William Sumrall

Metal Storm: Weird Custer: a Novel William Sumrall

Publisher Marketing: If ever America had its Absalom, this tragic figure would have been personified in the character of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. This enigma of a man, killed at 36 years of age in an unprecedented disaster largely of his own making had risen to spectacular fame and glory when at the age of 23, he had been promoted to General during the Civil War. This prodigal son of a blacksmith would not be denied his place in the sun with the Presidential Elections looming in November of 1876. A virtual shoo-in as the next President of the United States, he needed one last crowning achievement. To the West, in the Montana Territory lay his Holy Grail, this Holy Grail was a multicellular sentient being, a living, breathing deadly object of the Boy General's adoration. It was the Sioux Nation. A Holy Man had risen among these tribes of the mountains and prairies. This Holy Man wore a grim face ravaged with the scars of small pox. Magic passed down from shaman to shaman during the course of thousands of years had brought together the largest conglomeration of Sioux Clans ever seen. Added to this were the Northern Cheyenne, and hodge podges of the other Nations, such as the Comanche. Magic not seen in 30,000 years would be invoked - would have to be invoked - to stop the ambition blinded former General who intended to rule the world as an Emperor. Using his immediate family members as satraps, Custer would fulfill his obsession with becoming the next Alexander the Great. Much has been made of the disaster that consumed the Custer element, much speculation and many contradicting images emerge. The author has drawn from eye witness accounts. Most of the characters are rooted in history, but there are exceptions. METAL STORM is a historical fiction in which the author has studied the faces of the actors in the play in order to give realistic description. He has studied extensively the weapons used, and how they performed under extreme application. Fact and fantasy have been melded together, in this Opus Magnus of the Weird West genre.