City on a Star book 2: The Betrothal of Usk
With the end of the Galactic Matriarchy, Vir’ism has risen, centered on Hesperia, the City on a Star. But one leader, Mart Kell, is out of power, while another, the Great Father, Ay’r, is quietly retired.
On a small resort planet with a rainbow of rings, Ay’r Eise’nstein-Kell, a 16-year-old boy, air skates across the sands, dreaming of escape to the famed City on a Star. When the rulers of the galaxy-wide republic and their glamorous entourages arrive on Usk to celebrate a great betrothal, Ay’r finds himself thrust into their midst but even deeper into dynastic schemes and power manipulations he cannot understand. Except when they are revealed to be perilous to his freedom and to his life.
Abused and alone, he flees with few resources but knowledge into the unique dangers of The Great Salt Ocean of Usk. There, he will find all the adventure a boy could want. He’ll also discover the plight of the oppressed worker-species, the pamps, who have long awaited their Messiah, and he will discover who he really is: could Ay’r be The One?
Meanwhile, Kri’nni, heiress to the defeated Bella-Arth empire, escapes her long bondage and plots her return. Holt, the youngest son of the Great Father, a playboy known as “The Cadet,” flees the media circus of his life for a mission into the heart of the galaxy in search of a new source of the Beryllium ore that makes galaxy-wide communication and travel possible. What else will he find to reinvigorate the new Ib’r society?
Get It At Amazon
THE BETROTHAL AT USK by Felice Picano
Book 2: City on a Star trilogy
Kindle: B099MYM6WB / ePub: 978-1-951092-39-9
Print: 406 pgs • 978-1-951092-40-5
e-Book $5.95 • Print US$19.95
https://amzn.to/3COuaOm
IN 1995 Felice Picano published at a small press a speculative sci-fi novel, "Dryland's End". It's huge, sprawling, filled with wonderful characters and situations in a far off time that leap off the page and into your heart. Picano's imagination and gift for dialogue and human situations make it a page turner that you don't really want to end.
Following the success of ReQueered Tales's reissue of "Like People in History" in 2020 (as well as "The Book of Lies" and "Onyx", two late 1990s novels), the author offered us not only "Dryland's End" but two new sequels as well. Today, we release "The Betrothal at Usk", Book II of "City on a Star" trilogy; "A Bard on Hercular", Book III will follow late next spring.
Like the best of his writing, this one tells a cracking good story, with a wonderful wrapping up of all the loose ends at the end of an incredible journey around the universe. As the Virginia Gazette said of the first book in the series: "In full-fledged sci-fi form, Picano has created entirely new civilizations, species, even new language forms for his society. A phenomenally well-written book."
Author Bio
Felice Picano is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, memoirs, nonfiction, and plays. His work has been translated into many languages and several of his titles have been national and international bestsellers. He is considered a founder of modern gay literature along with the other members of the Violet Quill. Picano also began and operated the SeaHorse Press and Gay Presses of New York for fifteen years. His first novel was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Since then he’s been nominated for and/or won dozens of literary awards.
A five-time Lambda Literary Award nominee, Picano’s books include the best-selling novels The Lure, The Book of Lies, Like People in History, and Looking Glass Lives as well as the literary memoirs Men Who Loved Me and A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay. Along with Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, Edmund White, and George Whitmore, he founded the Violet Quill to promote and increase the visibility of gay authors and their works. In 2009, the Lambda Literary Foundation awarded Picano its Lifetime Achievement/Pioneer Award.
Originally from New York, the author now lives in Los Angeles.