A Scattering of Jades - Hardcover

Irvine, Alexander C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765301164 ISBN 13: 9780765301161

Publisher: Tor Books, 2002

Synopsis

The great fire of 1835 burned most of New York City's wooden downtown. Like many people, Archie Prescott thought he had lost everything. His home was a smoldering ruin, his dead wife's body at his feet. And next to her is a child's corpse he assumes was his daughter. It seems like the end of everything.

But it is only the beginning.

Goaded into action by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Archie runs afoul of one of P. T. Barnum's former sideshow workers, Riley Steen. With the help of an ancient book translated by Aaron Burr, Steen has resurrected a chacmool. This ageless Mesoamerican avatar plans to use the blood of Archie's still-living daughter to bring about the end of humanity.

At the same time, Stephen Bishop guides tourists through the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Stephen, a slave, wants nothing more than a world where the color of his skin doesn't deny his humanity. His fateful first meeting with the chacmool leads him to believe that the promise it offers may bring him to such a world.

In the midst of ancient magic and murderous conspiracies, Archie finds himself with the power to save the world or drown it in sacrificial blood . . . but first he has to stop mourning his daughter and undertake a grim cross-country journey to save her.

About this title

Review:

Alexander C. Irvine makes a strong debut with A Scattering of Jades, a novel that can be read with equal validity as fantasy, alternate history, or secret history. In 1835, an attempted human sacrifice goes awry, sparking a fire that consumes much of Manhattan and destroys journalist Archie Prescott's home and family. Stephen Bishop, a slave exploring a Kentucky cave system, discovers a peculiar Aztec mummy that seems, sometimes, to move. A complex conspiracy involving Aaron Burr, P.T. Barnum, Tammany Hall, Irish gangsters, and a traveling medicine man will bring together Archie, Stephen, an accursed girl who may be Archie's daughter, and ferocious Aztec deities in the underworld of Mammoth Cave, in an epic struggle that will determine the fate of the earth. --Cynthia Ward

About the Author:

Alexander Irvine is a native of Ypsilanti, Michigan. His extraordinary stories have appeared in such places as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Starlight 3. He is a descendant of P T. Barnum and once worked as a roller-skating waiter. He currently resides in New England with his wife and twins.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0765301164
• ISBN 13: 9780765301161
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448