Blix is an autobiographical novel in which the main character Condy Rivers gets his story ideas from Captain Jack. An excerpt reads, "Bessemer was one of those men who seem entirely disassociated from their families. Only on rare and intense occasions did his paternal spirit or instincts assert themselves. At table he talked but little. Though devotedly fond of his eldest daughter, she was a puzzle and a stranger to him. His interests and hers were...

"First novel in 'The Epic of Wheat', a projected trilogy. Set mostly in the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco, it shows the conflict between wheat ranchers and the railroad ('The Octopus') that is the lifeline of trading and shipping. The bloody encounter at the climax of the novel is based on the 'Mussel Slough Tragedy' of May, 1880. The novel roughly covers the period of the late 1870s."--Baird & Greenwood.