My first short story, “The Gray Horizon,” was published by Aurora Wolf in June 2020, under my pen name Zachary Taylor Branch.  Aurora Wolf is now on indefinite hiatus, but please check back here soon, hopeful of a reprint in the near future.

“The Gray Horizon” by Zachary Taylor Branch

“Under the Light of Neith and Nerine” follows the exploits of Lt. Commander Anthony Otero, whom we first met as a high school student at the New Kent State Farm in “Down the Farm.” This story introduces a critical reality of the Tarsan Worlds, that the other planets we encounter there may not be the same as those we have encountered in our reality.  Here we find a Venus with a single moon, Neith, and an atmosphere that just might be suitable for terraforming…

“The Guides of the Pumpsie Doodle” is set in my beloved White Clay Creek Valley, and explores a world in which small railroads like the Pomeroy and Newark, known as the Pumpsie Doodle, still run and allow people to live in towering, high tech villages, surrounded by beautiful and productive countryside.  This story also follows the lives of the Douglass family, who also appear in my first novel, “The Later Works of Arthur Gordon Pym.”

I’ve added the first pages of another short story in the Zachary Taylor Branch continuity, “Down the Farm.”  It relates the misfortunes of the Chance Family, who experience first hand the Whiggish Ladder, the range of institutions given to punishing the guilty and redeeming those of potential.

The Works of Zachary Taylor Branch are a series of interlocking stories, novels and media set in the overall continuity of the Tarsan Worlds.  The historical divergences which led to The Tarsan Worlds are described on the Timelines and Divergences page.  Welcome, and make yourselves at home with the characters and events of the Tarsan Worlds.

Welcome to the Works of Zachary Taylor Branch

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