There's a new bard in the galaxy-and he's looking for a hero. The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author returns to the frontier that spawned a legend.
Danny Briggs is a simple yet conflicted thief. To successfully ply his trade, Briggs can't draw attention to himself, but he longs to do something worth remembering. Luck is on his side when he hits the mother lode: discovering the original manuscript of the balladeer who wandered the spaceways a century ago, recording the adventures of larger-than-life heroes, villains, and misfits-including Santiago.
Briggs doesn't want to sell the manuscript, he wants to add to it. All he needs is his century's version of Santiago, a man who may be on the wrong side of the law, but the right side of justice. To find this protagonist, Briggs partners up with Santiago's last descendant, a dancer named Waltzin' Matilda. They comb through the universe's good, bad, and ugly looking for a new folk hero to inspire the masses. It's not easy, but Briggs is willing to pay the price-even though there's one on his head.
"Pecos Bill and Wild Bill Hickok would feel right at home with such characters as Tyrannosaur Bailey and the One-Armed Bandit. Seekers of space-age sagebrush need look no farther." -Publishers Weekly
