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The Universe’s Playground
Talisman: Subterfuge follows a shattered war hero who becomes a secret superpowered vigilante after a cosmic force offers to resurrect his wife, if he can save one thousand lives before his darker self destroys him. What inspired the moral dilemma at the heart of Liam’s deal with the Aeterium Axis?
My first thought was that there’s something or someone that just won’t leave Planet Earth alone. Either we’re the universe’s playground, or we just haven’t learned from previous lessons, and now we must do so again. Liam “Foxy” Mayfield happens to get caught up in this conundrum, just as Jet and others were in the “Dissonance” saga. I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if there were someone sentient out there, far more galactically nefarious than the gorgons, who come with a seemingly innocent demand of restoring the balance?
The Zorander is terrifying. How did you approach crafting a villain who is essentially the hero’s twisted reflection?
There’s always a backstory. It’s a bit of “been there, done that.” The Zorander used to be, for all intents and purposes, the Iskander / Talisman. But he was betrayed, and you’re beginning to learn that the Aeterium Axis might not in fact be all that they claim to be; they certainly didn’t do the Zorander any favors, and that’s why he has become bitter and hardened.
Liam’s grief feels incredibly real on the page. Did you draw from any personal experiences or research when writing his emotional arc?
Anyone who has been bereaved can relate to Liam. However, beyond that there is the earnest hope that he can essentially become UN-bereaved, and, taxing though his charge may be, he follows through on it and delivers the goods, pursuing that hope to its end. I’ve been there…kind of a sunk-cost fallacy mindset: he’s too far in now to reverse course. He’s too committed and has come too far now to abandon hope, even though on paper it seems that this pursuit is nothing more than a vain one. Hope always pushes us on. The question now is, is this hope tangible? Trustworthy? Or…even likely?
Are there hints about the larger universe or future installments hidden in the reporter’s storyline or the nature of the Aeterium Axis?
Perhaps? 😊 That’s all I’ll say for now. I will say that Liam Mayfield is a direct pull from the ‘Dissonanceverse,’ as Rosie Campion is – she has appeared in several of my other novels. Liam seemed a natural fit for this spinoff series, but I’m not convinced there is another storyline for him or Onyx beyond this. I’m a pantser, an organic writer, so I have to write it and see how it all plays out before I commit to anything additional beyond the end of this trilogy.
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Fail, and another soul he cherishes will be lost forever.
Armed with supernatural abilities and a relentless drive, The Talisman operates in the shadows, leaving only golden talismans as proof of his existence. But as a determined journalist closes in on his secrets and a vengeful former talisman hunts him across worlds, The Talisman’s quest for redemption becomes a desperate race against time—and fate.
Talisman: Subterfuge is a pulse-pounding blend of sci-fi intrigue and raw human emotion, where every rescue comes at a devastating cost and every choice could tip the balance between hope and oblivion. Will The Talisman’s sacrifice be enough to save those he loves, or will the darkness claim him first? For fans of high-stakes thrillers and cosmic mysteries, Talisman: Subterfuge is an unforgettable journey into the heart of loss, loyalty, and the price of second chances.
Talisman: Subterfuge
Aaron Ryan’s Talisman: Subterfuge kicks off with a hero who is anything but heroic. Liam “Foxy” Mayfield is a celebrated veteran from a past alien war, but he’s a total wreck. His wife, Janine, was killed by a stray alien, and he’s completely shattered. He’s estranged from his sons and his father-in-law, who just happens to be the President. Then, some mysterious cosmic power called the Aeterium Axis shows up. They give him a crazy deal. He has to save one thousand human lives. If he pulls it off, they’ll bring his wife back from the dead. So Liam accepts, and he becomes this secret vigilante known as “The Talisman,” using new superpowers like teleportation and foresight to save people. It’s not all straightforward, though. A dark, twisted version of himself called The Zorander is hunting him. Plus, a reporter who looks identical to his dead wife is getting dangerously close to the truth.
