His Majesty’s
New World

A New World full of adventure… and danger…

1881. Explorers in the Rocky Mountains on either side of the Canada-U.S. border discover gateways to a new planet. The British Empire and the United States partner to settle and exploit this rich, Earth-like world…

1896. The new world has replaced the American West as a frontier for those seeking adventure and fortune. Amongst the chaos, Sergeant Edwin Barnes arrives from South Africa with an outfit of ex-British soldiers, and their families. They plan to seek a fresh start by offering protection to explorers and prospectors, but quickly find themselves being underbid by reckless American gunhands. Then, an unusual foreign aristocrat appears.

1919. After returning from a campaign in the Third Afghan War, Major Thomas Waller and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment are assigned to escort two mysterious ladies into the unknown lands of the new world. With the help of an American drifter named Smith, Waller and his men must face hordes of savages that roam the steppes of the alien planet, and help to uncover the ladies’ secrets – and the secrets of the new world itself.

Learn more about author Kenneth Tam here.

Characters

  • They fought the Zulu, the Ashanti, the Boers. Now they’re unemployed.

    Sergeant Edwin Barnes’ men trust him. He saw them through Victoria’s wars across Africa, and now that their service is done, they believe he can find them a fresh start on the new world.

    Thirty men and their families follow Barnes, his wife Evangeline, and his daughter Caralynne to the Selkirk Mandate in 1896. They have a plan: together, they will offer protection to some of the many expeditions being launched to unknown corners of the new world. British companies fearing feral savages and bold outlaws will be able to hire a platoon of veteran ex-soldiers for proper protection…

    Except proper protection isn’t cheap. With so many American gunhands and Indian fighters coming to the new world in search of fortune, a cadre of ex-soldiers in khaki seems awfully expensive, and perhaps even unnecessary. Why hire and equip a Sergeant and thirty men when ‘Yankee cowboys’ come so cheap?

    Even on a booming frontier, work can be scarce when your skills are specialized. Can Sergeant Barnes and his wife find employment for the men of this outfit… or will their dreams of a second chance come to nothing?

    An answer arrives in the form of a mysterious German aristocrat, who appears in Selkirk with designs on Her Majesty’s New World…

  • Smith had never seen so many savages before…

    Savages look like men, but they’re feral monsters. They’ll eat any flesh — human or otherwise — and when thousands of them stampede together, they’re like cannibalistic locusts. A horde of them just overran a town, killing hundreds of men, women and children, along with the troop of United States Cavalry sent to protect them. Smith watched it happen.

    The savages turn north — head for the border between American and British territory. Another town is just across that line, and thousands of innocents will die if they aren’t warned about the horde. Smith knows that British administrators might dismiss him as a ‘Yankee cowboy’ if he rides in with a warning… but he has to do what’s right. He has to try.

    And fortunately for Smith, the soldiers in that town aren’t British, or even Canadian: they’re a bunch of fishermen-turned-soldiers from the remote island of Newfoundland. They’ve just come back from a war in Afghanistan, where they learned the hard way to trust local wisdom, not self-important Generals, when their lives are on the line.

    Smith has spent most of his life drifting, but a new adventure awaits him on the grasslands of His Majesty’s New World…

  • They get the impossible missions… because they always get the job done.

    Major Tom Waller and the b’ys of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment have just returned from the Third Afghan War, but their hard-won reputation has preceded them. As soon as they get home, they’re dispatched to the new world for a special mission: two ladies must be escorted out onto the grasslands –– an unexplored territory, crowded with savages and shrouded in mystery.

    The mission doesn’t add up, and the Newfoundlanders know it. They ask questions and demand answers, making themselves unpopular with the secretive ladies they are meant to protect… but they don’t shirk their duty. Whether they like it or not, they’ve been given a job to do. They’ll just go in with their eyes open, and rely on their wits –– and each other –– to make it through alive.

    Fortunately, help is at hand. None of the b’ys have fought a savage, but when an American drifter called Smith arrives warning of a savage horde, they find a kindred spirit. Working together with the unassuming American, these unpretentious, hard-fighting Newfoundlanders might just manage to survive their impossible mission.

    Who are the ladies they’ve been assigned to escort, and what is their true agenda? The b’ys of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment will find out when they march out onto the grasslands of His Majesty’s New World…

Books

Start this adventure for FREE with The Count.

Living History

His Majesty’s New World encompasses the stories of two groups of fighting men: the British ex-soldiers who followed Sergeant Edwin Barnes from Africa to the new world in The Count, and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment who arrived more than twenty years later in The Grasslands. Portraying these men are living historians from two reenactment groups, one in Canada and the other in South Africa.

Learn about these living historians through the links below!

Adventures on
the New World
continue…