Bloody Justice: Zedekiah Wight

By J.M. Wight and Joe Vasicek

The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed…

The hunter has become the hunted. A slave deal on the edge of civilized space has gone horribly wrong—for the bad guys. Zedekiah Wight has come.

To some, he is a madman. To others, an interstellar privateer. To the wealthy and powerful elites, he is a dangerous vigilante. To the weak and the powerless, he is both a savior and an avenging angel. But to the God he serves, he is an instrument of wrath:

"For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment." —Isaiah 34:5

In his zeal to punish the evildoers, will Zedekiah fail to free the captives? Or does justice take precedence over salvation?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Vasicek
• Release date: Mar 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201265205

J.M. Wight

J.M. Wight is a pen name of Joe Vasicek, who writes science fiction and fantasy. As the faithful son of Utah pioneers, J.M. Wight blends science fiction with distinctly Mormon themes. Whether it's interplanetary colonization in the Millennium or the technological singularity rolling forth from the New Jerusalem, this is LDS science fiction like you've never read it before.

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Bloody Justice

J.M. Wight

Foreword by Joe Vasicek

Copyright © 2022 Joseph Vasicek.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, or events is purely coincidental.

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Foreword by Joe Vasicek

When I write for a mainstream audience (usually science fiction, though I plan to learn more toward fantasy in the future) I write under the name Joe Vasicek. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my faith informs everything that I do, including my writing, but I try not to be too explicitly religious when writing for a mainstream audience, especially in science fiction where many readers are sensitive to that sort of thing. But occasionally, I’ll have an idea for a character or a story that demands that I cross that line. Zedekiah Wight is one of those characters. 

There was a time when it wouldn’t have been strange or unusual for a writer to quote from the Bible, because most people had read it multiple times and were very familiar with it. If that were still the case, perhaps I would have released these stories under my own name, instead of relegating them to a minor pen name that doesn’t reach nearly as many people. But then again, if we lived in a culture where Bible literacy was common, I probably would never have felt called to write these stories. 

In many ways, Zedekiah Wight is an anachronism, not just in our world, but in the fictional universe that he inhabits. That is not an accident. He represents a return to a very old form of justice, which sets him at odds with the decadence and corruption that has become endemic, both in his universe as well as our own. And yet, while he is technically a vigilante, he sees himself as an instrument in the hands of God, to whom he is wholly and totally subservient. 

Is he right or is he a madman? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I’m also not convinced that the two are mutually exclusive. What do you do when