
Sebastian Nightingale Cain has quite the reputation himself. And he's the target of every bounty hunter in the universe. He's the subject of songs, the faceless wanted poster on the wall, the bogeyman that parents name to scare their children into behaving. Santiago is a legend, known far and wide across the galaxy as the greatest killer and thief alive. An adventure of interplanetary law and disorder from the multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author. The novel and the expanded Birthright universe is being developed into a role-playing game adventure path by EN Publishing.When you're the most wanted man alive, your legend never dies. Orson Scott Card reviewed the novel favorably, saying "Resnick was gutsy enough to set out to create myth, and as far as I'm concerned, he succeeds on a grand scale." Card later rated Santiago as one of the best SF books of 1986, describing it as "a carefully layered examination of the tension between individuality and responsibility, between legend and reality." Other works

It is similar in structure to its predecessor. The novel is divided into six parts, each named after one of the larger-than-life characters that populate the Inner Frontier, and headed by a quatrain, purportedly composed by another such character, the wandering balladeer Black Orpheus.Ī sequel was published in 2003, The Return of Santiago. Cain crosses the paths of several others also hunting Santiago: besides competing bounty hunters, journalist Virtue Mackenzie wants an interview with Santiago to make her fortune, and master thief the Jolly Swagman covets some unique pieces of alien art in Santiago's possession. The protagonist is a bounty hunter named Sebastian Nightingale Cain, who receives a very valuable piece of information: a hint to the whereabouts of Santiago.

The title character, Santiago, is the most sought-after outlaw of the region if not the human universe. The setting of the novel is the Inner Frontier (the region toward the core of the Galaxy) of the interstellar Democracy which humans have formed. The story is essentially a tall tale, in the style of the Wild West, with lonely heroes, shoot-outs and faithless companions. It was first published in 1986 and reprinted in 2004. Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future is a novel by American science fiction author Mike Resnick.
