of piety and honor are perhaps never more needed for us to remember than today. May we be as courageous and selfless as they in the next hundred years.

  Jacob Abbott for his volumes on English and European history that have greatly added to the historical accuracy and color of my work. I am especially grateful for his moral judgment and commentary on the histories he wrote, an asset that is painfully missing from many historical works.

  Special thanks to Kim Mercer and her hours of pouring over this manuscript and who provided valuable direction when my storytelling was not completely converted from my imagination to paper.

  Stanley and Diane Blackett for their support and excitement, love of my story and the characters I created. It was because of them that General Clancy was brought back to life which made for an interesting twist in Gus's abilities and his future.

  My wife Shelley, the love of my life who was my inspiration for Veronica—sweet, kind, colorfully audacious and dangerously beautiful. I am a lucky man.

  For England and letting me live with her for a time and her rich history of survival and moral right—peppered with terribleness.

  