The High Quest

by Henry Melton

Centuries after the Plague, the only library on terraformed Luna had been destroyed in a horrific fire. Was the restoration of humanity's greatness lost?
Charles Fasail, raised a scholar but orphaned by the Great Burn and enslaved as a dock worker in an illiterate culture, has now come into possession of the most powerful weapon on Luna and it seems like nearly everyone wants him dead. Facing the ugly truth that his dream of rebuilding his homeland might be a lost cause, Charles finds himself with great power and no goal to give his life meaning. Reaching out to one of his only friends, they realize that perhaps there still exists a library they could use to restore literacy to Luna, off in the abandoned L5 colonies in space. Charles has the only spaceship left on the forested world, the only way to reach those books, but that just might increase the number of people who wanted him and the ship destroyed!
The High Quest is the second book of the Lunar Alpine trilogy.
Henry Melton has been crafting the Project history line since the 70s, building an alternate history of mankind that stretches from the current day to a new destiny among the stars.

256 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2021

About the author

Henry Melton is often on the road with his wife Mary Ann, a nature photographer and frequently captivated by the places he visits. This has inspired his latest series of novels; Small Towns, Big Ideas. Formerly a programmer specializing in database work and web design, he pioneered Internet use for a Fortune 500 company until the tech bubble collapse. In the early days of home computers, he created one of the earliest commercial word processing programs, and built his own computers back when that meant wiring the chips together by hand to his own schematics.
Henry's short fiction has been published in many magazines and anthologies, most frequently in ANALOG. Catacomb, published in DRAGON magazine, is considered a classic, and by the continuing fan mail twenty years later, a formative influence among modern computer gaming programmers. Many of these are available for free on his website.
Other than an occasional short story, most of his time is spent writing science fiction YA novels. Currently being published by Wire Rim Books are the Small Towns, Big Ideas series of books, where high school aged heroes of the here and now are confronted with classic science fiction themes. The first, Emperor Dad, was the winner of the 2008 Darrell Award for Best Novel.
Sharing what he's learned about the art, craft, and business of writing has been an on-going part of his life, from grade school readings to teaching formal classes and veranda coaching for the students of George Benson Christian College in Zambia during his 2007 trip to Africa.

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Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picking up several months after the end of Alpine Duty Charles and Darkwind are attacked. While defending themselves their reforestation of Alp was obliterated. Darkwind wants to go back to the Kimmer. Charles makes a new plan, drop off Darkwind, find Harriman Moore and another trustworthy person, then find the Alexandria space city that supposedly holds more volumes than were lost when Alp burned. It’s an adventure to locate the preacher, but he does. On to Terrance where he can’t convince Jelica to accompany him into space, but her young apprentice Heidi volunteers. Many adventures in space. If and when they return to Luna a library will have to be created.

Fast fun read. 4.7 stars. Knowing the setting from reading book one helps. We get to know more about the preacher and Heidi, but pretty much all the characters had already been mentioned. The ending is not a cliffhanger, but we find out that Luna isn’t self sufficient, that within twenty thousand years they’ll need spacefaring capabilities to keep their atmosphere from leaking away.