Promised Valley Rebellion

Prehistoric farmers inhabit a fertile river valley they believe their gods promised them in return for their good behavior and obedience. Their enemies, hunters roaming the mostly barren hills beyond the mountains enclosing the valley, believe their gods gave it to them. When the farmers’ king refuses to allow the marriage of the coming-of-age prince to the daughter of the farmer who saved the king’s life in the last war with the hunters, her brother decides he has to help his sister and the prince, his boyhood friend, correct the flagrant injustice. That decision leads them and their youthful allies into a rebellion against the king and his officials, who rule the kingdom from their bluff-top town. The far more numerous farmers in the villages below, who despise most of the officials but not the king, and who admire the prince, are in a position to determine whether the rebels will succeed or face execution for treason. As the story unfolds, the world in which it takes place reveals itself. Men who go with men and self-selected women who go with women—we would call such people "gay" and "lesbian"—occupy a kind of priesthood. They're called "tellers" because, in a time before the invention of writing, they not only memorize and retell the stories of their gods, ancestors, and contemporaries, but they also tell their people, who might or might not wish to know, what the gods expect of them—what they can and cannot do. The tellers preside at full-moon and change-of-season holidays, as well as at mating ceremonies and funerals. In place of the king, they hear and decide disputes among their people. Perhaps most importantly, though, they astronomically track the seasons to assist the farmers in raising their crops (mainly wheat, barley, and lentils), and breeding their livestock (mostly cattle, sheep, and goats). Men who go with men and women who go with women in Promised Valley Rebellion occupy their privileged positions as tellers because they don't have children to care for. They therefore have the time, which their child-rearing kin lack, to conduct ceremonies, memorize stories, hear disputes, and track seasons. The male tellers also fight in the front ranks in their battles in order to spare the lives of their brothers, cousins, and neighbors whose wives and lovers have given, or might give, birth to their children, who will need their care and sustenance. Some of the characters in Promised Valley Rebellion question whether their ancestors' and gods' stories are necessarily true. To them, it seems more likely that the stories were made up, embellished, and otherwise changed in order to fit the circumstances of the time in which they were told. And that leads the skeptics to ask whether their ancestors, for their own earthly purposes, invented the gods. Promised Valley Rebellion is the first of four Promised Valley novels asking whether civilization and history, with their countless heaven-sanctioned wars and genocides, could’ve begun differently. The subsequent titles will be, in order, Promised Valley War, Promised Valley Conspiracy, and Promised Valley Peace.