Gillespie Pens RYCZARSKI

Holy Fire Publishing (http://www.christianpublish.com) releases "Ryczarski" (Paperback, U.S. $17.98, ISBN# 978-1-60383-509-1). Donald S. Gillespie's historical novel presents the ingenuity and vitality of a swelling tide of humanity that deserved a better fate.

Ryczarski depicts an exhaustive vista of Siberian life. Readers will learn much about a hidden continent and its colorful peoples, events and places, all accurately described from scores of 17th/18th century chronicles, with relevant maps and illustrations. Despite much barbarity and corruption, it assures how diverse peoples can unite under the Christian faith in peace and harmony, without which the state itself cannot survive.

"Ryczarski is an invincible romance of heroic adventure, lavishly portraying the distinct human contests of remarkable enterprises spanning over 32 years. None was more powerfully influenced than Czar Pyotr Alexievich by the philosophy of Baron G. W. von Leibnitz, whose conviction of the lasting influence of Christian ideology inspired the crown heads of Europe in his day. Euro-Russia and beyond the Urals were paynim wastelands of enormous potential. In due time, Peter's hegemony became a world power and deeply inclusive Christian civilization. Mobilizing these first scientific expeditions involved great risk and strategic planning across 8,000 miles of the most hostile regions of the earth. The subsidiary political motive was inter alia to care for its peoples, carefully map the entire northern frozen coastline of Siberia, found industries, and build ostrogs and towns. At each torturous river route new boats were constructed, victuals, munitions and countless men and families transported; beyond Tobolsk scarce grain, equipment and bare necessities were carried by countless thousands of levies and animals in an age when neither the pathology of scurvy was understood nor a chronometer available for the cartography of the northern coastline.

"Yet these very impediments and material fatalities served to impel their valor. When no works of corruption and injustice were left untried, encompassed by disease and sweeping aside every perilous obstacle, they reached Okhotsk where their task had only begun. For the main purpose and imperial mandate was to discover whether Siberia and America were lawfully congruous. The sequent sailing of unchartered seas, the continued war against inclement weather, the shipwreck and tragic death of Bering with its accompanying miseries and misfortunes made life, not death, a calamity for these paladin souls."-Donald S. Gillespie

Donald S. Gillespie was born and educated in Scotland. Having completed his mechanical engineering studies in Glasgow, he attended London Bible College, thence to Glasgow University, where he was trained in the ministry for the Church of Scotland. Years of aggressive liberalism compelled him to immigrate with his family to Canada, where he converted to Catholicism. His non-fiction and historic writings reflect his deeply held Christian beliefs. He continues to write, and enjoys travelling on spiritual "caminos" in the footsteps of St Paul. He lost his late wife, a medical doctor, to pancreatic cancer but continues to enjoy visiting family in the UK and USA. His three adult children are professionals in education, medicine and psychology. His personal charity for autistic children receives all royalties from his writings.

Holy Fire Publishing (http://www.christianpublish.com), publisher of hundreds of Christian books, helps Christian authors reach the world through the printed word.