The Man of Legends - Softcover

“Johnson takes a big gamble by telling such a complex tale invoking every genre imaginable while juggling distinct and deep characterizations. The bet pays off, resulting in a story that will be popular with book clubs and fun to discuss.” —Associated Press

New York City, New Year’s weekend, 2001. Jillian Guthrie, a troubled young journalist, stumbles onto a tantalizing mystery: the same man, unaged, stands alongside Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gandhi in three different photographs spanning eighty-five years of history.

In another part of town, Will—an enigmatic thirty-three-year-old of immense charm, wit, and intelligence—looks forward to the new year with hope and trepidation. Haunted by his secret past and shadowed by a dangerous stranger, he finds himself the object of an intense manhunt spearheaded by an ambitious Vatican emissary and an elderly former UN envoy named Hanna.

During the next forty-eight hours, a catastrophic event unites Will, Jillian, and Hanna—and puts them in the crosshairs of a centuries-old international conspiracy. Together, the three must unravel an ancient curse that stretches back two millennia and beyond, and face a primal evil that threatens their lives and thousands more.

Award-winning science-fiction mastermind Kenneth Johnson blends epic adventure, romance, and evocative drama into an intense supernatural thriller rooted in one of the great untold legends of human history.

Kenneth Johnson has been a successful writer-producer-director of film and television for more than four decades. Creator of the landmark original miniseries V, he also produced The Six Million Dollar Man and created iconic Emmy-winning shows such as The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, and Alien Nation. He has directed numerous TV movies and the feature films Short Circuit 2 and Steel. Johnson has received multiple Saturn Awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films, as well as the Sci-Fi Universe Lifetime Achievement Award and the prestigious Founders Award from the Viewers for Quality Television. His previous novels include V: The Second Generation. He has presented his unique graduate-level seminar, The Filmmaking Experience, at UCLA, USC, NYU, Loyola, New York Film Academy, the National Film and Television School (UK), Moscow State University (Russia), and many others. He and his wife, Susan, married for forty years, live in Los Angeles with their latest two golden-retriever rescues.