THE ABDUCTION OF CALAMITY JANE: A Mostly True Space Western

They wanted a specimen. They got Calamity Jane. Three hundred light-years from Deadwood, Emperor Voth Kalastrix VII keeps the finest collection in the galaxy: thirty-eight living "specimens" stolen from Earth's history and preserved in the Grand Menagerie of Sentient Curiosities. Only one space remains empty. The plaque reads: FRONTIER AMERICAN WOMAN - NINETEENTH CENTURY. To fill it, the Dominion sends a malfunctioning acquisition ship to Dakota Territory in 1876, where Martha Jane Canary - better known as Calamity Jane - is three whiskeys into mourning Wild Bill Hickok and in no mood to be abducted by aliens. The extraction goes badly. For the aliens. But when Jane wakes aboard the Menagerie and sees the truth - a Roman legionary drilling against a straw dummy for eleven years, a Viking shieldmaiden pacing a groove into stone, a young squire stolen from a life he never got to finish - she realizes this is bigger than getting herself home. The Emperor has spent four centuries collecting people. Calamity Jane is about to spend three weeks teaching them how to leave. Part space adventure, part western tall tale, and part tribute to one of the frontier's most stubborn legends, The Abduction of Calamity Jane is a funny, fierce, and unexpectedly moving story about freedom, friendship, and the difference between being remembered and being owned.