How It Started

Way back in 2005, following the success of The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel, writer L. Neil Smith and artist Scott Bieser planned what to do for their next collaboration. 

And so: 

Way, way,way back in 1836, the famous battle of the Alamo went slightly differently.

Presidente Santa Ana was felled by 600-yard shot from, most likely, Davey Crockett. As a result, when the Alamo defenders  fell, the surviving fighters were not executed on the spot, but instead taken prisoner by General de Cos. Crockett escaped and was able to join up with Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto, where the Mexican army was defeated and Texas won independence.

And because Crockett survived and became a major force in Texican politics, Texas remained free and sovereign into the 20th Century.

In the years that followed, Texas prospered, and grew in territory. And a great deal of history in North America and Europe unfolded differently.

A bit more than a century later, in 1947, a flying saucer appeared in the skies near the far west-Texas town of Roswell. It was shot down by a Texas Air Militia pilot, and Texican President Charles Lindbergh sent a crew of Texas Rangers to investigate.

Various world powers were anxious to find that wreckage and learn its secrets. What followed was a race among a collection of characters we know from history, but because history has changed, the characters are somewhat different, sometimes in highly surprising ways.

In the end, a lot of Nazis get killed. This is always a crowd-pleaser.

Why a new edition?

When it was time to take the story to press, we got some quotes and found that printing a 272-page full-color book, in the quantities we thought we could sell, was so pricey we'd have to charge more than the market would bear for a full-color trade paperback.

So Scott went through Jen Zach's lovely colored pages in Photoshop and made them grey-scale pages. The results were readable but, well, less than fully satisfactory (on the other hand the book was only 13 bucks in 2009 dollars).

Now in 2021, changes in printing technology and the marketplace have made it financially possible to produce this book in the full, glorious color it deserves.

... that is, if fans of L. Neil Smith (or Scott Bieser) deem a larger-format, hard-back book in full color, printed in North America, worthy of their hard-earned samoleons. (And new readers can sample the story on-line here to get a better idea of what to expect.)

(Updated cover for the Deluxe Edition)

But wait, there's more!

The new Deluxe Edition will be limited to 500 copies, so this will definitely become a must-have collector's item for lovers of liberty-oriented fiction and Smith fans in particular.  It will also contain an all-new afterword written by Rylla C. Smith, Neil's daughter (and who knows, it might be a collector's item for Rylla's future fans!).

To sweeten the pot a bit (and offer a lower price-point for those with thinner pockets who still want to participate), we will produce a special post-card for this campaign which will only be available through the campaign. And if we see enough interest in this project, Scott might be able to create a poster featuring the major Roswell, Texas characters.

Why it matters

With the recent discorporation of El Neil, this book is overdue but still a tribute to this talented writer, whose loss was lamented by family, friends, and fans. A portion of profits will go to Rylla for her contribution and the rest will go to help keep Big Head Press going.

Other Ways You Can Help

Even if you can't contribute, you can still help by getting the word out about this campaign. Tell your friends, your relatives, the folks who call you on the phone trying to sell you extended automobile warranties (it will brighten their day).

Indiegogo makes sharing easy.

Update: We've altered the Postcards graphic somewhat. Here's what it will look like:

We hope backers will agree that these minor changes are an improvement.