The writing is fast, it’s raw, and it’s full of emotion. I really felt Liam’s grief. It was heavy, and it made his decision to take this impossible deal feel completely real. I mean, who wouldn’t take that chance? The core idea of “balance” was fascinating. Liam is out there saving lives, which is great, but he’s also killing the bad guys without a second thought to do it. It really makes you wonder. Is he still a hero? Or is he just a desperate man who will do anything to get his wife back? I found myself rooting for him, even when his actions were pretty questionable.
The plot is just non-stop. One minute Liam is saving a wedding party from a landslide, and the next he’s in a brutal, supernatural fight. And then the government, the very people he helped save in the last war, turns on him. Talk about a rough week. I was genuinely angry for him. The author, Aaron Ryan, just keeps piling on the pressure, and it makes for a story you can’t put down. It felt like a dark, gritty comic book. I also liked getting the different viewpoints. We get inside the reporter’s head, and we even see the world through the villain’s eyes. The Zorander is a really spooky dude, and his chapters were intense.
I’d absolutely recommend this book. It’s an emotional rollercoaster. If you loved the author’s Dissonance series, this is a no-brainer. You’ll love seeing Foxy again. If you’re new to this world, that’s fine too. The book does a great job of giving you the backstory you need. This is the perfect read for anyone who likes their sci-fi fast, full of action, and packed with a whole lot of heart.
Pages: 320 | ASIN: B0FV8PL7ZG
The Phoenix Experiment
Aaron Ryan’s The Phoenix Experiment is a sweeping, futuristic tale that follows a group of orphaned teens conscripted into life aboard The Origin, a sentient science vessel orbiting Earth in the year 2471. At its heart, the book blends classic coming-of-age themes with science fiction, grief, and resilience. The Phoenix Experiments themselves are a chilling yet fascinating invention: a way for the bereaved to reconnect with the dead in dreamlike states, designed to ease loss and build future warriors called Speakers who can pacify banshees haunting Earth. The story unfolds through the eyes of Jax Hutson, a sharp and restless boy who longs to see his parents again, and it grows more tangled as the destruction of The Zephyr, the sister ship carrying girls, upends their isolated lives.
I found myself pulled in quickly by Ryan’s voice. The opening chapters do a good job of setting up the claustrophobic yet strangely wondrous life aboard The Origin. I loved the mix of sterile science fiction trappings with messy teenage emotions. Jax is both likable and frustrating, which feels honest for his age. His sarcasm and longing made me root for him even when he was being immature. I also appreciated how Ryan handled the Phoenix Experiments themselves. They are eerie, tender, and sad all at once, and that blend of emotions kept me hooked.
What I liked most was the way grief underpins everything. These kids are essentially being raised to weaponize their pain, and that idea is both fascinating and unsettling. Ryan doesn’t shy away from showing how loss shapes them, but he also weaves in humor and teenage banter that lightens the mood. The balance mostly works, though there were moments where the dialogue felt a little too modern, almost like kids from today had been dropped into a far-off future. Still, I can’t deny that it made them feel relatable, and that relatability deepened the impact of the darker themes.
I walked away feeling like The Phoenix Experiment was a story that mattered more for its emotional core than its sci-fi trappings. It’s a book about kids searching for connection, about finding ways to rise out of ashes, both literal and emotional. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy character-driven science fiction, especially younger readers or anyone drawn to stories of grief and resilience wrapped in an imaginative premise. If you like your sci-fi less about hard technology and more about the human heart, this one’s for you.
Pages: 315 | ASIN : B0FNLY8YW3
Diligence and Determination
The Slide follows a brilliant but troubled scientist who discovers that a massive black hole is heading straight for Earth, leaving him to try and find a way to save humanity. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I did want something PRE-apocalyptic, a disaster novel of sorts, with no way out. The idea of the failed protagonist constantly interests me, and I wanted an ending that wasn’t all hunky-dory with everything working out in the end. I had also recently watched The Fly again, and was, shall we say, reinspired. 😊
When creating Dane Currier, did you have a plan for development and character traits, or did it grow organically as you were writing the story?
