The Homesteaders Posted To Gutenberg

One more book is saved.

As the title has spoiled, Robert J. C. Stead's work, The Homesteaders, is now live at Gutenberg.

The was a short (80k) novel, and there were no illustrations. It took me about 26 hrs to produce. As I recall, there were no accents to preserve, so it's likely a 7 bit version. Although I usually assume 8.

The book has a decent start, opening with tidbits of settlers of the prairies. A fun moment was a would-be settler on route to her new home, arguing against those who had seen it, that there *had* to be trees there. There had to be, for what else would they make fences of?

Excellent logic.

The book really falls apart when it flips forward 25 years, and everyone is an unlikeable idiot. Except the outright scammers. The villains are obvious, and we can't dislike them really. You will probably hope hard for them, given who they're up against.

Although Stead is fairly light read, I think he suffered coming after De Mille. Even when De Mille was bad, he was way way better than this.