8 h 52 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 218 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 218 pagesAbout this book
What would you save from a fallen civilization—and what would you leave behind?
In The Doomsman, Van Tassel Sutphen imagines a world where civilization has crumbled. Scattered survivors live among fragments of the culture that came before them. A young hero stands between destruction and rebirth, caught between a harsh order and the hope of building something better.
This early science fiction adventure blends romance with questions about how people live together. What holds a society together when its machines, laws, and comforts disappear? Beyond the struggle to survive lies another challenge: deciding which values deserve to endure, and what kind of life can grow from the ruins.
What you’ll discover
- A world after collapse Enter a desolate landscape where scattered survivors face the loss of a shared civilization.
- A young hero's crossroads Follow a young figure caught between destruction and the dream of a better order.
- Adventure with thoughtful stakes Find romance and adventure alongside searching questions about what makes a society worth rebuilding.
- Fragments of the past Consider what remains of a culture when the structures that sustain it fall apart.
- The values that endure Ask what humanity must carry forward if survival is to become something more.
Who will love it
Readers who like adventure after the fall of a civilization, ruined cities, secret machines, loyal friends and a hero who learns from old books. It suits anyone who enjoys a sword fight, a feud and a love story together.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A boy, a book and a spear
- The man in velvet marks his prey
- The peddler and the Rat's-Hole
- An apprentice in the tannery
- Three friends in the ruined library
- A letter in a bottle
- The sisters and the hedge of arrows
- The Shining One in the machine hall
- Arcadia House and the white signal
- Doom's last night
Who’s who
- ConstansSon of Gavan of the Greenwood Keep, a dreamer and reader who is marked by an enemy and sets out to master the old knowledge.
- Quinton EdgeA graceful, mocking Doomsman in velvet who plays politics as a game and has a secret of his own.
- EsmayDaughter of a Doomsman and a woman of Croye, tawny-eyed and proud, who wants to leave the city and choose her own life.
- UlickGrandson of old Dom Gillian, big, honest and loyal, who loves Esmay and befriends the boy he once captured.
- NannaEsmay's half sister, a tall and fierce woman who will do anything to protect the girl she loves.
- ProsperThe last priest of the Shining One, an old man who tends a god of iron and wire and doubts it.
- Piers MajorA Stockader lord and blood friend of Constans's father who must be convinced that action against Doom is needed.
- Dom GillianThe ancient founder of the Doomsmen's power, a giant now old and nearly blind, who still commands fear.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 8 h 52 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in, 218 pages: 9,95 USD when you start free, 15,95 USD on its own.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in, 218 pages: 16,95 USD when you start free, 22,95 USD on its own.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear The Doomsman in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Doomsman
by Van Tassel Sutphen · 1906
A dreamer with a broken pair of binoculars is marked for life by Quinton Edge, a smiling outlaw, and sets out for Doom.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Doomsman is a novel of the year 2015, ninety years after a sudden catastrophe called the Great Change has ended the old world. Van Tassel Sutphen wrote it as an adventure set among the ruins of New York, and it gives you a young hero, a feud, a lost science and a city that guards its secrets.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy, a book and a spear
The story opens on a yellow beach where Constans, son of Gavan of the Greenwood Keep, sits on a log and stares across the water. He is about seventeen, slender and thoughtful, and he looks at a dark mass on the horizon. In his hand are binoculars with one broken lens, and on his knee lies a child's history of the United States, with his name written across the top of a page.
He compares a picture of lower New York with the shadow on the sea and decides they are one and the same. The Forgotten City and Doom the Forbidden are the same place. Then a spear flashes down behind him and he barely escapes. A man on horseback is waiting further along the track.
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What is The Doomsman about?
It follows Constans, a stockade lord's son, in the year 2015, ninety years after a great catastrophe. He seeks revenge on an outlaw named Quinton Edge in the ruins of New York, and discovers old science that could rebuild the world.
Who is Quinton Edge?
He is a Doomsman, one of the outlaw rulers of ruined New York. Graceful, witty and ruthless, he cuts a notch in Constans's ear to mark him as his property, and he becomes the hero's great enemy.
What does Doom mean in the book?
Doom is the name the survivors give to the ruined city of New York. The Doomsmen, descendants of freed convicts, live there. It is also the word for the shadow of the old catastrophe that hangs over the land.
The author
Van Tassel Sutphen
1861–1945 · American novelist and golf writer
Van Tassel Sutphen was an American writer and magazine editor whose novel The Doomsman imagined a ruined, half-forgotten New York generations after a great catastrophe — an early landmark of post-apocalyptic fiction.
More by Van Tassel Sutphen
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