From the jacket: Here is a magnificent novel of daring and dynasty, of riches and man"s conquest of a land as big as his dreams, the Australian Outback. Australia is a land of extremes-of unexpected spring blossomings and the romantic lore of the aboriginal dreamtime; of trackless wastes, searing sun, and the ever-present specter of death. But there are men and women for such a land-men not only of dreams but of vision, men bound together by space and distance. Men like James Carlyon, Jr., son of the legendary drover king "Murranji Mac," born in 1897 on a rough bed of bark and eucalyptus leaves and given by a proud aboriginal the moniker "Big Red," a lucky omen, in honor of a giant red kangaroo glimpsed at dusk near the edge of a billabong. Women like Beth Brennan Carlyon, Red"s mother, who left a sheltered life as an Adelaide schoolteacher for a lifelong love-hate relationship with the Outback. And like Dr. Anne, who shares Big Red"s love and bears him a daughter, yet can never share his abiding love of the land. Inherit the Sun is the story of empire, of the great Back of Beyond Station, carved out of the wilderness, the stark and endlessly seductive Outback, bought with the blood of many. And a story of civilization"s encroachment, a progress the Carlyons fear, yet help to advance. Seldom has. a novel possessed such storytelling values: not just in its authentic evocation of the land itself and of the endless assaults of sun and drought on three generations of its intrepid settlers; not just in its moving depiction of the insidious impact of "progress"; not just in its sense of history, as Australia moves from a land of remote cattle stations and raw frontier towns to one of agribusiness and international corporate chicaneries-but in its understanding of the men and women who succeeded in founding a dynasty there. Inherit the Sun is large in conception, splendid in execution, and bound for international recognition and acclaim.