Ian Randal Strock’s Fantastic Books has just published Uncle River‘s new novel, King Freedom, continuing the company’s trend toward publishing both new and reprint titles.
King Freedom is a novel of freedom, both “of” and “from”. As River describes it, “When tyrant fanatics long have commanded both government and institutions of religion, what can ordinary people do? People just trying to live a decent life, sometimes just trying to live at all. People of sincere faith, or of none.
“King Freedom is a tale of escape from oppression. Both an actual escape, and the story of how one young man so beaten down he has no personality at all can grow to be a full human being.”
Uncle River lives in Pie Town, New Mexico, where there are more elk than people, a mile from the Continental Divide. After many years as a hermit, he has reentered the world by joining his local Volunteer Fire Department and becoming an EMT. But he hasn’t gone too urban: the nearest hospital is sixty miles away.
His “Love of the True God” was shortlisted for the 1999 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.