They always grow organically as I write the story, really. I learn about them as I’m writing, usually.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Valuing human life, futility, dealing with inevitability, human relations, diligence and determination to find a way, hope, etc.
Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?
Since it ended the way it did, probably not. A sequel would be bizarre and awkward, frankly. But I never rule anything out. You never know! 😊
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His Courier3.1 operation system checked out. His teleportation chambers were state of the art, and he knew they would revolutionize the world as we knew it.
But in a cruel twist of timing, something draws near which threatens not only his dream, but humanity as a whole. A ‘supermassive’ black hole is on a collision course with the Milky Way galaxy, and there is no stopping it. Could it be that Dane was inspired to design his system for such a time as this? What do we do when we face an inescapable threat that seeks to annihilate everything we know? And most importantly, what happens when humanity loses everything that makes us human? Will Dane, Megan, Isaac and Dina discover a way for mankind to press on and survive? This one inescapable truth remains:
There is no escaping The Slide.
From the creator of the bestselling and award-winning Dissonance alien invasion saga, the Christian dystopian saga THE END, and the 9/11 historical fiction thriller Forecast comes a new genre disaster fiction tale of humanity’s struggle to survive. In the natural disaster fiction genre, The Slide will frighten and enthrall you to no end.
The Slide
Aaron Ryan’s The Slide is a tightly wound, emotionally raw, and fast-paced sci-fi thriller that tackles the apocalypse in a way I’ve never quite seen before. Set in late 2025, the story follows Dane Currier, a brilliant but troubled scientist who discovers that a massive, uncharted black hole is heading straight for Earth. The revelation kicks off a tense, global unraveling, paralleled by Currier’s personal obsession: a secret teleportation project called Courier 3.1. As the world faces doom, Dane sees a chance for redemption, escape, or maybe something deeper. It’s a bold mix of hard science, emotional confession, and philosophical grit.
Ryan’s writing is conversational, even chatty at times, and it works. It pulls you in like a friend telling you the end is near over a late-night drink. The balance between grand cosmic doom and intimate personal fear feels incredibly relatable. There’s a rawness to Dane’s voice. His acid reflux, his bitterness, his hope, all made him feel painfully real. I didn’t always like him, but I couldn’t stop listening. I also loved the way Ryan treats the black hole not just as a sci-fi monster, but as a metaphor for grief, purpose, and mortality. The writing is smart and hits hard, often laced with sarcasm and gallows humor.
The pacing picks up quite a bit in the later chapters, and there were times I found myself wanting a little more space to take it all in. While I admired the emotional honesty throughout, a few moments of dialogue leaned a bit dramatic. Still, these are minor things in an otherwise powerful story. What shines here is the vision: the gnawing sense that science and soul are dancing toward the same abyss. Ryan captures the spiraling collapse of society with an eeriness that feels way too close to home. And Courier 3.1? Man, that machine had me questioning everything.
The Slide is part sci-fi disaster, part confession booth, and part love letter to human stubbornness. If you like your fiction with big ideas, flawed heroes, and the occasional burp of existential dread, this book’s for you. I’d recommend it to fans of Blake Crouch, Andy Weir, or anyone who wonders what they’d do if the end of the world knocked on their door and offered them a way out.
