Westward (Retrofuture Sci-fi Space Adventure)

Westward is a heavily atmospheric, tightly paced and character-driven story about humanity taking its first tentative steps into the cosmos. The story begins in the fantastic future of 1998 as newspaperman Lamont Townsend navigates the neon-lit, subterranean alien ruins of a colonized Mars. A leaked photograph from the original 1969 Mars expedition suggests that the mega-corporation controlling human spaceflight didn’t just find dead architecture beneath the Martian dunes—they found a living native. As Lamont digs deeper into the corporate shell games of United Space, he is actively hunted by shadowy agents who seem to know far too much about his traumatic past, forcing him into a desperate alliance with Francis Carter, the reclusive veteran astronaut. As the layers of conspiracy are pulled back, Lamont begins to realize that he is not peering into the vault of a hidden past so much as he is staring over the edge into mankind's first terrifying leap toward the stars.  Westward is a space-based mystery that evolves over time into an adventure of conspiracy, exploration and discovery. Expect a noir-style narrative featuring complex and flawed characters, each with their own motivations and secrets. The stories explore psychological and philosophical concepts through character-driven story arcs, with a generous helping of witty dialogue to keep things moving. Content note: Themes of psychological trauma are explored, and characters sometimes find themselves in perilous situations. There is no graphic violence, heavy profanity or graphic sexuality in the Westward serial.