Dan H. Kind

The Fountain of Eden: a Myth of Birth, Death, and Beer Dan H. Kind

It's not so bad getting yourself "exploded" eight times a day for the slack-jawed tourists?or at least Jack Whiskey's always thought so. He's lived in the town of Eden, Virginia, his whole life, and colonial reenactment is all he knows. Being the town "alchemist" is all he does...well, that and drink beer at the Olde Eden Taphouse.

But Jack's routine life is upended when he discovers that a gang of American Indian Trickster gods have been distributing a beer brewed with the Water of Life to every bar and corner store within city limits (and, perhaps a bit late, that mythological beings and fictional characters walk the streets of his hometown, seen yet unseen). Everybody in the mythical world knows that the crotchety old gods are never happy when people start attaining Eternal Life like it's every nobody's business (check your mythology: it always ends badly, usually for the people). And folks around Eden are slurping down Hoppy Heaven Ale like it's the nectar of the gods?which, truth be told, it is. Soon ol' Shiva will notice the discrepancy in the birth/death ratio and dance existence right on out of existence to pave the way for a new, er, existence.

Someone has shaken the mythical keg, and it's foaming out (admittedly great) beer that has the potential to drown the universe?but Jack Whiskey is determined to find the culprit and set things aright, mainly so his life can get back to its blessed old boring self. With the...help, if you could call it that, of an ancient Greek goddess of death, a master detective of the Victorian era, a duo of dumpster-diving Zen monks, and a pack of familiar young Missourian ne'er-do-wells, he sets out on a journey spanning mythical worlds to prevent the end of life as we know it.

And along the way Jack must realize that he has more in common with the Tricksters that started the whole fiasco than he ever imagined possible, or the world may very well end...in beer.