Equal Justice Under the Stars

By Anthony J. Zingales

 
“Space is the cure!” Attorney Wynne Porter mounts a defense for the wrongly accused. His client may be innocent, but Wynne is not. After 200 years of cryosleep and barely passing the bar, he stands no chance against the legal might of the pansolar Judicial Protectorate. When Neptune Circuit Court threatens to hold him in contempt, Wynne must make a choice.

“Lawyer up!” Vowing to uphold his oath, Wynne stirs up a legal grudge match between clandestine reformists and the almighty Supreme Court. While spearheading the trials of the revolution, Wynne must find a moral high ground in a band of dubious allies—a self-righteous eco-terrorist, a smothering robot, and a psychopathic AI. Instead of an army, Wynne raises a planet-hopping legal sortie and plunges into objection-laden courtroom capers to defy the Judicial Protectorate..

 

 
 
 
 

 

 

Moonskin

When a coup d'état—300 years in the making—ignites the turf, a firestorm of unrest spreads through the solar system.  A handful of rebels take matters into their own hands, but the upheaval only careens further out of control.  Spacefaring humans, humans not of Earth, weather the hellstorm as the self-proclaimed titans of the solar system play dice with their home worlds.
Rigel Porter has made the billion kilometer trek to Saturn twice—this time to permanently settle Titan’s surface.  Franklin Kline and Eta Porter have dedicated their careers to Rigel’s mission, certain that space is the cure to a stagnant, truculent society.  They have triumphed where demagogues of the last 300 years have failed, creating the first three-party system since the demise of the United Nations.
The bravest of pioneers have ushered in a new era of space settlement.  They have settled the Moon, constructed a colossal space station in Earth’s orbit, and emigrated over one hundred million people off the turf.
Yet, it isn’t enough.  Yesterday’s mulish two-party authority still smothers the Moon and Mars, Earth’s biosphere is on the brink of collapse, a power-hungry media mogul monopolizes the flow of information, and scientific inquiry is trampled by the powerful and the wicked.  Worst of all, the nascent third party, Precept Unit, bred of the animosity between Precept Form and Precept Coil, casts a shadow over Parliament.
When a merciless coup d'etat leaves the astral government in ashes, Kline and Eta flee for their lives, severing Rigel’s lifeline to Earth.  Kline and Eta claw through the wreckage of political miscarriage as Rigel embarks on a tempestuous odyssey through the solar system.  It seems that they will stop at nothing to defeat the Precepts, racing through space, across Earth, around Titan, over Mars, and into the badlands of the Moon—but how much are they willing to sacrifice to crush their enemies, and is it their right to choose?

 

You can read an extended introduction to the Purlieu Series and Moonskin here.

 

 

 

The Purlieu is a science fiction Universe imagined and created by Anthony J. Zingales.  He loves you for visiting and hopes you feel the same.
© 2014 Anthony J. Zingales. All Rights Reserved.