Silver Spur

About the Book

They were a courageous new breed of settlers, seasoned by the Revolution and tempered by the fires of frontier wars, who struck out across a vast continent to win the West. From the Cumberland Gap and Ohio headwaters, they funneled through Kentucky, enduring the bloody massacres of avenging Cherokee and the threat of a Spanish tyranny that forbade them to cross the Mississippi. Somewhere ahead in the shadows of the setting sun was the land where they would forge a legend as powerful as their dreams.

Luther Ferris and his two sons (Jonathan and Matthew) move to Missouri to build a dynasty. Life is hard and families divide. Jonathan stays home to help his father and becomes the town Marshall. Jonathan must find an outlaw who wears a Silver Spur. Matthew leaves home to live his own adventures and becomes the caretaker of a little girl. An adventure where two brothers, during the western saga, reunite.

About the Author

Dan Parkinson

I have always been a voracious reader. By the time I was nine or ten, attending a one-room school in the Texas Panhandle, I was absorbing the magic of words set down by people like Burroughs, Dickens, Forrester, London, Poe?everything available in a library that had three shelves. I was fascinated by what writers could do and how they do it. I wanted to do that, too.

I studied the craft of writing at every opportunity, and used what I learned constantly, but I waited a long time before attempting book-length fiction. To me, the novel is the most demanding and exacting of all the semantic pursuits. A good novel goes beyond craft. It is art, and requires the wisdom and experience to have something to write about. But the need to write is always there.

My first novel was published nationally when I was fifty. Now, fourteen years later, I?m working on my fortieth. I?ve had best sellers in four or five genre, though I?ve never really written genre. A story is a story; no matter how it?s stage is set. Genre is just a matter of packaging. I?ve been packaged as westerns, historicals, science fiction, ?tall ships? novels, fantasy and general fiction, and a few things that defy classification.

Following The Gates of Thorbardin, I was advised that?for Dragonlance purposes?dwarves were mine?so write about them. The result was the Dwarven Nations trilogy, a three-course compendium of a unique culture. For dessert, I added The Gully Dwarves ?three short stories and a culminating novel.

I think it was a compliment to be considered the foremost authority on dwarves. At 6-foot-3, that?s quite an accolade. I?ve also been cited as an authority on eighteenth century warships, Colonial firearms, Texas history, logistic path parameters, dimensional physics, time theory and the psychology of range cows.

I?m a native of Western Kansas, and a Texan since 1967. I live in Lake Jackson, an hour or so south of Houston, with my wife, Wilma Jean. Between us we have seven children, a flock of grandchildren and the long-suffering services of a cat named Max.