Tom dies suddenly of pancreatic cancer in the midst of a full, more or less happy life. Trouble is, Waring left a lot of bills, a trusting young son, and a loving wife whose agnosticism is only strengthened by the sorrows thrust upon her. Thus Tom spends his time in Paradise trying to return to Earth in this original, comic novel. Moore's Land of Empty Houses tells of the wanderer, Daniel, an Army Ranger who went AWOL into the abandoned U.S. interior when the army came under UN command. A plague has fallen upon the earth, leaving the world in ruins and largely unpopulated.
Various malcontents wander the wasteland, most of whom are dangerous, crazy, or both.
A missionary named simply Deborah seeks out Daniel, and he guides her through the wastelands so that she may bring a new gospel to fractured, and fractious, humanity, and the West may be settled again. Some readers will respond to his broad satire of New Age philosophy, which here descends into cannibalism. The Postman , is never quite plausible. Morris, with collaborator Ferguson, begins yet another series, Chronicles of the Golden Frontier, with Riches Untold . It's about Nevada in the gold-strike years of the Civil War.