The Headman and The Assassin by Sandy Nathan Closes Earth's End Trilogy!

This is an early trailer before the last book's name was changed...
but still certainly relevant...



Introduction A Note from Sam Good Man 

My name is Sam Good Man. By rights, I could use the name Sam Baahuhd. I can claim that name because I am the oldest descendant of the original Sam Baahuhd, the headman of the village when we had to go underground to escape the atomics. I am the headman now, one hundred and five generations later. Legends are told of lives like mine, but my life doesn’t seem legendary to me. It seems normal. Even ordinary. Well, perhaps a bit more than that. I was born in the underground shelter and escaped from it in its darkest time. I was badly wounded when I escaped and am alive only because Jeremy Edgarton— known by my people as the Great Tek— and his mother, the lady, Veronica Edgarton— saved me.

We found ourselves living on a great stone cliff over a river valley. We were joined by those who had gone to the angel Eliana’s planet to escape the great atomic war: Jeremy the Great Tek, Eliana herself, Henry and Lena, and Mel and James. We had many adventures. The battle for the underground when we saved the children was the greatest. I’m not going to talk about those times. I’m going to talk about what started it all. 

To understand this book, you need to know that I have another name. I am Sam of Emily. I am the last of the line 

of Emily born in the underground shelter. Emily is the woman Sam Baahuhd carried into the shelter just before the bombs went off and sealed us down there forever. I carry inside of me Emily and Sam Baahuhd and Arthur Romero and so many more of the first ones. They sing in me, telling their tales. Every story has a story behind it. This book has one, too. 

After the battle for the underground, we went back to the cliff by the river with the 

children we’d saved. When we got things squared away so that no one was near dying, we started having campfires every night. We laughed and had fun— the best times I’d ever had. At the campfires, the children sang the way we did underground, humming and warbling deep in our throats. The lady said our songs reminded her of the way the monks in Tibet sang. I don’t know about that. It’s just how we sing. Our voices sounded good in the shelter, bouncing off the cement walls. The sound carried a long way, too. You could put different meanings 

into the sound, if you wanted to sneak a message past the Bigs who enslaved us down below. The first time I told a story, I started at the beginning, telling about Sam and Emily and Arthur and all the first ones. I didn’t think it anything special until I looked up and saw that everyone had tears about to spill out of their eyes. When I’d been telling a little bit every night, Mel Abrams started teaching me to read. Mel was a teacher and a revolutionary before the world blew up. He was Jer the Tek’s teacher and friend. He teaches 

everyone here, whether they like it or not. 

After I had told stories for few weeks, Mel got the “wonderful idea” that I should make the stories into a book. “How can I write a book?” I said. “I cannot write.” “This is what we’re going to do,” Mel said. “I’m going to record your stories and transcribe them. When you can spell the words from hearing the sounds, you’ll do it yourself. Then we’ll start polishing.” I would write a chapter or two, and then he would read it 

and say, “Yes, but your POV”— that means “point of view”—“ jumps here, and this goes on too long. You need to watch your punctuation. This doesn’t move the story forward.” Somewhere along the way, I learned to use a computer. That made it easier. Then I wrote this story on the computer, instead of telling it at the campfires at night. I’m glad of that, because I didn’t want to tell parts of this story around the children. There’s nothing wrong with 

people knowing that their ancestors were real people and went to bed with each other and made mistakes. But the kids ought at least to grow up enough to read about it, rather than hearing it by accident at a campfire. Some bad things happened down there. I’d just as soon not tell anyone about them, but a record should be kept. Maybe people will learn from it. In the end, I wrote this book because my ancestors wanted me to do it. They’d come to me, raucous like a flock of crows, and flap around in my head until I wrote what they wanted.

Whatever Mel thinks, I expect that my stories and this book will die on this ledge with me. But, even if they do, those who came before want those who came after to know what happened. I offer you this story with love in my heart and gratitude that I have the life I do. I survived when so many others didn’t. This is the story of my ancestors, Sam Baahuhd and Emily, who loved each other beyond death. Sam Good Man Who is also Sam of Emily, 