Pages: 331 | ASIN : B0FFFMJQR3
Spiritual and Biblical Freedom
The End: Omicron follows a young Christian on a mission who joins the Emperor’s youth organization with the intent of making his way into the inner circle so he can kill the Emperor and bring vengeance and justice to Christians. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Well, it’s continuing the story of Sage et al from The End: Alpha, trying to navigate a world with a tyrannical lunatic despot at its head – at least mostly in the United States – in 2113, and they’re all having to carefully thread their way through that. The message I was trying to convey in Omicron is exactly what’s on its front cover: Defiance can be deadly; almost as deadly as obedience.” We see what happens when Sage thinks he’s “doing God’s will” and yet he may have been wrong all along. We see what happens to you when you draw closer and closer to Emperor Nero and the chilling and dangerous effect that has on anyone who does so. On the flip side, however, we see clearly what happens when someone exits that circle and begins to experience the life-changing freedom, grace, and change that Jesus offers us. What happens in Omicron is absolutely chilling in both respects because it’s new and unfamiliar on both sides, and it isn’t just the turn of a dime; both main characters have to learn ’the new way of living’ and have to figure out their new lives. There’s also a bystander in Colonel Thomas Drexler who is somewhat helpless on the sidelines, trying to counter Nero’s every autocratically terrifying move with checks and balances, and he is on his own emotional journey as well through that, given their previous proximity to one another. If Alpha was a story of what happens when one exits Nero’s circle, Omicron is a story of what happens when one enters.
How did you balance the action scenes with the story elements and still keep a fast pace in the story?
I love action scenes, and my only regret is that they’re over too quickly; otherwise, you can err on gratuitous or overlong sequences that tend to serve as a kind of self-aggrandizement. “Oh, look at what I know, look at all the research I’ve done to make this believable!” And so on and so forth. I try to keep the action scenes crisp, engaging, tense, and somewhat brief. The real story is the real story. The action is not the centerpiece; it’s meant to be a crescendo or peak of the tension mounting, and then….we now return you to your scheduled program already in progress.
What experience in your life has had the biggest impact on your writing?
My faith in Christ. I memorized a lot of Scripture as a young adult. The Bible says that the Word of God does not return void, but it accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent out. Many of the verses that I’ve held dear over decades have found their way into Alpha, Omicron, and, as you’ll see, Omega. It’s been truly impacting to write something with such spiritual and Biblical freedom, imparting these words of comfort and sharing them with my readers through the eyes, words, and thoughts of my protagonists and tertiary characters.
Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?
Eeeek! I’d have to be really careful about that of course. Suffice it to say that there is redemption, conflict, poetic justice and so much more coming in Omega. A powerful conflict is drawing near, and in fact more than one. Characters will return, twists will unfold, and a lot of incredible love will be on display as Sage, Drexler, and Darius continue to thread their way through the mayhem of 2113. I’m VERY proud of how Omega turned out and it’s going to be the fitting and powerful conclusion to this wonderful saga God has given me. I’m truly grateful to be the custodian of “The End.” Cheers!
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
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Maximillian has defected. The god-king Nero has bled. And now, the High Vassal has stolen an AirGuard and sought shelter among Earth’s last surviving military stronghold: The United Kingdom. But in an unthinkable twist, Colonel Thomas Drexler’s son, Sage, has also switched sides, joining up with the youth organization Friends of Nero. What the Colonel doesn’t know is that Sage desires to infiltrate Nero’s inner circle and kill him, bringing vengeance and justice for all the Christians who have paid the ultimate price. Confident he is carrying out the will of God, Sage has placed himself on a dangerous quest in drawing nearer to the Emperor.
Unbeknownst to any of them, however, Sage has company. He will need it…because The Test is coming.
Will Christian brothers and sisters be able to accept Maximillian into their midst? Will he prove an asset to the Defiance…or a liability? As for Colonel Drexler: will he be able to successfully and publicly unmask Nero’s lies and prove to the world, once and for all, who the Emperor really is? And as for Sage, he is in great danger. Will he emerge from the Friends of Nero training camp scarred for life, or will he succeed in killing the totalitarian ruler hellbent on exterminating Christians?
Indeed, in a world of mandated obedience, defiance can be deadly.
The End: Omicron
Aaron Ryan’s The End: Omicron is a breathless and gut-wrenching continuation of a harrowing dystopian saga. Picking up in a devastated future where a tyrannical leader named Nero hunts down Christians marked by a branded scar, the story follows young Sage Maddox and a ragtag group of survivors struggling against a monstrous regime of mechanoids and propaganda. Meanwhile, former High Vassal Maximillian—reborn as Darius Antone Forrester—defects and seeks redemption, setting the stage for spiritual warfare, betrayal, personal transformation, and rebellion. The world is brutal, the stakes are high, and the faith of every character is tested in fire.
