A Long Way Back to Zion: Yesterday's Dead

by Samuel Engelman

They believed that what they were doing would save humanity. Or, at least, that is what they told the masses. First, they conquered the world’s lust for fossil fuels. Next, it was commercial agriculture. It was just as bad for the planet, after all, and even the small operations were choked out of existence in the end. When people started starving, they blamed their ancestors for destroying the planet. Then came the virus, global destabilization, and finally the chaos. Borders changed, cultures went extinct, and billions perished. A new dark age of humanity descended. They killed the old world they had set out to save and those that were left inherited a new one brimming with hardship, violence, and desolation. A century later, a boy and a girl are thrown together by chance. Evelyn is a refugee, lost and stranded on her way to a mythical colony called New Hope. Noah is a Texas bandit who is given an opportunity to act heroically and takes it. Together, the two set off on a journey across a deadly landscape. What used to be the United States of America is now a sparsely populated frontier. Small populations of traders and thieves inhabit the abandoned ruins of cities like Houston and Austin. Tribes of violent savages prowl the Piney Woods, the Hill Country, and the Great Plains. Rural ranchers tend cattle by day and hide behind palisade walls by night. Unknown to the rest of this new world, two powers from the old world are on the rise. New Hope is much more than a simple survivor colony in the frozen Alaskan wilderness. They are a sophisticated and technologically advanced civilization with a mission and a mind to rekindle the spark of Western Civilization. Standing in their way is a remnant of the genocidal old-world government which, up until now, was only a whispered rumor. New Hope's dream of an idyllic utopia may crash upon the rocks of genocidal madness unless they come to terms with the harsh reality of war.

287 pages, Hardcover

Published January 20, 2023