the last Sam Baahuhd, the headman of the village and the people who live on the cliff by the river. I am the man who wed the lady and will love her forever.
~~~

The Headman and The Assassin:

Earth's End 3

By Sandy Nathan

It was never intended by Jeremy's family that their servants, their slaves, would be saved in the technologically innovating underground bunker that they had created and built across the world. Those to be saved were scholars, scientists, and others with the expertise to continue to work, survive and come out to begin rebuilding all that had been destroyed...

But it had all come too fast, the destruction had already begun and, unless the bunker would remain empty, the only people who could quickly move into the bunker to be closed were all of the farm workers. None of them could read or write. The small community had been inbred for generations. But perhaps worst of all, the rich owners of the property had cared little about the personal lives of their employees.

Jeremy had cared enough to go to the Headman, Sam, and discuss everything with him, placing him in charge. He had also had one of his fellow staff members willing to go into the bunker with them and hopefully work to train some of the people to handle the system created to keep them all alive...

Jeremy was scheduled to travel to another planet but tried to point out as much as he could about problems Sam might face as leader. Off the top of his head, he quickly told him the facts: continuing to marry cousins was ultimately going to lead to genetic issues and he should ensure that no drink or drugs be allowed.

Sam took his new responsibility and immediately tried to proceed with what Jeremy had told him. But since he was one of the last to enter the bunker, and saw a lone woman who was hurt, he picked her up and took her inside...

The first edict that Sam implemented was that anybody who was married to their own relatives were divorced by his decree. That included his four wives...

Of course, all individuals would be provided for with supplies that had already been stored so that divorced wives would still have everything they needed...except a male companion...

In the meantime, Sam took the outsider into his room to recover and he ultimately fell in love for the first time in his life. Yeah...but... He was so sappy in love that the rest of the people became upset and angry...Sam had forced divorces to supposedly stop the inbreeding...but he was also totally involved with a new woman...

Readers will learn about the proclivities of the community; specifically related to drinking, drugs, and multi-partner sex. Shutting up a small group who had lived that way for many generations could only lead to disaster...the type of disaster that we discovered in book 2 when the inbreeding had created genetic deformities of all kinds...

Now, here's the...yeah, but...it could be assumed, at least I did, that the supernatural powers that the villagers all had to a small or greater extent, was caused by the inbreeding. Sam, the Headman, for instance, could heal people and also could control, when necessary, others by simply using "The Voice..." 

At the same time, he had been just as involved with the "fun" activities of the village and it was well known that he'd been with every woman that was now in the bunker and deprived of their husbands...

And then there were the criminal types who had been living in the village, making the hooch; growing the weed...and selling to make their money. At no time were they even willing to consider eliminating those activities...

But nobody, including Sam, was prepared to learn that there was already a genetic issue, from Sam, that was now a part of nearly all the occupants... And if they wanted to keep the population fairly stagnant as people died, there should only be certain men and women who could mate together...

And one of those men who could breed was a Black man who had volunteered to go underground with them and try to teach the others how to survive... Now racial tension became part of the mix...

I had to wonder whether, if the scholars and scientists had made it into the bunker, how much different it would have been than with the village people. Yes, they would have been able to read and write, but with the assumption that the stay in the bunker might be thousands of years, would the intellect continue to rule or would those same individuals have dropped back, as Maslow stated, requiring their basic needs and instincts had to be met before a human can ever look upward to higher more lofty goals... I've always believe in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and believe that anybody that was suddenly thrown into a catastrophic, isolated environment would ultimately have at least some percentage of the occupants become disruptive and dangerous people in this situation.

And, here's another yeah, but...you see, Emily had some...ah...mental issues...having been trained by the government...to kill...

I'm not going into the love story...it's the only bright spots of the storyline and though it was an unusual love...Sam is a character that quickly earns respect as he stepped up to the plate to lead this long-term mission...to stay alive...and go into an unknown future... He and Sam Good Man were my favorite characters...

Wow! The creative imagination of the author is well beyond what most of us could conceive. Yet, as a trilogy, the three books come together brilliantly as a study of human behavior in the worst of conditions--to keep on living only to keep from dying...

I've already said it's the best I've read in this genre... Especially, since it is based upon nuclear disaster of man destroying man. We are already there, aren't we? Me, I think I'd stay here in my home rather than move into a bunker with a hundred people I didn't know... What would YOU do? It's a lot easier to consider death when you see what could be the alternative...

An amazing, extraordinary, horrific, and yes, a brilliant wake-up tale of where the world may be headed. Kudos to Nathan for this award-winning trilogy, but, more, for being willing to confront many major issues that would undoubtedly appear...If...or when... 

Outstanding and highly recommended of course!

GABixlerReviews