Reading this book was like being pulled behind a speeding train. The pacing is relentless, the emotion runs raw, and the characters are utterly drenched in pain, doubt, and hope. Ryan’s writing is often visceral and unfiltered—sometimes jarringly so—but it’s always from the gut. You feel Sage’s grief claw at your chest. You feel Maximillian’s shame and longing for a second chance. It’s not polished in a traditional literary sense, but that’s exactly what makes it powerful. It’s not trying to be subtle or slick—it’s just honest. And in that honesty, it punches hard. Some of the dialogue feels intentionally unrefined, like real people speaking in the worst moments of their lives. I respected that.
On the flip side, the writing leans heavily into its message. Ryan is unapologetically Christian in theme and tone—this is not a book that hides its worldview. That might throw off some readers looking for a more ambiguous or secular apocalypse. But if you go in knowing that, it delivers with sincerity. I found myself torn between frustration and admiration at times—the moral dilemmas, the extreme stakes, the black-and-white battle between faith and evil. It’s not subtle storytelling, but it is bold. And sometimes bold is exactly what a story needs to break through the noise.
If you’re a fan of Christian dystopian fiction, if you like stories about persecution, faith, rebellion, and endurance under fire, this one’s for you. I’d recommend it for readers who want more soul in their sci-fi, and more fire in their faith. If I had to put The End: Omicron on a shelf with other books, it would sit somewhere between the Left Behind series and The Hunger Games, with a dash of 1984 and This Present Darkness. It’s got that same blend of high-stakes rebellion, faith under fire, and a world cracking under tyranny.
Pages: 263 | ASIN : B0F6VWDM2H
The End: Alpha
The End: Alpha throws you headfirst into a brutal, faith-fueled fight for survival. Set in the not-so-distant future of 2113, the book follows Sage, a young survivor on the run from a totalitarian government led by the monstrous Emperor Nero. Once known as Constantine Goodfellow, this tech-obsessed dictator has declared Christianity a crime, branding believers and hunting them down like animals. The world is bleak, with AI-driven enforcers called Guardians tracking down “undesirables” and a sinister cleansing underway. The resistance is small but determined, clinging to their faith as they fight for survival in a world that has declared war on them.
Ryan pulls you into the fear and tension with sharp, first-person storytelling that doesn’t waste time explaining every little thing. You get dumped straight into Sage’s world, where paranoia and grief drip from every page. And, man, does the book make you feel the weight of it. That opening chapter where Sage recalls the government “census” that secretly branded Christians was chilling.
One thing I love about post-apocalyptic fiction is when the villains feel real. Emperor Nero is absolutely terrifying. He’s not just evil for the sake of being evil, he believes in his own twisted righteousness. The scenes from his perspective (especially when he’s basking in his god complex while surrounded by concubines and sycophants) feel straight out of some nightmare version of 1984 meets The Hunger Games. The way his followers worship him, the way his High Vassal Maximillian fawns over him like a cult leader, is disturbing.
While the book excels in world-building and tension, the pacing has its slower moments. Some sections dive deep into inner monologue, and the religious themes are woven heavily throughout. Faith is a major part of the story, though, at times, certain conversations feel more like statements of belief rather than natural dialogue. That said, the action more than makes up for it. The chase sequences and the near-miss encounters with the Guardians are absolutely gripping. And the characters, especially Swifty, the no-nonsense leader of the resistance, bring so much energy that even the quieter moments feel meaningful.
If you like your dystopian stories dark, where the stakes feel real, then you’ll love this book. Fans of The Road, A Handmaid’s Tale, or Left Behind will eat this up. It’s brutal, bleak, and sometimes hits a little too close to home.
ASIN: B0DY8R2Z1H
LITERARY TITAN 